While there have been a number of Windows 8-specific hardware announcements this week, some PC companies are still releasing new hardware that have Windows 7 installed. One of them is Lenovo and today, as part of the IFA trade show in Berlin, the company revealed a new lineup of its IdeaPad thin-and-light notebook that are cheaper than other laptops that use the Ultrabook design promoted by Intel.
The press release said that, starting today, it is selling the IdeaPad S300, S400 (shown above), and S405 laptops for the starting price of $499. The notebooks weight less than four pounds and have screens of up to 14 inches.
The Lenovo IdeaPad S300 and S400 laptops can have either Intel Core i3 or i5 processors inside, but the IdeaPad S405 can support the more powerful AMD A8 quad core processor. While the notebooks come with hard drives of up to 1 TB, the S400 and S405 have the option of adding a 32 GB SSD.
Naturally, all these new notebooks from Lenovo are eligible for Microsoft"s upgrade to Windows 8. However, as we reported earlier this week, Lenovo has chosen not to refund the $14.99 price that Microsoft is charging for the Windows 8 update, as other PC makers such as HP are doing.
Source: Lenovo press release | Image via Lenovo