- Hey this is Tom from The Verge.
And we've seen Google Assistant everywhere from your phone,
your TV, your car even your watch.
Now we're seeing it on these brand new smart displays.
And Lenovo is one of the first partners
to create these actual devices.
(exciting music)
Essentially it's basically extending the Google Assistant
to a screen based display.
So similar to how we've seen the Echo look
sort of similar device to that.
This is exactly what it does with that.
So I can say stuff like hey Google.
Good morning.
And it's gonna go through a routine which you'll get your
ride to work information, maybe the news
all that sort of stuff, the sort of thing you'd expect
when you wake up and ask it for a routine.
So other things you can do beside the routine stuff
is obviously queries like you would on Google Assistant.
Hey Google show me bakeries nearby.
So normally on a phone you'd listen to the Google Assistant
and you'd get a bunch of stuff back and you'd have to wait
and go through every single thing.
Here you can obviously scroll through,
it's like a car UI you can tap whichever one you want.
So you can also dig deeper into the experience.
Hey Google, show me how to get there.
- [Machine] The best way to get Carlo's Bake Shop.
- Your obviously gonna get directions through Google Maps.
And what's really interesting is it's also
gonna send these directions to your phone
as well so you can pick up and go out
and drive to wherever you need to go.
So you might be wondering what's this running
is it Chrome is it Android?
It's actually Android Things which boots into the Google
Assistant experience that we're seeing right here.
We're seeing a Google Duo, we see Google play music,
we see Maps, YouTube.
A lot of Google services at the moment.
There's gonna be third party user support in the future
that doesn't mean via Android apps or anything like that
so it's a new platform essentially that Google's created.
And Lenovo is one of the first hardware makers
to sort of launch this at CES this show.
There's actually two different models.
There's an eight inch and a 10 inch.
The eight inch has got just a regular HD display.
The 10 inch has got a full HD display but Lenovo
has done some interesting things on the hardware.
So around the back of the eight inch model
you've got a matte finish.
And on the 10 inch model it is actually bamboo.
Those aren't gonna be exchangeable
that's just how they designed them.
Lenovo built a stand into the base so that you can change
whichever way you want them to stand.
So that's pretty neat as well.
They've also done a really interesting privacy feature
which is the webcam has a shutter, a physical shutter
so it can shut off.
And you'll be able to see that from the distance
with a red dot essentially that will show you
that it's actually turned on.
That's a pretty good to see in these sort of devices.
We've seen a device like the Echo Spot
that's got a camera that's pointing at your bedroom
there's no control over the actual webcam.
Even though there's a lot of software restrictions
it's still quite nice just to have that
as a privacy control anyway.
These are like miniature little TVs,
they've got a retro sort of look to them.
And I can see that they'd fit in with your kitchen.
You obviously could get YouTube for your recipes
and got Google Maps for your driving directions
that kind of makes sense at that part of the home.
And they're small enough to sit on the side
and just be there for when you need to call them.
I feel what's really more interesting though
is the actual platform and where this will go.
These are obviously limited to this eight inch
and 10 inch form factor on these devices.
There's gonna be other ones obviously.
But what I think is really interesting is where it goes
could it be part of your toaster
or could it be on your fridge?
That's kinda where I see this essentially going
in the future.
In terms of when they're gonna be available,
when you can get your hands on one of these.
Google and Lenovo are both saying
this is gonna be summertime.
The eight inch model here is priced at $199
and the 10 inch one is priced at $249.
So you're gonna be able to get these in the summertime.
And that's when we're gonna see
exactly what happens with it.
You're obviously seeing the Amazon Echo Show
and it's pretty early days for that particular device.
We haven't really seen it's full capabilities yet.
This is obviously a major competitor to it.
And it's what we're expecting to see.
Whether either device is successful or not
we'll have to see but I think it's gonna be an interesting
battle for the rest of the year.
Okay thanks for watching.
We're gonna be at CES all week
so subscribe to our YouTube channel
and you're gonna be able to see
a lot more devices just like this.