I Know You

ThinkPad spawns a sleek, precocious little offspring.

by Mark Spoonauer

Fingerprint scanners try to make it as easy as a swipe to lock down your laptop’s precious data and log you onto CNBC. There’s just one problem: annoying false negatives when you don’t position your finger exactly so. Lenovo fixes that and adds a bit of Get Smart flair with its VeriFace facial-recognition technology on the new IdeaPad U110 (price TBD; lenovo.com), which hits the market in April. All you have to do is stand in front of the 11-inch widescreen, and the high-resolution Webcam will ensure that your visage matches the one in your stored profile. This 2.3-pound portable even keeps a mugshot list of enemy agents who have attempted (and failed) to log on.

All this with a gorgeous frameless LCD design, touch-sensitive controls, slick Shuttle Center software for switching among photos, movies and music and a red aluminum alloy top cover — it’s easy to see why the Lenovo guys chose to come up with a new name for this latest offspring of the mothership ThinkPad brand. Welcome new amenities for frequent fliers include an Active Protection System — an air bag–like device that parks the IdeaPad’s hard drive to protect data in case of a fall.