Lenovo Readies Polarized-3D Notebook PC at $1,199

Seeking to steal a march in 3D-capable notebook PCs, Lenovo launched sales of an upgraded IdeaPad Y560d in China and will have it available through its U.S. website by month’s end at $1,199, said Michael Littler, a spokesman for Lenovo’s IdeaPad worldwide strategic marketing group.

The notebook, a version of the non-3D Y560 ($899) that shipped earlier this year, uses polarizer glasses and film and TriDef Media Player software for 2D-to-3D conversion. At $1,199, it undercuts Asustek’s G51J 3D notebook by about $260. The Asustek model, which is being sold through a range of online retailers including B&H and CDW, is built around Nvidia’s 3D Vision-equipped GF-GTX260 graphics card and uses active-shutter technology. Toshiba in July will deliver the 3D Blu-ray-equipped Dynabook notebook in Japan containing a 15.6-inch LCD with 120 Hz backlit LCD, Nvidia’s 3D Vision software and WinDVD BD software (CED June 8 p5). The Y560d is based on Advanced Micro Devices’ ATI Radeon HD5730 1 GB graphics card and has a 15.6-inch LCD with 1,366x768 resolution. It wasn’t clear at our deadline whether the LCD was a 120Hz panel that would allow 60Hz to be delivered to each eye. Lenovo’s notebook will be packaged with polarized glasses. The passive 3D polarized approach has in the past resulted in a display with reduced resolution and viewing angle.

"With a mid-range graphics card, which is separate from the 3D capability in most cases, it allows you to have a more aggressive price,” said Littler. “If we separate the 3D capability from the graphics card, it gives us more flexibility to change graphics card models and have a wider range of SKUs with 3D."

The Y560d is based on Intel’s i7 quad core processors ranging from the 720QM at 1.6 GHz with turbo boost to 2.8 GHz to the 820QM at 1.73 GHZ and 3.06 GHz. It’s available with RapidDrive 250-750 GB hard drives paired with 32-64 GB solid-state drives that store the Microsoft Windows 7 operating system and applications. The DDR-3 memory available ranges 2-8 GB, he said. While there are a wide range of configurations, prices aren’t expected to vary more than $200. Most of the notebooks will likely have a 320-500 GB hard drive and at least 4 GB RAM, Littler said. By comparison the Asustek G51J and G51Jx ($1,594) use 1.6 GHz Intel Core processor and contain 4 and 6 GB RAM and 320 and 500 GB hard drives, respectively.

"To watch a movie in 2D or 3D you don’t need a huge amount of memory to do that,” Littler said. “Obviously you need a little hard drive space if you're going to store the movies, but in most cases, people are not storing hundreds of movies on their hard drive,” Littler said. “Because we have the software and panel solution it’s independent of the loading on the memory” and 3D doesn’t represent a “huge increment” in memory requirements over 2D, he said.

The new model comes equipped with a DVD or Blu-ray drive. Blu-ray technology will likely have only a “small impact” of sales of the Y560d, Littler said. “I don’t think 3D on notebooks is going to be decisive” in driving higher Blu-ray drive sales. “In theory, it will have some impact, but we're talking about just a few percent of people that will be buying a 3D notebook at this point."

The growth of 3D-capable notebooks will depend on the amount of content available either through Blu-ray or movies, Littler said. But the bulk of consumers will watch 3D on “a larger screen,” he said. “You could connect the notebook to a TV, but people who are traveling that want to watch movies is the place for 3D on a notebook."

Lenovo won’t initially have 3D on a “large selection” of notebooks, but “you will see creep” of the technology into new models, Littler said. “Industrywide, you will see more 3D SKUs, but I don’t think they are going to reach across the majority of the models on the market.” Using the polarizer approach could drop prices of 3D-equipped notebook PCs below $1,000 and that “may be a trend we see perhaps by the end of the year, but that depends how big that market becomes,” Littler said.

"If the market demand is big enough it’s perfectly possible to take 3D across more models and take it to a lower price point if you reduce” the memory and hard drive capacities, Littler said. “The people that are into that kind of 3D content are going to be those that are more interested in a higher spec machine any way."

The notebook will be sold late this month direct in the U.S. through Lenovo.com, which also is available in the U.K. and Japan, Littler said. The model will likely be rolled out over “several months” to retailers in Hong Kong, India, Latin America, Russia and Western Europe, Littler said. It will be sold in North America, Southeast Asia and Russia in the “early phase” of distribution before being available more broadly, Littler said. In China, the notebook is being sold through independent retailers as well as larger chains, Littler said. Among the major Chinese retailers carrying Lenovo is Gome.