Lenovo Cast For Sharing To TVs

Lenovo Cast is a small box that connects to the TV over HDMI in one hand, and receives dual-band WiFi signal on the other. It can accept image broadcasts from virtually any DLNA or Miracast-enabled devices (via ANYCAST), which means that a large number of smartphones can send media content to it.​

The concept is not new, and there are a number of players out there already. However, not all of them feature the dual-band option which may help with network congestion in some cases. It really depends on your local WiFi setup and neighborhood.

We discussed with Lenovo about some technical aspects of the device, such as range. Lenovo says that the maximum range is about 20 meters, but that latency will be reduced as you approach that distance (up to 2 seconds of latency at 20 meters). As you get closer, the latency will be negligible for video sharing and screen sharing purposes. Gaming is another matter, of course, but this is true for all such devices because the protocols were built for buffering and not for 2-way interaction.

It didn’t seem like Lenovo Cast can draw power from MHL HDMI ports (our sources are still checking on that), but it ships with a power adapter. Lenovo expects this to hit the market in the $50 price range.