Lenovo eyes iPad-alternative opportunity
LePad to run Android 3.0?
The status of Lenovo's rather cute'n'skinny Skylight netbook may be uncertain, but the Chinese computer maker has at least committed itself to release an iPad alternative by the end of the year.
Apparently, Lenovo has confirmed the debut of "LePad" - Lenovo's answer to the iPad in much the same way its LePhone targets the iPhone - and that it will be based on Android, IDG reports.
The LePhone is sold only in China, but there's no sign yet that the LePad will be similarly restricted to this one territory, big though it is.
The Skylight was originally due to go on sale in the US this past April, but a month later - and with no sign of the machine in shops - Lenovo said it was putting the project on hold, at least in the form shown up to that point, equipped as it was with a less well-known brand of Linux.
It implied the Skylight might yet make it to market with an alternative OS. Android may seem the most likely, but Google's other endeavour, Chrome OS, shouldn't be ruled out, especially since the latter seems more geared toward keyboard-based devices than Android really is.
The LePad, however, will be Android and probably used Android 3.0 - aka 'Gingerbread' - due late 2010/early 2011 and expected to appear in other tablets, most notably Asus' Eee Pad.
LG is working on one too.
Gingerbread is said to require a 1GHz CPU and be able to support 1280 x 760 screens - if that doesn't show it's tablet-centric, we don't know what does. ®
COMMENTS
U1
I would really like an Android-based U1. Not "released" in November and then actually available in March. I want one on the shelves in September. Enough with this "oh, yeah, we're making an android/webos/windows/whatever tablet/slate/pad/thingamawhatsit."
Announcements are worth nothing until I can saunter down to a brick and mortar and buy one. The exponential increase in vapourwear in IT has made me loose all faith I might ever had in virtually every IT company.
So I ask this of every single Android tablet “manufacturer:” Will your devices be shipping with Duke Nukem Forever?
I may have little love for Apple…but at least their stuff exists.
Well, I don't know so much....
Whatever Apple do, they will still have an expensive device that relies on iTunes to sync.
For me, all an alternative manufacturer needs to do is to release something of a reasonable specification, under about £350 that understands industry-standard memory expansion (so, SDHC and USB, basically), and they'll have my money.
It's going to be an interesting 12 months.
GJC
Price alternatives
Problem with many of the cheaper alternatives is they skimp on quality in terms of screen resolution and the like.
The iPad's 1024x768 isn't amazing when you look at the iPhone 4 display resolution. Yet some chiPads are 800x600, pretty poor for this decade.
Meanwhile...
..Apple will probably be on Gen 2 of the ipad by the time these are released, and if it's released with a 16x9 screen and proper HD resolution & playback (one can dream), these guys will have some real work to do.
So don't hold back HP/Leno/Asus...really go for it and give us a "proper" do-it-all tablet!
