Lenovo gets into the pad business with the LePad

At CES, we saw two compelling new products from Lenovo: the LePhone, a slick and robust Android smartphone, and the U1, an attractive hybrid notebook-tablet. Unfortunately, neither one was destined to make its way into our hands. The LePhone is calling to be an Asia-only device, and the U1 has been shelved to make way for an Android-powered variant. But Lenovo isn’t giving up – well, not on China, anyway. They’ve got a new tablet coming along, called the LePad, that allows you to run Android and which they hope to launch within the Far East by the tip of the year.

Having seen what Lenovo did with Android 2.0 with the LePhone, I really believe they may be capable of stand proud of the group a bit with the LePad. That’s the massive challenge, since Android is obviously the OS of choice for corporations that don’t have an OS of their own to take advantage of (i.e. Apple, Microsoft, HP).

I’ll be mad if they maintain it China-only, though. As a minimum bring about a over! Unlike the LePhone, there shouldn’t be issues with carriers and radio compatibility, so I expect we’ll manage to get our hands on one.