Lenovo touches up its IdeaPad laptop back catalog with U and Z Touch

LAS VEGAS--Touch, anyone?

Two of Lenovo's IdeaPad lines will be joining the touch fray this year: both the IdeaPad U310/410 and IdeaPad Z400/500 have multitouch screens. Much like USB 3.0, HDMI, and solid-state drives were in previous years, touch seems to be the de rigueur Windows laptop upgrade of early 2013.

The IdeaPad U310 and U410 Touch ultrabooks, previously reviewed by CNET, are thin notebooks with more than a passing resemblance to a MacBook. The new 2013 versions are equipped with up to a third-gen Intel Core i7 processor and dedicated Nvidia graphics in the U410 model, along with adding 10-point multitouch to both 13.3-inch and 14-inch versions. The U310 and U410 weigh 3.85 and 4.4 pounds respectively, and at 18 and 21 millimeters thick, they fit into the ultrabook landscape without really standing out as particularly thin and light. Both feature hybrid 500GB to 1TB hard drives with a 24GB SSD cache, with screens unfortunately stuck at 1,366x768-pixel resolution. The U310 and U410 Touch will be available in March and April respectively, starting at $779 and $850.

The IdeaPad Z400 and Z500 Touch, on the other hand, are more fully fledged mainstream 14- and 15-inch laptops with up to a full-voltage third-gen Core i7 processor and Nvidia GeForce graphics, and bass-enhanced stereo speakers with Dolby Home Theater v4. Both the 14- and 15.6-inch screens have 1,600x900-pixel resolution, and can be outfitted with up to 16GB RAM and 1TB hard drives. The Z400 and Z500 Touch will be available in March and April respectively, both starting at $699.