Lenovo’s expanding its tablet strategy — or perhaps just targeting folks who want a low-cost tablet with its latest tablet, the low-spec IdeaPad A1.
ZDNET reports on the tablet plans, noting firstly the key selling point as the price. At under $US200 (no word yet on Aussie pricing or availability) it’ll join the ranks of the very cheap tablet crowd, and that usually means cutting corners. In the A1′s case, though, it doesn’t seem like too many key items have been skipped over. It’ll be a Gingerbread tablet with a 7 inch display, 1GHz processor and up to 32GB of storage. Lenovo will add its own launcher software to the tablet, but Honeycomb is notably absent. From the looks of the image, it’s following the design notes of the ThinkPad tablet more than the IdeaPad K1, which I’d say is a good thing.
I’ve long held the view that the best strategy for Android tablets to take on the iPad juggernaut was to seriously attack them on price, and this looks like a play directly into that camp. Maybe Lenovo’s bluster about taking on Apple recently might bear some fruit.[ZDNet]
Willem Dukas
Friday, September 2, 2011 at 9:08 AM32gb of RAM! I suppose you mean flash memory.
Willem Dukas
Friday, September 2, 2011 at 9:09 AM32gb if RAM! I suppose you mean flash memory.
Alex Kidman
Friday, September 2, 2011 at 9:22 AMIndeed I do. That’ll teach me to skip my morning cup of coffee. Corrected now.
light487
Friday, September 2, 2011 at 9:26 AMAt first glance it looks good. Can’t wait for a hands on review.
poltak
Friday, September 2, 2011 at 10:48 AMWow, nice! After selling my Honeycomb tablet, I’ve been waiting for a cheap quality 7″. I could care less what version of Android it uses. As long as the battery life is greater than ~4hrs like the Chinese 7″ tabs at the moment, it should be great.
kdc
Friday, November 18, 2011 at 9:51 PMAny word yet on when this will be released in Australia? Oh and the cheapest pricing I have seen it advertised in the US is $229.
If you buy a laptop/tablet from the US, how do you go about using it in Australia please given that we run on a much higher voltage, and would also have different power plugs?
Thanks
JB
Saturday, November 19, 2011 at 9:28 PMLaptop and Tablet Chargers can be used on variable voltages (check the charger, it should say something like 110v-240v). All you need is a plug adapter to be able to plug the US plug into the Aussie electrical socket. Easy!