Lenovo Smart Assistant release date, specs, price news: Lenovo introduces digital personal assistant with Amazon Alexa

Given that consumers are gradually becoming more and more reliant on voice-controlled smart devices, it is predicted that the Internet of Things (IoT) market will see exponential growth by 2020. In anticipation of this trend, Lenovo is already paving the way to provide consumers with affordable ways to embrace smart home technologies starting with the Smart Assistant, a digital personal assistant powered by Amazon Alexa.

"Our goal has never been to simply build smart home devices for the sake of advancing technology alone. In the same way a person's IQ is measured by applied knowledge, we believe products are 'smart' to the degree they're actually understood and applied to daily life by their users," said Johnson Jia, senior vice president of Lenovo's PC & Smart Device Business Group.

The Lenovo Smart Assistant was built in collaboration with Amazon. It is able to recognize voice commands and using Alexa's cloud-based services, users will be able to search the web, play music, organize their calendar and much more. According to Lenovo, 65 percent of people worldwide are already using similar services on their smartphones, tablets and PCs. It is proving to be a more convenient way of accomplishing several tasks at the same time.

In terms of specs, the Smart Assistant is powered by an Intel Celeron N3060 processor with 2 GB of random access memory (RAM) and 8 GB of built-in storage. It has eight 360-degree far-field microphones to ensure that voice commands are picked up even from 5 meters away. It also comes with noise suppression and acoustic echo cancellation. The smart device is 1.5 liter in size and weighs 1.67 pounds.

The Lenovo Smart Assistant is available in four colors: Light Gray, Orange, Green and Harman Black. The latter is a special Harman Kardon edition that delivers high-quality audio and home entertainment.

The Lenovo Smart Assistant will be available to purchase beginning in May for $129.99, while the Harman Kardon model will be priced $179.99.