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Original URL: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/08/23/lenovo_thinkpad_tablet_goes_on_sale/

Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet goes on sale

iPad competitor touts business chops

By Rik Myslewski in San Francisco

Posted in Mobile, 23rd August 2011 21:11 GMT

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Mere days after HP threw its TouchPad tablet under the bus, Lenovo has tossed its new iPad-killer candidate into the marketplace.

The 10.1-inch Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet [1], which went on sale on Tuesday, has a focus and features that give it a far better chance than HP's megaflop to claw some market share away from Apple's "magical and revolutionary [2]" fondleslab.

Lenovo ThinkPad tablet

The Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet: all business (plus Angry Birds, Netflix, Kindle, mSpot Music...)

While the HP TouchPad – and, for that matter, Apple's iPad – was aimed at a broad market, Lenovo is banging the business drum [3] for the ThinkPad Tablet, calling it "the first true business-friendly tablet", targeting it towards "business users" and "mobile professionals", and touting its "business tablet ecosystem".

That Android 3.1–based ecosystem includes Good Technology's Good for Enterprise [4] mobile app suite, Cisco AnyConnect [5] secure VPN client, Absolute Software's Computrace Mobile [6] device tracker, DataViz' Documents To Go [7], Printer Anywhere's PrinterShare [8], McAfee Mobile Security [9], and more.

And for those times when you'd rather not look at yet another spreadsheet, Angry Birds [10] is one of the "more than 25" apps that come preloaded on the ThinkPad Tablet.

Two hardware options also support the Lenovo tablet's business focus: the ThinkPad Tablet Keyboard Folio ($100) and the ThinkPad Tablet Pen ($39.99). Both do pretty much what their names suggest – the Folio protects the tablet when closed, then unfolds to prop it up on an angle behind a keyboard, while the pen maks it possible to hand-write notes and annotations, and more-accurately make onscreen selections.

Unlike the Cupertinian slab, the ThinkPad Tablet has a reasonable collection of links to the outside world: one full-size and one micro USB port, a mini-HDMI port for external video, a dock connector, and an SD Card slot. As does the tablet's internal storage, the SD Card slot provides full encryption.

The tablet is powered by an Nvidia Tegra 2 dual-core processor running at 1GHZ, its 1280-by-800 in-plane switching [11] display is protected by Corning's Gorilla Glass, and it has two-megapixel front-facing and five-megapixel rear-facing cameras. The whole shebang weighs about 1.6 pounds and is 0.57 inches thick.

Wi-Fi models can now be purchased on Lenovo's web site [12] for $499 (16GB), $569 (32GB), and $669 (64GB); they'll begin shipping next Monday. Wi-Fi plus 3G models are not yet available. ®