Lenovo’s Horizon 2S, 2E and ThinkCentre Tiny-in-One 23

I’ve seen a lot of things. Not everything, but a lot of things. Lenovo’s Horizon 2s has impressed me, though. The tabletop PC was launched on Thursday at IFA Berlin and the device sure looks great. Tiny-in-One 23 on the other hand, has taken me aback.

These Lenovo products didn’t surprise because they were all that innovative or new, but because they are surprisingly simple and very useful. The Horizon 2S is something I’ve never used before, because I haven’t been the most wealthiest person and haven’t been around corporate offices that much. Nonetheless, the Horizon 2s is a great tabletop device that looks awesome.

The Horizon 2S is a tabletop tablet with a whopping 19.5 inch display which made me gawk at it for about a minute or so.  You can use the Horizon 2S either in flat mode or stand mode, depending on what task you and your colleagues need to perform. The Horizon 2S has a 19.5 inch 1930*1080 display and is targeted at corporate users who need something thin and light in order to be able to transport the device to various presentations or brainstorming sessions without too much hassle. Not that a nearly 20 inch tablet is easy to carry around. The Horizon 2e, on the other hand, has a 21.5 inch 1930*1080 panel and is intended for family use, with an appropriate price, a bit lower than the Horizon 2S’ $849, at $749.

The 2s is only 0.59-inches thin and weighs 5.6 pounds while the 2e weighs 10.1 pounds and is 1.1-inches thick. Both tabletops are powered by Intel i7 cores and their batteries promise 2 to 3 hours of power usage. The Horizon tabletops both run Windows 8.1 and will feature either 500 GB or 1TB storage. Both devices have Lenovo’s Aura interface on top of Windows 8.1, allowing multiple user interaction. The Aura interface couples with the display’s 10-point multitouch and allows easy file transfers between the Horizon devices and other mobile gadgets like smartphones or tablets.

The Horizon tabletops come with optional gadgets like e-dice, joysticks, strikers and their own stands. The tablets come with quite a few apps and games pre-loaded, Lenovo intending to skip you of the hassle of searching for these on the Windows app store. All in all, both tabletops are something I would buy, since they encompass all the needs I have, including portability, performance, multi-user interface and Windows 8.1. Even though the main idea behind the devices was to cater to office environments, corporate offices, IT developers, they still are perfect for the average power user as well.

You can check out Lenovo’s tour videos of the Horizon 2S and 2E below:

But Lenovo didn’t stop here, introducing another All-In-One device, the ThinkCentre Tiny-in-One. The TIO was designed with IT managers in mind and caters to more advance performance requirements. The TIO is essentially a monitor with a slot at the back where you can couple one of Lenovo’s Tiny-in-One computers, making the ThinkCentre work like a PC. The ThinkCentre features a 23 inch display and can be used for various purposes, depending on what type of computer you want to attach to it. Its selling point is that you can use the monitor for any Tiny-in-One computer, avoiding cables and giving you the opportunity to switch between home and work PCs and their loads, for the acceptable price of $270 for the unit (without any Tiny-in-One computer). You can watch Lenovo’s First Look at the ThinkCentre below.

Lenovo came to IFA with quite a few impressive releases, and most of them seem to cater to business users as well as the average tech enthusiast who needs to get their hands on anything that is remotely high-tech. Not that Lenovo didn’t bring innovation to IFA this year.