Lenovo Unveils Pair of Tablet PCs
Business, Casual Consumers Both Targeted
A lot of attention has been directed at the tablet PC market lately after Hewlett-Packard (HP) knocked about $300 off its discontinued TouchPad device. Despite the fact that HP made that price reduction because it apparently couldn't compete with Apple's ubiquitous iPad, hardware maker Lenovo has decided to boldly wade into this very difficult market with both business and entry-level tablet devices.
On Thursday, Lenovo announced it would soon release the IdeaPad Tablet A1 for just $199. That's right, a tablet that costs less than $200 and hasn't even been rendered obsolete (cough, TouchPad, cough)!
It's also one heck of a portable little device. Lenovo says the 7-inch IdeaPad Tablet A1 weighs just 400 grams and is only half an inch thick. That makes it considerably less bulky than either the iPad or the TouchPad, though if you're not a fan of squinting it may not be ideal.
True, the IdeaPad is quite a bit smaller than those aforementioned Apple and HP devices, but even in the 7-inch sector of the tablet market the A1 can be considered very cheap. The IdeaPad Tablet A1's two major rivals at this size, the Acer Iconia Tab A100 and the Samsung Galaxy Tab retail for $329 and $279, respectively.
(If you're fumbling for a calculator, let me save you the time: the IdeaPad Tablet A1 is 40 per cent cheaper than the Iconia Tab A100 and 29 per cent cheaper than Samsung's Galaxy Tab.)
Of course, the big question will be whether or not Lenovo can throw out the kind of applications necessary to compete with the iPad 2. This was a major stumbling block for the TouchPad and its webOS platform, but Lenovo says it won't present an issue for the IdeaPad Tablet A1.
Why? Because it ships with an Android operating system (OS), which means IdeaPad owners will already have access to about 240,000 different apps. Beyond that, Lenovo plans to ship the IdeaPad Tablet A1 with 40 apps pre-loaded, including the uber-popular Angry Birds. There will also be apps on there from Amazon.com, Adobe Systems, and Electronic Arts.
The IdeaPad Tablet A1 announcement comes not long after Lenovo unveiled a much more powerful, business-oriented device called the ThinkPad Tablet. At 10.1-inches it's considerably larger and comes in three different formats, the 16GB model ($499), 32GB model ($569), and big, 'ol 64GB edition ($669). It's not exactly priced to sell, but the ThinkPad will boast WiFi and 3G connections as well as a plethora of input options, including mini-HDMI, SD card, and two USB ports.
The ThinkPad Tablet will also come with an Android OS.
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