Mobile
Lenovo IdeaPad U1 Shipping in November in the U.S.?
The Lenovo IdeaPad U1, a hybrid Android tablet and Windows notebook solution, was just seen passing through the FCC for U.S. regulatory approval. The IdeaPad U1’s claim to fame is that the tablet portion, which will run Google’s Android Honeycomb operating system, can dock in a clamshell notebook dock, which will then utilize the tablet portion as the notebook’s display to power a complete Windows notebook system complete with Intel Core i5 CPU.
Lenovo had previously promised a summer release for the tablet for the U.S. market, but has not announced anything since the tablet was last demoed at the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this year. According to Electronista, Lenovo had asked the FCC to maintain confidentiality of certain specific parts of its filing for the IdeaPad U1 until November 22nd, suggesting that the tablet may launch sometime in November, if not earlier.
Lenovo’s hybrid dock for the Android tablet is similar to Asus’s Eee Pad Transformer. However, the Transformer, unlike the U1 hybrid, doesn’t turn the slate into a full-powered Windows machine.
Via: Electronista
Steve S
07/11/2011 at 3:53 pm
I dunno. Lenovo’s U1 sounded like a great idea months ago, but in the intervening time, as we’ve had a chance to see how low-power Atom and how Android actually perform, the U1 concept has had less and less appeal. The Japanese earthquake disaster not withstanding, Lenovo’s time to market on this has been seriously deficient and I suspect that the whenever the concept does arrive, it’s not going to make much of a splash (after all). However, in the spirit of encouraging innovation, I wish them luck anyway…