Three days after Apple started taking orders for the iPad, Lenovo has dropped a bomb with its own version of a touch-enabled tablet -- with the added convenience of a physical keyboard.
The IdeaPad S10 is not only the first touch-enabled low-cost tablet to hit India, it is also one of the first notebook to have iPhone-like 'multi touch' feature that allows 'pinch and zoom'. Apple is currently in court trying to prevent companies from implementing the feature, which it claims as its own.
With the release, Lenovo has become the first manufacturer from the Windows camp to take on Steve Jobs in the tablet market. It has also beaten other netbook majors such as Asus, Acer and HP which were expected to be the first to launch touch-enabled netbook-tablets.
The netbook-tablets or nettabs are expected to be the next big wave of product innovation in low cost computing. They are expected to supplant the netbook revolution that began in the late 2007 with Taiwanese manufacturer Asus.
The IdeaPad, available in India for Rs 30,740, has standard netbook features, except for the swiveling multi-touch keypad that converts it into a tablet when required. In another first for a netbook, the display is capacitive -- in other words, it is optimized for being worked on with fingers instead of a stylus.
The netbook-tablet is based on the recently released Intel Atom N450 chip and has 250 GB memory.
Another similar product category, the 'smartbooks' are soon expected to hit the market as we l. Instead of Intel chips, they will use ARM-based chips, currently used in cellphones, and are expected to deliver 10-15 hour battery life in ultra-thin, less-than-1-kg form factors. Currently, long-life netbooks weigh around 1.4 kg and have a clunky appearance due to their protruding six-cell batteries.
In January this year, Lenovo became the first major manufacturer to exhibit its 'smartbook' called Skylight.
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