Dismayed that family members are
spread out over the house, each with a separate PC or tablet? Lenovo has
something it believes will get them back together: a PC the size of a coffee
table that works like a gigantic tablet and lets four people use it at once.
Lenovo Group Ltd., one of the world’s largest PC
makers, is calling the IdeaCentre Horizon Table PC the first “interpersonal
computer” – as opposed to a “personal computer.”
At first glance, it looks like a regular all-in-one
machine in the vein of the iMac: It’s a 27-inch screen with the innards of a
Windows 8 computer built into it, and it can stand up on a table.
But you can pick it up off the table, unhook the power
cord and lay it flat for games of “Monopoly.” It’s big enough to fit four
people around it, and the screen can respond to ten fingers touching it at the
same time.
As a tablet, it’s a monstrosity. The screen is the
size of eight iPads stitched together, and it weighs 15 pounds. It’s almost as
homebound as a flat-panel TV.
The Table PC will include plastic “strikers” for “Air
Hockey,” and joysticks that attach to the screen with suction cups for other
games, including multiplayer shooter “Raiding Company.”
In a demonstration at the International CES on Sunday,
photos and videos could be rotated with fingers. Spreading five fingers at once
on the screen cleared the screen of clutter, while squeezing them together
brought the photos and videos back.
Lenovo, a Chinese company that owns IBM Corp.’s former
PC business, said the Table PC will go on sale this summer starting at $1,699.
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