Lenovo leans into digital photo frames with new 21.5-inch Smart Frame

Lenovo’s Smart Frame is a new 21.5-inch display that’s designed to mount on your wall and display your photos. The Smart Frame, which Lenovo is announcing today at CES, features a 1080p IPS display, which uses a sensor to automatically adjust its display based on ambient light conditions. Alongside it, Lenovo also has a new 10-inch Android tablet that includes a dock to let you use it like a Google Assistant smart display — the Smart Tab M10.

With the Smart Frame, Lenovo is doubling down on the digital photo frame aspect of smart displays, which is one of their most compelling use cases. It doesn’t include a voice assistant, but Lenovo says the Smart Frame’s software prioritizes showing your highest-quality photos, and it can also automatically arrange them into collages. The only problem is that Lenovo’s current solution for getting photos onto the Smart Frame sounds a bit awkward, and it involves using a companion app to transfer your images.

The Smart Frame can be orientated horizontally or vertically, with a mounting system that lets you rotate between them. Photo by Sam Byford / The Verge

The Smart Frame also features a snap-on mounting system, which lets you rotate its IPS display by 90-degrees to view your photos in either landscape or portrait.

Meanwhile, Lenovo’s new Smart Tab M10 is a slightly bigger version of the Smart Tab M8 it announced last September. This time, it’s got a 10-inch 1080p screen rather than an 8-inch 1280 x 800 screen. But otherwise, it works very similarly to Lenovo’s previous model. You can use it like an Android tablet when undocked, but placing it into its charging station puts it into the smart display-like ambient mode.

The Smart Tab M10 turns into a smart display when you dock it. Image: Lenovo

That doesn’t make it exactly the same as a fully fledged Google Assistant smart display like the Google Nest Hub Max, but it gives you many of the same features. These include watching video flash briefings, monitoring camera feeds, or controlling smart home devices using your voice. Its dual microphones can pick up voice commands from up to 9.8 feet away, according to Lenovo, and the display will function as a digital photo frame when not in use (and it conveniently integrates with Google Photos).

Lenovo’s Smart Frame starts at $399, and it will be available starting in August, while the Smart Tab M10 FHD Plus 2nd Gen with Google Assistant (the full, official name) will be available in April with pricing starting at $189.99.

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