Lenovo goes after writers, artists and designers with Creator Series PCs
But don't put your MacBook aside just yet.
- More than two decades experience writing about PCs and accessories, and 15 years writing about cameras of all kinds.
The Yoga Creator 7 looks just like the Yoga C940.
PC makers are really trying to attract creators at the moment. Sometimes the results are great. Other times, they're little more than gaming PCs dressed for the office, not a tournament. Lenovo's new Creator Series announced ahead of CES 2020 looks like it's somewhere in between with a few features that might appeal to creative hobbyists.
For example, the Yoga Creator 7 appears to be a rebadged 15.6-inch Yoga C940 minus the two-in-one's 360-degree sound bar hinge. It does, however, appear to gain an SD card slot as well as a full-HD display with 100% sRGB color gamut covering the full range of Pantone Matching System colors. Lenovo also says it will have the latest Nvidia GPUs with Studio Drivers optimized for users of Adobe apps, Blender and Cinema 4D. Those seem to be the bulk of what makes this for creatives.
This is the Lenovo IdeaPad Creator 5.
If you'd prefer a traditional clamshell design, Lenovo will also offer the IdeaPad Creator 5. It appears to have many of the same features as the Yoga Creator 7, but with a 15.6-inch full-HD display with 100% AdobeRGB color gamut coverage. It's also a more mainstream design that looks like a close cousin to the company's budget-friendly Legion gaming laptops.
Lenovo didn't announce pricing for the Creator 7 or 5 and availability is set for sometime in 2020. Also, neither is for the North American market.
The IdeaCentre Creator 5 arrives in October.
What will be available in the US, along with a few new displays for creators, is the IdeaCentre Creator 5 desktop. It's essentially just a smallish tower with an Intel Core i9 processor, 16GB of memory and a midrange Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 graphics card for $1,100.
The desktop comes with Lenovo's Digital Content Creators Vantage dashboard preinstalled that seems to give you direct access to trials for creative software. We haven't seen the dashboard in person yet, or the hardware for that matter, but will likely get a glimpse of everything at CES. Look for the IdeaCentre Creator 5 to go on sale in October.