Lenovo LePad and U1Base Hero for the Chinese market

Well, here it is, Lenovo’s LePad tabletthat’s running on Android. It’s odd, that the company stated they’ll only release LePad when Honeycomb is out, but now that Honeycomb is official, the company is still sticking to Froyo. Anyway, let’s take a look at what they are. The 10.1-inch LePad is powered by a newer 1.3GHz Snapdragon. The panel has a 1280 x 800 capacitive multitouch display, and seemed to be very thin indeed.



The LePad actually has another partner in crime, and it’s called the U1 base. It’s essentially a docking station for the LePad. When separated the LePad runs on Android, but when docked, it’ll be running on Windows. Quite a unique feature there from Lenovo. What’s more is that the U1 base looks like a netbook once docked with the LePad, but it has a an 1.2GHz Intel Core i5-540UM in the U1 base, with an optional i7.


Switching from Windows to Android just requires disengaging the latch on the base — the flip to Android is basically instantaneous, while getting back to Windows takes a few seconds. The U1 Base features a chiclet-style keyboard and dimpled trackpad.
However, as unique as it looks, it ain’t going to be cheap. The LePad will run for about $520 when it arrives in China this quarter, but the full U1 kit will run $1300. There’s also no US availability or pricing right now — and Lenovo told us the U1 won’t hit the States until it runs Android 3.0, so we could be waiting months while the company reskins the OS. Lenovo might even update the LePad to dual-core when it reaches US, so that might even take more time.












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