Small-Biz Play: Lenovo Ships Wide-Screen Notebooks

Lenovo said Wednesday it is extending its Lenovo 3000 lineup of notebooks, with a new wide-screen version aimed at the small-business space.

The new Lenovo 3000 V100, shipping now, has a 12.1-inch wide-screen display and is street-priced at $1,099.

"In terms of our target market, we're targeting very small business customers," said Frank Kardonski, worldwide product manager for Lenovo 3000 offerings. "These are customers who could be from two individuals who have their business at home to maybe offices with 30 people or so."

Kardonski said that the new notebook is not targeted at consumer or retail markets. The systems are integrated with Lenovo support technologies designed for small businesses, including a one-button system recovery, automatic updates for Lenovo software, and easy connectivity. The base V100s are built with Intel Core Duo 2300 processors, 512 Mbytes of memory and an 80-Gbyte hard drive.

Lenovo said the notebooks have a 5-in-1 multicard reader, three USB ports, a 1394 and a VGA port. The V100s also have an integrated fingerprint reader.

While the V100 systems are targeted at the small-business space, which Lenovo executives have labled as critical to the company's success, the Raleigh, N.C.-based PC maker said the new notebook comes in six different configurations at varying prices, ranging up to $1,649.