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IdeaPad U1, What We Wanted the iPad To Be

Xanator writes "With the announcement of the iPad, the Lenovo IdeaPad U1 Hybrid appears to have gone unnoticed, but maybe we ought to pay it more attention. It's a netbook with a removable screen that turns it into a tablet (switching OS from Windows 7 to a tablet OS within 3 seconds), and it appears to offer what many of us wanted from the iPad. Quoting Engadget: 'When docked, the U1 looks and feels like any other laptop, with an Intel CULV processor and a 128GB SSD running Windows 7 Home Premium. You actually wouldn't know there's a slate hiding in there — until you pull it out and watch it switch to Lenovo's Skylight UI, a process that was smooth and quick for us. Lenovo says the goal is for the full switch to occur in under 3 seconds.'"

6 of 401 comments (clear)

  1. But what did Apple want? by RobinEggs · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What We Wanted the IPad To Be

    People keep talking as if Apple really missed the boat with iPad, but the truth is they only missed the boat for hard-core, tinker-happy nerds...and they've made a very specific point of missing that boat for at least the last decade. They're marketing to fanboys who want it to be trendy and 'just work', not to nerds.

    So it's nice that this might be what you hoped for from the iPad. But why did you hope iPad would be what you wanted in the first place?

    1. Re:But what did Apple want? by friedmud · · Score: 5, Insightful

      - Price - Yes! Compared to an E-Reader like a Kindle DX for the same price... I'll take a device that can do hundreds of things well over a device that can only do one.

      - Battery Life - Yes! It gets 10 hours of battery... what more could you want from a device that does so much?

      - Connectivity - Yes! Wifi and 3G (admittedly expensive). Also.. you can connect a camera to it using USB or SDCARD (bottom of this page: http://www.apple.com/ipad/specs/ )

      - Usability - Definitely! Millions of people already intuitively know how to use one. Navigation is simple... interacting is simple. How would you make it more usable... and what the hell is a "test editor"?

      - Multitasking - No. I agree here... I hope it comes in OS 4.0... but it's not a show stopper for millions of people currently using iPhone OS devices....

    2. Re:But what did Apple want? by Draek · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Or they simply didn't like it. Why is that concept so hard to believe?

      --
      No problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances.
  2. nice, but by orient · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Lenovo will, certainly, build a more affordable and compatible/open device than Apple. Their advantage will be the price, but Apple has the advantage of their OS and well known applications.

    --
    Laudele lor desigur m-ar mahni peste masura.
  3. Is the prupose of the video by enryonaku · · Score: 4, Insightful

    to demonstrate how the UI is laggy and the touch unresponsive?

  4. Nice headline by sootman · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Who is "we"? I'm pretty happy with what the iPad is. Also, I'm happy to pay half the cost of an IdeaPad, and get it 8 months sooner.

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