Lenovo and Toshiba prepping lightweight slates

Couple of top players in the Tablet PC market are piquing interest with passing mentions and peeks at lightweight slates they have in the works. A Lenovo exec has been talking about their “LePad” while Toshiba Australia left audiences wanting more with a shot of their slate in development.

Liu Jun, senior vice president and president Lenovo Consumer Business Group, didn’t offer a lot of details except to say their device will be called the LePad and will run Android. The naming convention is in line with their other non-PC offerings, like LePhone. He goes on to discuss how Apple hasn’t focused on the Chinese market, so this could be a strictly domestic venture for them (domestic for them being China-only). Via PC World by way of Gizmodo.

From Toshiba Australia, managing director Mark Whittard offered fewer details but showed off a prototype of their lightweight tablet at a 25th anniversary celebration press conference. Confirmed was that both Android and Windows 7 tablets are in the works. Of course, Toshiba already sells Windows-based Tablet PCs (I have two), so only half of that is news. If this were any other company, I’d assume the slate was to be Android-only and their convertibles will remain Windows-based, but given their experiment with the Libretto W100 dual-screen tablet running Windows 7, I can see them running either or both ways. PC Authority via Netbook News.