
Lenovo is adopting Amazon's Alexa platform to power its own voice-activated digital assistant for the smart home. At CES, Lenovo unveiled the Lenovo Smart Assistant, developed with Amazon as a smart home hub that can recognise user voice commands to conduct web searches, play music, create lists and set calendar reminders. The device will be available from May in a choice of three colours for USD 129.99. A special edition developed with Harman Kardon with premium audio features will also launch in May, for USD 179.99.
Lenovo also presented at CES a new Smart Storage device. Offering 6 TB capacity, dual-band Wi-Fi and multi-device auto-sync capabilities, the storage unit comes with facial recognition software to help organize photos based on faces. Other new products include a new range of ThinkPad X1 laptops and the Miix 720 12-inch Windows detachable, as well as the launch of the Lenovo Legion brand to group the company's PC gaming products.
Lenovo is also showing off its Phab 2 Pro smartphone, the first to offer Google's Tango augmented reality platform. According to a report from the Verge, the company also has a prototype VR headset on display in Las Vegas. It reportedly comes with a higher resolution and is lighter than competing devices such as the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive and resembles the Playstation VR from Sony. The headset uses Microsoft's Holographic software platform and is expected to use an app based on HoloLens.