Lenovo has announced a partnership with Esper Device Management to carry the Android operating system to some of its ThinkCentre and ThinkEdge series desktop PCs.
The first four Android-enabled computers are designed for emergency cases. specific business use. Lenovo specifically mentions retail, hospitality, or healthcare, but the products are not limited to those industries. To say that it is a big news to see Android on commercial PCs, but Lenovo believes that Google’s system offers advantages in certain use cases and appointment “greater flexibility, global familiarity, cost-effectiveness and a large pool of developers”.
Lenovo Android PCs
Of course, the version of Android installed is not the one we have on the mobile. It has been created by Esper, a company specialized in this type of versions. For starters, it includes a dedicated device management platform that manages and monitors devices. It supports remote deployments and administrators can run updates on devices using the platform.
Esper notes on its website that the systems support dual boot. With this, customers can start other operating systems in addition to Android, to run legacy software or devices if necessary. Note that Lenovo also supports Windows or GNU/Linux on these computers.
If Android on PCs is usually used by developers to test their apps and by some enthusiasts for testing purposes more than anything else and on older equipment with few resources, Lenovo’s move is something else. The first PC announced, a ThinkCentre M70a, is a 21-inch touchscreen all-in-one AIO, offering a choice of Intel processors up to a powerful Core i916 Gbytes of RAM and PCIe SSD.
There will also be a ThinkCentre M70q mini-PC with Android designed to mount with VESA brackets behind monitors and a ThinkEdge SE30, a rugged, fanless edge client that will also have a native Android option.
Lenovo Android PCs are specialized equipment and are not consumer equipment and it will be difficult for any large manufacturer to bet on a general line of personal computers with Android. But welcome as an alternative. to offer something different from Windows. One more Linux on the desktop taking into account the FOSS roots of Android.
