[CES 2014] Now that Lenovo has captured the #1 spot as “computer maker”, and starts to make big inroads in the smartphone and tablet market, the company is going after other areas of the eco-system, namely the personal Network Attached Storage market (NAS). This is not an easy market to serve because of the typical difficulty to setup the device onto the home network and the public Internet, but Lenovo is bringing some features that should help close the gap and make things easier.
For example, it should be possible to sync a camera with Beacon with a single touch to backup the latest photos. Users should also connect to the NAS device from outside the home in a seamless way, says Lenovo. This probably means that Lenovo will use some kind of centralized system to connect authenticated users from the public Internet to the device, but we have yet to put this to the test.
Hardware-wise, the Lenovo Beacon is a small 2.4Kg (5.29lbs) device that is powered by an Intel dual-core Atom processor. Although Lenovo’s announcement does not mention the amount of RAM, I would not be surprised if this was a 1GB or 2GB system. The storage capacity can go as high as 6TB which is quite a lot of room to store all kinds of files, including music and movies. Talking of which, the Lenovo Beacon can output video to your TV via HDMI, and can be controlled via an Android device with the free Beacon App. Since you may want to have the box in your living room, Lenovo has it in either white, or black.