Lenovo Announces Ideacentre Horizon – 27 Inch Multi-User, Table Top Tablet PC

At the CES this year, Lenovo is introducing its own portable desktop PC. Although Lenovo calls it a tablet, the IdeaCentre Horizon 27 is primarily a Windows 8 based all-in-one with a 27-inch, 1080p 10-finger touchscreen, Intel’s Core i7 processors and discrete graphics.

Lenovo has also made it portable. How can a 27 inch device be portable you ask? Well, thanks to the internal battery than can provide power to this gigantic device for 2 hours, it is fairly portable. The slate is only 1.06 inches thick but it weighs around 17 pounds, so the definition of portability will change from person to person depending on your upper body strength. Jokes apart, the Horizon’s touch-friendliness, its hinge lets it either sit up at a normal angle for a PC, or lay flat on a table.

When you lay the Horizon flat, Lenovo’s “Moon Dial” interface automatically opens, providing a wheel-based interface for launching apps, flipping through pictures, and moving things around. This reminds me so much of Microsoft’s original Surface interface which could turn your table in to a giant touch screen. But, the coolest feature of the Surface – interacting with other objects, well, that doesn’t happen with the IdeaCentre Horizon. Here is a hands-on video via The Verge.

Lenovo designed the Horizon for families and offices, for more than one person to use at a time. It comes with a handful of specific accessories to that end, too: four joysticks, e-dice, and strikers, which Lenovo says creates a more physical gaming experience than is typical with a laptop. The Horizon will be available “in early summer,” and will start at $1,699. The beginning of a trend for Lenovo, with more of these table PCs coming soon — the company’s showing off a 36-inch prototype called “Gamma” at CES as well.