Avocado toast is the hottest lunch trend to hit my apartment in years, and Lenovo just kicked it to a new level. After sticking Lenovo’s Smart Display in my kitchen this week, my snack of choice has only gotten better, and I couldn’t be happier. With the screen’s built-in recipe search and step-by-step guide to cooking, I learned that rubbing the bread with some cut garlic adds a lot of flavor, and finishing it off with a sprinkling of parsley, lime, and chopped tomatoes does wonders. I may even toss a fried egg on my green toast this week.
I could have looked up all these avocado toast recipes on my Android phone, but I never did. (I have no reasonable excuse, though I'm sure I could conjure up a lot of unreasonable excuses, and perhaps a diatribe about my family's bland dinners in the 1980s). The Smart Display simply makes following recipes easier and more interactive, letting you skip from step to step at your own pace. You can also get nutrition facts, which is helpful if you need to watch what you're eating.
The Smart Display is basically a stationary HD touchscreen with a Google Home speaker stuck to the left side. If you’ve ever seen an Amazon Echo Show[1], you know what to expect. It’s a conduit for Google Assistant, which can tell you the weather, answer questions, play music, and perform lots of other rudimentary tasks. You'll primarily interact with voice commands, but thanks to its screen, things get even more fun. Instead of hearing the weather, you can glance at it, and by asking questions or swiping around you can access new abilities that the screen brings, like adding items to a shopping list, displaying...