This is at once pretty cool and also very, really, incredibly silly and dumb. But that’s not a bad thing! Here’s Lenovo’s Horizon desktop computer. It’s half Minority Report, half newjack board game. Oh, and also a full Windows 8 all-in-one computer.
Lenovo’s all-in-ones have contorted down to be worked on horizontally for a while now, the Horizon is specifically designed to be picked up, moved around, and used by multiple people. It’s got a rubber edge to protect it from bangs, and to make it easier to carry, and its screen is drop-proof (though not spill-proof).
It uses what Lenovo calls the Aura UI, which uses drag-wheels to launch videos, pictures, apps, and games. You can use gestures to isolate one video, zoom or shrink, clean the whole desktop, or close all open files. The Horizon comes with 15 pre-loaded apps, and there are 3000 more in its app store. Lenovo says it’s got five major developers making games for the Horizon, headlined by EA and Ubisoft.
The Horizon comes with a bunch joysticks to play its games, and can run on battery power if you want to take it away from its power source — like outside into a club house, if your kids are very rich an insane. It weighs 17 pounds, so they better be strong.
Internally, this is a regular all-in-one. It goes from i3 to i7, can go up to 16GB of RAM, and has discrete graphics. Its cheapest configuration starts at $US1000. It’s basically the same purchase as if you’d buy any other all-in-one, just with this functionality added. Lenovo has a custom stand for it, so it can be a waist-level console in the middle of your house. Unfortunately, the automated space-age table/desk/gaming centre from the video is just a concept for now.
The Horizon is cool — and also very, very gimmicky. It’s sort of like the Wii U in that it’s deeply centered on in-person, multi-user experiences, but when you’re just by yourself, you probably won’t use any of this new stuff. Still, it seems like the kind of thing that all your friends might not actually want, but would be more than happy to come over to your house and play with.