Lenovo to press LePad on LeWorld

Global release for erstwhile 'China only' Android tablet

Lenovo will bring its entry into the Android tablet arena to a world audience, but not before it has released the gadget in its native China.

The tablet, called the LePad and which, like HTC's Flyer tablet, will run Android 2.2 Froyo, will go on sale in China in March, around the time that its competitors begin selling Android 3.0 Honeycomb-based rivals in the West. LePad will be released to other countries in June, a Lenovo spokesman told IDG.

LePad and IdeaPad U1: from tablet to netbook, and back again

LePad is a 10.1in tablet with a 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon CPU. Lenovo showed it off at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) last January, along with a laptop-style unit, the IdeaPad U1, into which the LePad can be clipped to make a netbook.

At the time, both items were said to be aimed solely at the Chinese market.

Will the gadget come to the UK, though? Lenovo recently confessed that its new, AMD-based 11.6in sub-notebook the ThinkPad X120e is not going to be made available to Europeans. Perhaps the LePad - despite its Gallic-sounding name - won't either. ®