Lenovo Reportedly Planning Laptop/Tablet Hybrid Notebook

The Taichi is among the very few truly innovative mobile computing products we have seen this year and carries the potential to bridge the gap between the convenience of content consumption on tablets with the productivity capability of a traditional notebook. Unfortunately, the Taichi and its dual touch screens isn't cheap to manufacture. The BOM alone is estimated to ring in at about $900. Once you add assembly, packaging, shipping, overhead cost such as marketing and administration and apply a 20 percent retail margin, it's unlikely to see the Taichi become available form much less than $1,400 - if it enters production.

PC vendors typically shy away from any notebook that has to retail for more than $1,000, because it is generally assumed that only Apple can effectively justify such a high price tag. However, noticeable product innovation in the PC space could change that mindset. Razer's Blade recently demonstrated that even higher prices can be achieved with unique product designs. Lenovo would be facing similar road blocks, but healthy competition in this space could help bring the estimated retail price of this class of products down to a more digestible number closer to $1,000.

Lenovo did not confirm plans for a dual touch screen notebook.

  • amk-aka-Phantom
    PC vendors typically shy away from any notebook that has to retail for more than $1,000, because it is generally assumed that only Apple can effectively justify such a high price tag.

    What a bunch of BS. All good gaming laptops completely justify the price.
    Reply
  • math1337
    OEMs reportedly planning touchscreen-less conventional Laptops/notebooks for Win8.
    Reply
  • gsacks
    Tablet/Laptop combination. Tabtop? Laplet?
    Reply
  • DRosencraft
    amk-aka-PhantomWhat a bunch of BS. All good gaming laptops completely justify the price.
    Gaming laptops are a niche, even thought the community here at Tom's is more gaming minded. Apple manages to step beyond that niche. People who spend upwards $1000 on a Mac aren't expecting a gaming machine or any such lofty goals. I believe that is the point they're getting at. If they're that worried about production costs of the screen itself, then you'd have to imagine that they're not about to go particularly powerful on the components. They'd probably want to go with a cheaper build involving AMD APU. Lenovo certainly isn't particularly known as a gamin company. I imagine that a true gaming level iteration of this laptop will cost a bit closer to the $1800 or $2000 mark.
    Reply
  • amuffin
    amk-aka-PhantomWhat a bunch of BS. All good gaming laptops completely justify the price.Tell me the # of gaming laptops there are compared to the # of non-gaming laptops. That's completely true then.
    Reply
  • blazorthon
    amk-aka-PhantomWhat a bunch of BS. All good gaming laptops completely justify the price.
    All good gaming laptops are several times more expensive than a faster gaming desktop. Sure, different markets with somewhat different purposes, but it shows that there is a reason for how few people (even gamers) we have who can justify the price of a gaming laptop.
    Reply
  • Spac3nerd
    Didn't IBM have a very similar model many years ago? I believe it was the Thinkpad X60/61.
    Reply
  • army_ant7
    Spac3nerdDidn't IBM have a very similar model many years ago? I believe it was the Thinkpad X60/61.I also believe they had a netbook with this feature. I'm not really sure how this is innovative when there were some devices like this before? The only difference aside from specs, which isn't a fair comparison due to differences in time periods, is the fact that it's an Ultrabook and that it uses Windows 8. Both helping it feel more like a tablet aside from a notebook.
    Reply