We’ve been covering Lenovo and their IdeaPad U1 “hybrid” notebook for some time here on PC Perspective. While the U1 is an interesting product, it doesn’t appeal to users who just want a slate and don’t care for the extra notebook base. Apparently Lenovo is going to launch a slate product in China called “LePad”, following the branding established by their LePhone smartphone.
Lenovo’s IdeaPad U1 Hybrid (left), and LePhone (right).
While these products are for the Chinese market only, there’s hope that LePad and LePhone will make it out to the rest of the world.
Up next is HP.
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer getting personal with the HP Slate during CES 2010 …
just weeks before HP canceled the product.
Ever since the cancellation of the much touted HP slate, the tech media has been watching HP very closely especially with anticipation of a new Palm WebOS product. Apparently, the HP Slate 500 appeared on the HP website. While little detail was provided, it did say it was Energy Star rated.
So a look through the Energy Star product database revealed that the HP Slate 500 was indeed certified and that it was using an Intel Atom Z530 1.6GHz CPU. This can mean that HP is still planning a Windows 7 device, or that HP has gone with Atom for an Android based product.
