Lenovo acquiring Motorola, Samsung's and Apple's sales figures, and the Note 3 Neo: weekly news round-up

Another week has come and gone, meaning that it is now time for a news round-up. Right on top of our list is a story that you shouldn't have missed, namely the announcement that Motorola Mobility will have a new owner soon. Google has agreed to sell the company to Lenovo in exchange for $2.91 billion.


In other news, Apple made over $13 billion dollars over the last quarter. Part of that money came from the 51 million iPhones and 26 million iPads that were sold. Samsung, however, sold an even greater number of smartphones over the same period of time. The Korean company managed to move 86 billion smartphones out of its warehouses. Unsurprisingly, Samsung now holds a significant chunk of the global smartphone market.


Speaking of Samsung, the company added another phone to its portfolio – the Galaxy Note 3 Neo. That's a phablet, as you can probably tell, sporting a spacious 5.5-inch display and an S Pen digital stylus. It will be available later this month for a price that has yet to be revealed.

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Lenovo CEO Yang certain that Motorola can turn a profit

After the announcement on Wednesday thatLenovo is buying Motorola from Google for $2.91 billion, Lenovo's Chief Executive Yang Yuanqing and Chief Financial Officer Wong Wai Ming answered some questions about the acquisition. Lenovo has yet to enter the U.S. market although it earlier stated its intentions to do so. According to Yang, purchasing Motorola gives Lenovo an instant entry into the states.

The executive calls Motorola a very good brand with plenty of intellectual property and a good relationship with carriers. He adds that his company will keep both the Motorola and Lenovo brands. The latter is strong in China and in emerging markets while Motorola is strong in the U.S. and Latin America. The CEO says that Lenovo might try using the Motorola name in China. He added that the company might go with something like "Motorola by Lenovo".

While Motorola was losing money under Google, Yang says that he believes that Lenovo can help Motorola turn a profit. The year after the deal closes, Lenovo expects to sell 100 million smartphones globally. As far as the deal is concerned, the executive expects no U.S. regulatory issues seeing as the handset business is a consumer business.

source: WSJ

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Lenovo ThinkPad Yoga 11e and ThinkPad 11e aim at education

Lenovo has rolled out some new ThinkPad machines that are aimed at use in schools. Since they are designed to be used by kids in the education environment, they are designed to be rugged. The new machines include the ThinkPad Yoga 11e and the ThinkPad 11e.



Both machines are optimized for K-12 students and are the same device in different form factors. The Yoga is a multimode device that can be used in four positions for comfort including laptop, tablet, tent, and stand. Both machines share the same hardware including an 11.6-inch LED backlit screen.

The screen has an anti-glare coating and the Yoga 11e also has touch capability. Both of the devices are powered by Intel processors and have LEDs to indicate connectivity, power, and sleep. The ThinkPad devices run the Windows operating system.

Lenovo isn't giving up some of the details on the machines. For instance, we don’t know how much RAM or storage space are inside. Since these are to be machines for education use, they likely have modest specs with some level of customization of hardware available. The price also suggests modest specs with the machines starting at $449. There will also be Chromebook versions of both models starting at $349.

SOURCE: Lenovo

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New Lenovo K7t with Quad HD display and Android KitKat appears in benchmark test, could be launched soon

Not long after it announced its first LTE-capable smartphone (the Vibe Z), Lenovo might also introduce its first handset with a Quad HD (1440 x 2560) display.

According to a leaked Antutu benchmark test result, the Quad HD Lenovo smartphone is called K7t (codename: Kingdom). It seems that the handset runs Android 4.4.1 KitKat, and features a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 MSM-8974 processor clocked at 2.26 GHz, 3GB of RAM, 16GB of internal memory, 5MP front-facing camera, and a 13MP rear camera. The size of the handset’s display is not known, but we assume it’s of at least 5 inches (since a 1440 x 2560 pixel resolution wouldn’t really make sense on a smaller screen).

The name of the alleged new Lenovo smartphone suggests that it’s a successor to the K800 from 2012 and the K900 that was introduced in early 2013.

Of course, since it’s not that hard to fake a benchmark result, we can’t be certain of the K7t’s existence. What we are certain of is that China has already given us the world’s first Quad HD smartphone (Vivo Xplay 3S), and the second one might also come from China, thanks to Oppo. Will Lenovo become the third Chinese hardware maker to offer a Quad HD handset? Let’s hope we’ll find out soon!

source: GizChina

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First ThinkPads, now servers: Lenovo buys more of IBM for $2.3 billion

The Chinese PC vendor that just can't stop growing has today added another component to its expanding empire by agreeing to buy IBM's x86 server business for $2.3 billion.Initially rumored almost a year ago, the price of this deal is below the expected range, with IBM apparently keen to offload what Lenovo believes is a business that it can "successfully grow for the long-term."

Though it lacks the consumer-facing impact of Lenovo's first big deal with IBM — the acquisition of the ThinkPad brand and line of personal computers — this move underscores Lenovo's ambition to continue expanding rapidly. For IBM's part, "this divestiture allows IBM to focus on system and software innovations," says Senior VP Steve Mills. The company will continue developing Windows and Linux software for the x86 platform, but the hardware component will soon be handed off to Lenovo in exchange for $2 billion in cash and the rest in Lenovo shares. Some 7,500 workers currently employed by IBM will be offered jobs by the Chinese company once regulatory formalities are completed and the deal is concluded.

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New Lenovo A7600 and A5500 Android tablets likely coming soon

The FCC today approved two unannounced Lenovo tablets - the A7600 and A5500 - sadly without revealing too much about them. Searching for more details, we discovered that both devices have been approved in China, too.

The Lenovo A5500 (the only of the two that’s being pictured) seemingly features an 8-inch IPS display with 800 x 1280 pixels, a quad-core 1.3GHz MediaTek processor, Dolby Mobile sound, and an 8MP rear camera. A recent GFXbench listing confirms the 1.3GHz processor, the 800 x 1280 pixels display, and Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean.

The Lenovo A7600 appears to have the same screen size as the A5500. The higher model number could mean that it has a higher pixel resolution - but we can’t be sure of this for now. In any case, this is also an Android tablet.

While the A7600 and A5500 models approved by the FCC are Wi-Fi-only, the ones certified in China have cellular connectivity (3G), and can make voice calls.

We don’t know when the two Lenovo tablets will be announced, but we assume it will happen in the near future. Both could be part of Lenovo’s IdeaTab series, which includes affordable tablets like the IdeaPad A1000 and IdeaPad A3000.

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Spec Sheet: Sony, Lenovo, and Archos' budget smartphone battle

A lot of products come out each week — we don't highlight all of them, but all of them make it into The Verge Database. In Spec Sheet, a weekly series, we survey the latest product entries to keep track of the state of the art.Sony may have put out an exciting new Xperia smartphone just last week, but it seems that wasn't enough for it. This week it came back with a new pair of devices, the Xperia E1 and the Xperia T2 Ultra, two stylish smartphones aimed at emerging markets. But Sony isn't the only manufacturer that's been releasing lower-cost phones recently. Lenovo and Archos both unveiled a series of devices headed to various locations across the globe, all offering quite a bit at bargain prices. We're taking a look across this group of recent phones to see which manufacturer has the best offering at each size.


Click above for full available specs on all six phones

LTE HAS BECOME A DEFINING FACTOR AMONG LOWER-COST PHONES

Both Sony and Lenovo are releasing large phones with 6-inch displays — Sony the Xperia T2 Ultra, and Lenovo the S930. The devices are fairly comparable on paper, with 1GB of RAM, 720p displays, and quad-core processors running at 1.4 and 1.3GHz respectively. Those processors set them a bit further apart than numbers suggest though. Sony is using a Snapdragon 400 series processor — an older line, but one known for fine performance — while Lenovo is using a processor from MediaTek, which are generally only found in lower-end phones.

There's another big difference between the two phones thanks to those processors: the Xperia T2 Ultra supports LTE, while the S930 does just 3G. Above all else, that gives Sony's phone a distinct edge here — though since Sony hasn't released exact pricing, it's hard to say how clear cut any decision between the two would be. There's a good chance that Sony's phone will be more expensive though. Sony suggests that the T2 Ultra will be priced for the mid-range, rather than than low end, and at $319, Lenovo's S930 lands on the more affordable side of the fence.

While Sony skipped the 5-inch size in its announcement this week, Lenovo and Archos both addressed it recently. Unfortunately for Lenovo, it falls into the same trap here. Archos' 50 Helium is using the same Qualcomm processor that Sony's Xperia T2 Ultra uses, so it's able to support LTE even while costing just $249.99. That puts Lenovo's 5-inch A859 in the very same spot that its larger phone is against Sony: having fairly comparable specs, bearing a slightly lower price, but falling far short due to its lack of LTE.

The final pair of devices puts Archos' 4.5-inch 45 Helium against Sony's 4-inch Xperia E1. Unfortunately, Sony isn't giving this small phone quite as much power as the other device it announced this week, leaving the Xperia E1 with a still-unspecified 1.2GHz processor and without LTE. It has half as much RAM as the 45 Helium too, though their near-identical screen resolutions gives Sony's phone a slight edge when it comes to pixel density. Otherwise, the 45 Helium likely has a lot more going for it. It includes LTE, and is selling for $199.99, while Sony is again planning to price its phone for the mid-range.

Even if these phones aren't at the pinnacle of their field, they're far from being made up of years-old scraps. It's clear that low-cost phones are becoming more and more attractive as LTE works its way down in cost — and this year, that's likely to make its way into a whole lot more phones.

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Lenovo’s ThinkPad 8, hands-on with the ‘full PC’ in tablet form

Lenovo ThinkPad 8 is an 8.3-inch Windows tablet, which is touted as a “full PC in the Palm of your hands”. That’s a bold statement, and we’ve seen Windows tablets before that couldn’t hold up under the pressure. As Microsoft tries to find a true cross-reference OS, Lenovo tries to bring some true power to back it up. In Las Vegas at CES 2014, we got the chance for a quick hands-on with the new Windows tablet.

To start, the ThinkPad 8 is comfortable in-hand. The form factor is one we were suspect of, as Windows lends itself to a larger screen. Though screen size isn’t everything, it’s important when considering a Windows tablet, and we were just plain suspicious of the ThinkPad’s size. Comfortable to hold is one thing, a pleasure to use is the real benchmark, though.

Backed by an Intel quad-core Bay Trail processor, the ThinkPad 8 has a 2MP camera up front, and an 8MP shooter around back. Running Windows 8.1, and weighing just under a pound, the 8.8mm ThinkPad packs a lot into a small package. The screen is 1920 x 1200, making it more than capable of handling Window’s “metro” UI. In using the ThinkPad, we found ourselves happily surprised by what’s on offer, but a full PC?

Yes. The ThinkPad is, in regard to hardware, a full PC in a tiny package. While not the most robust Windows PC you can find (it’s still a tablet, after all), it gets the job done. The aluminum casing instilled a sense of confidence, and the responsiveness of the ThinkPad 8's screen and processor made it a pleasure to use in tablet form. Synced to a screen (we used Lenovo’s phenomenal 4K2K monitor), it actually becomes a very simple Windows PC. Again, not the top-end PC you might need, but for the professional on-the-go, it’s a true winner.

For consumers, this one offers even more utility. A PC wherever you go, whenever you want, without much compromise. Lenovo promises up to 8 hours battery life, which we sadly couldn’t task, but we’re not doubting that — yet. In our testing, we’d easily call this the best small Windows tablet on the market right now. We also really liked the Smart Cover Lenovo has for the ThinkPad 8, which is much like Apple’s offering. A neat flip-down corner wakes the rear camera, and brings quick shooting for those moments you just need to capture quickly.

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