January means plenty of new tech announcements and Lenovo has revealed a new 5G model of its popular IdeaPad laptops, complete with a Snapdragon 8CX processor and long battery life. It will also get the new Show Mode featuring Alexa.
This isn’t the firm’s first attempt at a 5G laptop, but with the Yoga 5G coming in at a whopping £3,000 on contract in the UK, bringing the technology to the IdeaPad range is a clear sign that’s it’s far more affordable now although an exact price and release date are still to be announced.
Although we’re not currently able to freely travel around, Lenovo says “With family members sharing home Wi-Fi networks at peak hours, it’s more important than ever to have a reliable 4G/LTE and 5G cellular connection to enable lightning-fast speeds during your next presentation to the boss.”
In terms of the specs, it has a 14in Full HD screen with 100% sRGB coverage, an IR camera with face unlock, user-facing speakers with Dolby Audio and is less than 1.2kg in weight and 15mm thick.
It’s powered not by Intel or AMD but Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8CX processor which not only brings the 5G connectivity but also a super long battery life of up to 20 hours. We actually saw more than that in the similar Samsung Galaxy Book S.
The Snapdragon also enables a fanless and therefore silent design. There’ supports for sub-6GHz 5G and when there’s no network, you can still use 4G LTE. When on Wi-Fi, you have the slightly older Wi-Fi 5 standard rather than Wi-Fi 6, which is becoming more common.
There’s up to 8GB LPDDR4X memory and 512GB of PCIe SSD storage and if you really don’t need 5G, Lenovo will sell a 4G LTE model powered by a Snapdragon 8c.
Lenovo also announced the IdeaPad 5 Pro and IdeaPad 5i Pro, powered by AMD and Intel chips respectively along with its Show Mode for PC feature.
This uses Amazon’s Alexa digital assistant to effectively turn your PC or laptop into an Echo Show smart display. You can ask Alexa to carry out a range of tasks just like you would on a smart speaker, including play music, set reminders and open your favourite apps.
Lenovo says this will roll out in Q2 of this year across various devices including Yoga and IdeaPad. The rest of the company’s CES announcements are headlined by a new Yoga Slim 7i Pro.
Check out the current crop of the best laptops you can buy.
Author: Chris Martin, Reviews Editor
Tech Advisor's Reviews Editor, Chris has been reviewing all kinds of tech for over 10 years and specialises in audio. He also covers a range of topics including home entertainment, phones, laptops, tablets and more.