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Lenovo
Lenovo plans on hitting the tablet market this year with devices aimed at both Android and Windows.
In an interview with Dow Jones Newswires reported this week by The Wall Street Journal, (subscription required), Lenovo president and Chief Operating Officer Rory Read revealed that the company will launch two 10-inch Android tablets this summer followed by a 10-inch Windows tablet later in the year.
One Android tablet, named the IdeaPad, will be geared for the consumer market, while the other, with the ThinkPad name, will be marketed toward the business crowd. Both tablets will run Honeycomb and be priced anywhere from $450 to $900 depending on their configurations, according to the interview. Lenovo’s current tablet, the Android-powered LePad, is only available in China.
Some tech sites, including TechConnect and Pocket-Lint, are pointing to the IdeaPad tablet as the IdeaPad K1, a device that’s already received some buzz and was reportedly listed on a few retail sites, such as Buy.com, according to Engadget.
TechConnect describes the K1 as powered by a Tegra 2 processor with a 1280×800 10.1-inch touch screen, 16/32 GB of storage, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, USB and HDMI ports, and a battery capable of 8 to 10 hours of life on a single charge.
As a follow-up to its Android devices, Lenovo then plans to unveil a 10-inch Windows tablet before the end of the year, even though Windows 8 won’t yet be out. Also, the company is eyeing the launch of some 7-inch tablets later on.
At CES in January, Lenovo demonstrated a 10-inch Windows slate with the same overall design as its current LePad tablet but with an Atom processor and a stylus.
“We’ve really been working to tailor the experience” of our tablets, Read said, according to the Journal. “Some of the early-generation Android devices were a little ahead of their time, and what we’re doing here is making sure [our tablets] are strong. We only have one opportunity to make that first good impression.”
Read expects tablets to start to replace Netbooks and grab around 15 percent of the PC market over the next three years. But since Lenovo is a major PC vendor, the CEO doesn’t see a downturn hitting the overall computer market as a result.
“The PC business is going to continue to expand and continue to grow, and especially in emerging markets it could grow very rapidly,” he said.
