The wave continues. Microsoft made it a point to announce $99 Windows tablets, and $250 Windows laptops at the recently concluded WPC 2014 event. The idea is to take the fight to Google in the battle for budget hardware supremacy.
Since that announcement we have had a number of product unveils.
These include devices like the KingSing W8 slate that is expected to retail for $99, this Acer Aspire 11 fanless laptop with a price tag of $250, and an AMD Mullins laptop from HP that, again, retails for the magical mark of $250.
Now you can add another one to the list.
This Lenovo machine is quite similar to the ASUS Vivobook F200MA notebook that was announced just yesterday. In the sense that it could be mistaken for a Chromebook, judging by its hardware specs.
But instead, it runs Windows 8.1 with Bing.
The Lenovo IdeaPad S20-30 actually comes in two variations — one that sells for €249, and a higher end model that is priced at €299. In Europe, of course. Expect much lower prices in the US and rest of the world for these when they launch.
Anyway, the smaller model offers the now standard resolution of 1366 by 768 pixels, with an 11.6-inch screen, and is powered by an Intel Celeron N2830 Bay Trail processor. Hard drive capacity? 500GB.
The device weighs in only 1.3 kg, and comes with a full keyboard, two USB 2.0 ports, HDMI out, audio jack, an SD Card reader, LAN, WiFi, Bluetooth, even a 720p front facing webcam. Battery time is estimated at 5 hours. Good enough.
Interestingly, the only major difference between the base model, and the more expensive one is the support for 4GB of RAM. The base one houses only 2GB.
Nevertheless, Chromebooks sure have a tough fight on their hands.