Lenovo’s been awfully quiet about the Skylight smartbook and U1 Hybrid tablet / laptop since it first showed them off at CES, and now we know why: following weeks of rumors that the custom Linux-based Skylight OS wasn’t up to snuff, the company is killing the project entirely in favor of Android. That makes a lot of sense, considering Lenny’s already shipping a Skylight-skinned version of Android on the Snapdragon-based LePhone, but it also means that the Skylight smartbook and U1 demoed to us at CES are done for as well — Lenovo’s statement says the “initial version of the Skylight” is being “shelved” and refers to the U1 as a “concept.”
We spoke to Lenovo for clarification and it sounds like things are in considerable flux at the moment: the company told us it wants to tap into Android’s apps and ecosystem, but it’s invested something like 18-24 months into building Skylight OS products and it’s going to rethink and retool while it transitions to Google’s OS — although the underlying ideas of the Skylight and U1 Hybrid will live on in future devices, neither will come to market as announced. We were also told that Lenovo is now targeting Q4 as a launch date for Android-based devices, so we’ll see what happens — it’ll be a sad day for the gadget world if the U1 fails to live on in some way.
Lenovo kills Skylight OS in favor of Android, U1 Hybrid and Skylight smartbook being shelved originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 28 May 2010 16:39:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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