Lenovo takes on Amazon Echo with Smart Assistant

Lenovo has a smart speaker whose potential customers are easy to define: Everyone who wants an Amazon Echo, but needs better sound. It's called the Lenovo Smart Assistant, and it's an Alexa-powered digital assistant and speaker. It works just like the Echo: You talk to it, and Alexa talks back, giving you info on things like the weather, and helping you do tasks such as play music or order something from Amazon. SEE ALSO: Lenovo's latest smartphone in India has a mammoth 6.4-inch display, dual cameras While the Smart Assistant is a cylinder-shaped speaker that looks a lot like the Echo, it comes in a variety of colors, including light grey, green and orange. And the specs are roughly the same: a tweeter and a subwoofer (just like the Echo) and eight microphones for 360-degree coverage (the Echo has only seven).