Lenovo is wading into the increasingly saturated market of media-streaming devices with their HDMI equipped hockey puck, the Lenovo Cast. The circular device is designed to plug into a TV"s HDMI port and works in a similar way to Google"s Chromecast, however instead of a proprietary interface, it will work with support for any Miracast or DLNA-enabled Windows or Android devices.
Announced at Lenovo"s first global technology event, Tech World, the Lenovo cast looks like an Apple TV with its circular shape, but works like a Chromecast where it will require the device streaming to it to remain on during the cast. This device is certainly not being positioned as a standalone media device, and will likely be marketed as an addition to your home theater setup, rather than a replacement for anything.
Lenovo has jumped ahead of Google I/O, kicking off today, with this announcement, and are planning on launching the Lenovo Cast in August for $49, which is a little pricier but with support for more devices and with 5Ghz WiFI support (which the Chromecast lacks) it will potentially deliver better quality for a few dollars more. Google, however, is rumored to be launching an updated Chromecast at their developer conference so the market for your smartphone media streaming might just be heating up.
Source: Lenovo Tech World via TechRadar