Lenovo's Yoga Line-Up Includes New Tablets and a Bizarre Ashton Kutcher Experience

Lenovo is the world’s largest PC maker. It’s also making some impressive inroads in the smartphone market outside of the U.S. You might think this would mean the company wouldn’t rely on celebrity gimmicks. Maybe not so much.

Today, the China-based PC maker unveiled several updates to its popular Yoga line of laptops and tablets, named as such for their “bendy” or convertible form factors. These include:

• Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro: This revamped version of the company’s Windows PC convertible features a new watchband hinge that allows the lid of the laptop to sit closer to the keyboard, making for a thinner profile when used in tablet mode. Overall, the machine is 17 percent thinner and 14 percent lighter than its predecessor. It’s also now using an Intel Core M processor. Pricing for the Yoga 3 Pro starts at $1,349.
• Lenovo Yoga Tablet 2 (Windows): Building on the Android-based Yoga tablets introduced last year, Lenovo is now bringing Windows to the same form factor. There will be two versions: an eight-inch model ($299) and a 10-inch model ($399). Both feature full HD touchscreens, a 180-degree hinge, Intel Atom processors and 32 gigabytes of storage. The Android models are also being updated with full-HD displays, larger speakers and the redesigned hinge. The eight-inch version costs $249 and the 10-inch version costs $299.
• Lenovo ThinkPad Yoga 14: The first model in the ThinkPad Yoga line to feature a 14-inch, full-HD screen. Like the previous model, it has a locking keyboard when used in tablet mode and Intel Core i5 processor. Pricing starts at $1,199.

One of the more interesting products from today’s announcement, however, is the new Yoga 2 Pro tablet ($499).

Building on the relationship Lenovo established last year with actor-investor-new-baby-daddy Ashton Kutcher, the Yoga 2 Pro tablet incorporates a Kutcher-requested feature: An integrated Pico projector.

Built into the hinge of the device, the tablet can project up to a 50-inch image of whatever is on your screen. The Android-based tablet will also come preloaded with an augmented-reality app that projects a 3-D image of Kutcher himself.

Hmmm.

Truth be told, we at Re/code (back when we were AllThingsD) reviewed two generations of the Yoga laptop and found last year’s Yoga 2 Pro to be one of the best laptops out there for PC-seekers.

But in terms of stand-out features for tablets … a Pico projector and an animated celebrity tutorial? There’s Moore’s law, there are innovations in battery capacity, there are even displays out there now with such high resolutions that they look liquid, but we’re not totally sold on a projector or a pop-up Ashton. We’ll have to give that one a thorough run-through before making our assessment.

The Android versions of the Yoga 2 Tablet are available starting today. The rest of the products are expected to ship at the end of the month.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

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