Weird decisions are something Lenovo seems to be rather fond of lately, especially with their latest launch. The brand new Lenovo Smart Assistant (I wonder what it is) is a smart assistant (shocking) powered by Amazon’s Alexa. This means it’ll go into direct competition with Amazon’s own Alexa powered Echo.
I’m not sure what prompted Lenovo do actually carry this out, but it’s still interesting nonetheless. The Smart Assistant has a design that’s reminiscent of the Echo as well, though in a larger variety of colors. The main exception is the Harman Kardon edition, which is all black and features the company’s audio solutions.
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The Smart Assistant features 8 360-degree microphones with echo cancellation and noise suppression. It seems nice, up until you read that it can only pick up commands from up to 16 feet, or just about 5 meters. Not very useful if you’re in another room away from it.
The home assistant will be available for purchase only in May, for the price of $129, about $50 cheaper than the Echo. The Harman Kardon edition however will go for $179, placing it at roughly the same price. Not a very interesting proposition, but tell us what you think in the comments below.