Lenovo reveals new tablet design

Richard Quest talks with David Roman of Lenovo to find out what makes their new tablet different from others on the market.

We actually did a lot of work. We've been working on tablets for a long time. And as we are looking at some real consumer usages of the tablet, we look at a number of the things that we thought could be done better. And one of them was actually how you hold the tablet and the fact that they've become so thin means when you hold it with one hand it can actually be very, very difficult all the time. The second is people sort of tend to use the tablet in different ways, sometimes you want to watch videos, sometimes you are doing video conferencing. You are doing different things. Sometimes you want to stand it up and you also have to type on it. So we came up with the notion of a different shape, literally a different phonefactor that willl allow us to hold it in a much more natural way, so it fits your hand. It will allow us to stand it up on its stand and to stand it in a tube mode so you can type on it. And one of the benefits of doing it this way is we got this sort of relatively large cylinder, so we could put much, much bigger batteries in the tablets, still keep in a very low weight, whic we can get up to eighty hours a battery allows. So we think those are pretty significant changes as they just make the tablet more usable, you know, make it much more friendly for users, so I think that's a difference.

Yeah, the decision to invite Ashton Kutcher to become an advisor in these matters. And he is extremely good on the screen and exceptionally popular in media. But what does he give you besides a name and a hot property?

You know, I know that sounds terribly tripe. But, you know, we are really looking for a partnership with Ashton. Yeah first of all ,he is an amazing technologist. I think you know,many people know him because he is acting and his great presence on screen. He is originally studying engineering. He is very involving in technology. He has a fairly significant venture investment firm. He invest new companies. He really is a technologist at heart and you know, he loves doing things.

It's a risky strategy, isn't it? I mean getting select some bod is a bit like playing with fire.

You know, I think our experience with Ashor so far is being that he is fantastic. He really is a real deal. He is obviously has a tremendous present,he really does have a lot of technology insight. But he really is focused on getting things done. He likes to do things, he is a, you know, we think of ourselves as a company for those who do. Ashton really is a doer.