Lenovo's Android 4.0 tablet wants to be your laptop, too
The IdeaTab S2 is Lenovo's take on the Asus Eee Pad Transformer concept, offering a high-powered Android tablet with a keyboard dock attachment that serves as an extended battery.
The key word around Lenovo these days is "convergence."
In the case of the Lenovo IdeaTab S2, we're seeing an Android 4.0 tablet converging with the keyboard and touch pad of a conventional notebook computer. Like Asus'
The keyboard accessory also provides a number of useful extras, such as two full-size USB ports, HDMI output, SD card reader, and an internal battery pack that affords an extra 10 hours of uptime.
With a press of a button, the tablet springs out (expertly demonstrated in this video) and you find yourself holding a slim (8.69mm) tablet with a 10-inch IPS display, boasting a 1,280x800-pixel resolution. The tablet runs Android 4.0 powered by a Qualcomm 8x60A/8960 1.5 GHz Dual Krait processor and 1GB of LP-DDR2 memory.
The rest of the hardware capabilities are just as you'd expect from a high-end Android tablet, including GPS, 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR, a 1.3 megapixel front-facing camera, and an 8-megapixel camera on the back that includes autofocus and an LED flash. There's also a microSD card slot for extra storage, Micro-HDMI output, Micro-USB sync, and an optional SIM card slot.
Finally, to put its own spin on Android 4.0 (for better or worse) Lenovo has skinned the UI with a unique tiled interface, allowing you to quickly access frequently used apps and widgets (such as stocks and weather).
No word yet on exact availability, but Lenovo sounded optimistic that the tablet would arrive in the second quarter of 2012 with a base price of $399.
