It's still technically the day before the IFA show in Berlin, but companies continue to make pre-show announcements about all of their phones, tablets, and PCs. Yesterday, we took a look at all of the products that Toshiba, Acer, and Asus were planning to release between now and the end of the year, plus a single gaming notebook from Lenovo.

Today is a bigger day, if only because of the size of the companies involved. Dell, HP, and Lenovo are the three biggest sellers of PCs, both worldwide and in the US, at least according to most estimates. Today all three are taking the wraps off the majority of their product lines. Many of the trends remain the same, however: you'll see low-cost Windows PCs priced to compete with Chromebooks, some mini desktops to address an actively growing segment of the PC market, and a few more Broadwell systems with Intel's Core M chips inside.

Dell

All of the Windows PCs Dell is unveiling today are actually business PCs in the Latitude and Optiplex lines—perhaps not the most exciting machines, but likely more lucrative and profitable to Dell than the majority of its mid- to low-end consumer PC lines. Businesses often have money to spend on equipment that consumers just don't have, and they're willing to pay more for easy-to-service machines that will last the three-to-five years most business computers are expected to last. Dell told us that its decision to return to being a private company last year made it easier to focus on important but "unsexy" machines like these.

Dell

Dell

Dell

Dell

Dell

Dell

Dell began its presentation with two PCs that were released earlier this summer and are already available for purchase, but we thought they were worth drawing some attention to anyway. The lower-end Optiplex 3020 Micro and the higher-end 9020 Micro are two very similar mini desktops that may appeal to those who want something a little more powerful (and a little more business-friendly) than Intel's NUC. The two share what is essentially the same chassis, which means they share the same size (7.17 by 1.4 by 6.93 inches), weight (2.82 pounds), and port selection (six USB 3.0 ports, one LAN jack, a VGA port, a DisplayPort, and microphone and headphone jacks). Both even support the same CPUs (35W Haswell desktop chips from the Celeron up to the Core i7), GPUs (Intel integrated), and RAM slots (two SO-DIMMs, like you'd find in a laptop).

The differences, such as they are, are subtle. The 9020 uses a higher-end Intel Q87 chipset, while the 3020 uses the H81 chipset—among other things, this enables support for RAID 0 and RAID 1 disk configurations, vPro, and a whole range of Intel management technologies that larger businesses often use. Both devices have a short M.2 slot that can be used for an optional 802.11ac Wi-Fi card, but only the 9020 also includes a longer M.2 slot that can be used for a small SSD. Both computers include a single 2.5-inch hard drive slot that can be used for hard drives, hybrid drives, or SSDs, and both support connections to a wide range of external enclosures and VESA mounts.

Both the 3020 Micro and the 9020 Micro (as well as a full range of larger computers in the same series) are already available. The 3020 Micro starts at $499 while the 9020 Micro starts at $719.

Dell

Dell

Dell

Dell

Dell

If you're more interested in convertibles (or in systems you haven't seen before), Dell's first Core M device looks promising. The Latitude 13 7000 Series 2-in-1 has a mouthful of a name, but it pairs a thin, fanless 13-inch tablet with a backlit keyboard base that has the nice travel and full-size keys you'd expect from a standard Latitude notebook. Since this is just the kind of system Intel wants OEMs to try to put together using Core M, we expect it will draw some consumer attention, too.

The laptop uses a 1080p IPS touchscreen, Core M processors of indeterminate clock speed, and an Intel HD 5300 integrated GPU, "up to" 8GB of RAM, and "up to" 512GB SSDs. The tablet and keyboard dock combined weigh 3.67 pounds, heavier than many non-convertible 13-inch Ultrabooks but not too heavy to sling into a bag. The keyboard dock includes two USB 3.0 ports and one mini DisplayPort, and the tablet itself includes a headphone jack and SD card reader. 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0 come standard, while LTE, NFC, a SmartCard reader, and vPro support are all available as optional add-ons.

Several USB accessories exist to add the ports that the laptop lacks, including a "universal dongle" that adds additional USB ports, a LAN jack, and even a VGA port. The convertible will start at $1,199 and will be available in October.

Dell

Dell

Dell

Dell

Dell

If you're a bigger fan of regular laptops, the 12-inch Latitude E5250 joins the 14- and 15-inch laptops in the midrange Latitude 5000 series. These systems are very much offshoots of their larger relatives—Haswell processors, a decent port selection (three USB 3.0, one mini DisplayPort, one HDMI, gigabit Ethernet, and an SD card reader), and a plainish but understated black frame. We'll update this post if we can get more specific specifications from Dell, but in the meantime you can expect this laptop to start at $769 when it launches on September 25.

HP

HP

HP

HP

HP

HP has three new Windows PCs of note to talk about today. The first is a pair of Core M convertibles, which, like the Latitude 7000 2-in-1, consist of a tablet that docks in a keyboard. The Envy x2 comes in both 13- and 15-inch variants that have a bit of a Surface Pro feel to them. There's a "multi-angle" kickstand on the back of both tablets that props them up, while the fabric-covered keyboard accessory doubles as a screen cover. Without having spent any hands-on time with the device, we can only speculate about how the keyboard and kickstand work together, but, like the Surface Pro 3, we expect it won't be as easy to work on your lap as it is with a standard laptop (or a convertible with a more rigid base), and the kickstand will make the device take up more space in laptop mode than a more conventional device would.

Both devices are fanless and include 1080p IPS displays flanked by front-facing speakers, which (as in devices like the HTC One M8) may improve sound but also increase the size of the bezels. The 13.3-inch model weighs 2.8 pounds, is 0.55 inches thick, includes 8GB of RAM and standard SSDs, and launches October 29 for $1,049.99. The 15.6-inch model weighs 4.0 pounds, is 0.59 inches thick, includes 8GB of RAM and standard hybrid hard drives and launches on November 5 for $949.99.

HP

HP

HP

HP

The Pavilion X2 is a lower-rent version of the same idea, though in this case the keyboard and the non-adjustable fabric kickstand is part of the keyboard dock. The tablet weighs 1.2 pounds and is 0.41 inches thick—it's smaller both because of its 10.1-inch touchscreen and its slower Intel Atom processor. Like several of the devices we took a look at yesterday, this thing definitely has some netbook DNA encoded into it.

The keyboard attachment doesn't have the fuzzy fabric texture of the Envy x2, but the foldable fabric-covered stand does, and it comes in a few different colors. The tablet does keep its front-facing speakers, though, and also manages to fit in a full-size USB port, a mini HDMI port, and a micro SD slot. The tablet includes 2GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage and launches on October 29 for $329.99.

Lenovo

Lenovo

Lenovo

Lenovo

Lenovo

Lenovo already announced a gaming laptop yesterday, but the company's announcements today focus more on the same thin-and-light and convertible systems that we're seeing from everyone else. First up is a Core M system, a follow-up to the ThinkPad Helix convertible. The original Helix was generally well-regarded, but it was an Ivy Bridge-based system that came out just as Haswell was launching—given that Haswell was all about improving the battery life of Ultrabooks and convertibles, the Helix already had a big strike against it right out of the gate.

This second-generation model is on the other end of the spectrum as one of the first Broadwell-based systems, and it should benefit from the decreased power usage and increased battery life. The tablet has an 11.6-inch 1080p display, weighs 1.8 pounds, and is 0.38 inches thick. The convertible's hinge should allow it to be about as flexible as Lenovo's Yoga line (see it in "Tent Mode" above), but it adds an active digitizer and pen input to the package for people who like to write on their screens. Broadwell means the tablet can get away with being fanless, removing the awkward fan flap that some reviewers complained about in the original.

By itself, the tablet is rated for about eight hours of battery life, but it can be paired with one of two keyboard-plus-battery docks to extend its runtime: an "Ultrabook keyboard" dock that adds eight hours of battery life, and an "Ultrabook Pro keyboard" that adds 12 hours and the signature red TrackPoint nub. The Helix tablet and the standard keyboard will run $999 when they are released in October. We don't have any information on RAM or storage, but 4GB or 8GB of memory and all-SSD storage seems like a safe bet for this kind of system in this price range.

Lenovo

Lenovo

Lenovo

Lenovo

Finally, we get to some big, semi-portable touchscreen all-in-ones, the kind of "tabletop" systems that began appearing at around the same time as Windows 8 did—both are descendants of the 27-inch "Horizon" PC Lenovo announced at CES in 2013. The Horizon 2s (the "s" is for "slim") is the "premium" model, and it has a 19.5-inch 1080p IPS touchscreen. Impressively, Lenovo was able to get the weight down to about 5.6 pounds, lighter than the 17-inch gaming notebook the company just announced yesterday. The computer includes its own dedicated stand, but a $89 "charging stand" can make it look a bit more like a traditional all-in-one (aside from making it easier to plunk back down on your desk). The built-in battery allows for about 2.5 hours of use. It starts at $949 and will be introduced in September.

The Horizon 2e is the "budget" model, and it starts at $749 and will be introduced in October. Its 21.5-inch 1080p touchscreen is a bit larger than the 2s' but the machine is also heavier, at 10.1 pounds. The computer still has a built-in stand, but there's no optional charging accessory you can keep on your desk. The built-in battery will last for about three hours.

Both systems include Haswell-based CPUs and hybrid hard drives, as well as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0, and NFC (included in the 2s, optional in the 2e). Both can include up to 8GB of RAM, and the 2e can be configured with a dedicated Nvidia GeForce GT 840M GPU if you want to add a little extra graphics power.

Listing image by Lenovo