CES 2018 kicks off tomorrow, and as part of today"s press events and alongside of its ThinkPad X1 lineup refresh, Lenovo announced the Miix 630. The new tablet is the first from the company to include a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor.
The first Snapdragon-powered Windows 10 PCs were announced last month, coming from HP and ASUS. It"s a subset of Microsoft"s new Always-Connected PC initiative, which is a plan to promote cellular devices. But these also include running full Windows 10 on ARM processors, something that"s completely new.
But the big benefit to using a Snapdragon 835 is battery life. Lenovo is promising up to 20 hours of usage, and while the company didn"t cite standby time, that should be even more impressive. ARM chips use big.LITTLE architecture, with a set of more powerful cores for big tasks, and efficient cores for little tasks. While the system is in standby, it can use those less powerful cores for syncing background tasks and such, using minimal battery life; it"s similar to how your phone works.
The chipset also allows for a fanless design, making the tablet thin, light, and quiet. It comes in at just 1.33kg, and is 15.6mm thick, and that includes the attachable keyboard. It also includes an IR camera, so you can use facial recognition for Windows Hello and easily log into the device.
Aside from that, you"ll find a 12.3-inch 1920x1280 (3:2) display, up to 256GB of storage, and up to 8GB of RAM. It has a single USB Type-C port, an SD card reader, a nano-SIM slot, and a 3.5mm audio jack. It also comes with the backlit keyboard and the pen included.
It ships with Windows 10 S, meaning that it"s meant to only run apps that come from the Microsoft Store. As with all 10 S devices, there"s an offer for a free upgrade to Windows 10 Pro, but the interesting thing here is that this is the first time that there isn"t a static date when that offer expires. You can upgrade to Pro for free within 180 days of product activation.
The Lenovo Miix 630 will be available in the second quarter of this year, likely in April or May. It will start at $799.
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