Lenovo will offer an Intel RealSense camera with it's new MIIX 700 camera, but only on the back, and only on non-LTE models. Options are good, but we've had a number of questions from people wondering why it's any use on the back at all?
It's important to remember that the RealSense technology is much more than just Windows Hello. Indeed, it doesn't even need Windows to work since you can also get similar set ups on Android tablets, too.
We got our first look at RealSense supported laptops and tablets back in January at CES. Lenovo had one on the front and Dell had one on the back of its Venue 8000 Android tablet. All of this before Windows Hello existed.
We spoke to Lenovo at IFA about why you might want a RealSense camera on the back of a tablet and they gave us a few examples. Imagine you're in a profession like Real Estate, interior design or construction. Thanks to the depth sensing capabilities of the RealSense camera array you could easily begin to map out plans, place furniture, begin to piece together the environment in front of you in 3D.
It's going to have its niche, but that doesn't make it useless. Far from it. The great thing about the Lenovo approach on the MIIX 700 is that you don't have to have it. It's an option. You're able to have a regular rear camera, too. But you also can't have a RealSense MIIX 700 with LTE appararently. It's one or the other, presumably because of the hardware constraints of squeezing both technologies into its frame.
RealSense has a developer SDK and as time goes by and it becomes more widely adopted, hopefully we'll begin to see some innovative pieces of software to put it to use.
