Lenovo announces Amazon Echo competitor

PC maker Lenovo today announced Lenovo Smart Assistant, an Amazon Echo competitor. It is the first smart speaker with Amazon's voice-activated virtual assistant Alexa built in. It will work with the Alexa app, too.

The Smart Assistant resembles Echo in shape and comes in a variety of colors, including light grey, green and orange. With its price of $130, it is cheaper that Amazon's Echo ($180). However, Lenovo is also offering a Harman Kardon edition of the Smart Assistant featuring better sound quality for $180.

The device has to be plugged in to work, and it's always on, so you don't have to press any buttons to activate an Alexa command. It uses a total of eight microphones, which Lenovo says can pick up commands from 16 feet away. 1x1 802.11n WiFi is supported.

The speaker is expected to ship in May.

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