MORRISVILLE – “Alexa, order me a new Yoga 730 laptop – the 13-inch version. No, make it the 15.” So the orders will go, Lenovo hopes. Or the same words are used with Cortana.
The world’s No. 2 PC maker is rolling out two new versions of its Yoga convertible laptops at the Mobile World Congress, which opens today in Barcelona, Spain. And each contains Alexa and Cortana, the smart assistant technology from Amazon and Microsoft respectively that will enable voice commands for a number of commands.
Early reviews are focusing on Alexa since the two new models are basically just upgrades on a previous 720 model.
“Lenovo’s latest 2-in-1 doesn’t seem to offer any major upgrades over the last generation, but the integration of Alexa and new fast-charging features may sway you to upgrade,” reports TechRadar.
“It’s hard to improve upon the Lenovo Yoga 720 (which we gave a solid four star review) and it seems the company agrees, as it has announced a new 2-in-1 that only has very iterative changes.”
Tech news site The Register also focuses on the Alexa/Amazon Echo smart speaker angle.
“The most interesting aspect of the new Yogas is the addition of Amazon’s Alexa virtual assistant which will allow users to bark questions and orders at the Yogas in much the same way they would do to an Amazon Echo smart speaker,” The Register says.
“The convertible laptops will listen in for trigger phrases providing they are open and a user is logged in. Alexa will also have to play nice with Microsoft’s Cortana which comes baked into Windows 10.”
Lenovo, in its announcement, doesn’t ignore Cortana.
“The Yoga 730 harnesses the power of AI to give you more choice in intelligent assistance,” Lenovo says. “With both Alexa and Cortana built-in, the Yoga 730 incorporates not one but two distinct, voice-enabled, intelligent AI’s.”
Lenovo operates one of its two global headquarters in Morrisville. The other is in Beijing.
