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.'"

I dont think any really cares about other tablets

[peter303]

Until they get their hands on Apple's first. Else its mainly dueling hypotheticals. Apple will setting a standard for better or worse for the others.

We wanted a hybrid? really?

[spikeb]

I didn't. The iPad is pretty much what I wanted, only it runs a closed source OS and has a closed ecosystem, and no SD card slot.

Re:nice, but

[ircmaxell]

I would have been MUCH happier if they put Android as the 2nd OS instead of their own proprietary system. That way, you could switch from a primary os (Win7, Linux, BSD, etc) to the secondary, and still have all the capabilities of the system. It looks quite interesting as is, and I'd say I'd have to see it in person before holding other judgments...

Hardware only?

[Spazed]

Yes, it has some stats that are much higher than the iPads, but it is aimed at solving completely different users.

Look at the six panel layout of the homescreen, why waste the screen with six tiny apps when you can do so much more full screen? Why focus on a Dashboard knock off that you can carry around when people have shown that isn't what they really want in a mobile computing device. Look at what apps get used on smartphones the most often, it isn't the little one off stocks/weather/recording features, they are games and content viewing apps.

TL:DR; It isn't the size of the boat, it's how you sail the ocean.

Re:nice, but

[sootman]

> Lenovo will, certainly, build a more affordable and compatible/open device than Apple.

"Certainly"? Really? You're positive that this device, which is basically two whole computers, one of which is also a giant touchscreen, will come in under $499?

I don't want a tablet that's a computer

[bwalling]

I don't want all the bother of a computer. I already have that. For a tablet/slate, I just want to run a few apps/games and get online. I want it to be easy. I don't really want to mess with the file system. I don't want a browser that's vulnerable to malware. I don't want to have to mess with drivers. I don't want to have to manually drag and drop or copy my music or pictures from my computer to my tablet (or worse, dick around with file sharing over a network). I just want the damn thing to do apps, games and Internet without any fuss. I bet the iPad will do that and do it well. I just wish some of the competitors actually understood that concept.

For the same price: iPad + MacBook Pro + 2 iPods

[gig]

Lenovo was talking $1999 for this, and there is no availability date.

For the same price you can get an iPad, a MacBook Pro, an iPod touch, and an iPod shuffle. Then you have a desktop OS, a tablet OS, a pocket tablet OS, and a microscopic music player. You have 3 screens. All 4 items work simultaneously. The Mac is carved out of a block of aluminum and feels like it. All you bookmarks and contacts and music and photos sync between all of the devices automatically. The 3 devices with browsers all run HTML5 apps, and the Mac also runs BSD, Java, Python, Perl, PHP, Ruby, as well as Mac apps. A single iPhone app purchase puts the app on both tablets. A $50 Mac app runs other Intel operating systems in a window at full speed and with 3D graphics.

Just because you are a nerd that doesn't mean you don't have actual work to do. The action is in the software, not some convertible geegaws.

Re:But what did Apple want?

[VShael]

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...

I disagree. Most of my friends are not hard core tinker happy nerds. And they were all underwhelmed with the iPad. In fact, I don't know a single person who was actually impressed by it.

Not one.

PDF Viewer performance

[kmahan]

What I want to know is "how good is the pdf viewer"?

I'm interested in a pad that can rapidly display technical PDFs that are 1000+ pages long full of tables and drawings. i.e., hardware datasheets and schematics.

It needs to have decent searching and a fast page-to-page display capability.

Any idea if the IdeaPad or the iPad has demonstrated this ability?

Not even close.

[SirWinston]

Dockable keyboard to switch from slate to laptop has been done long before, cf. the venerable Compaq TC1100, so that clearly isn't a killer feature (although I, and most long-term tablet enthusiasts, loved it and missed it when it was dropped from newer-gen Tablet PCs). Very nice, but no iPad killer, especially at the higher price.

The two OSes thing I also don't see as a killer feature. I realize the idea was probably, "Hey, an ARM CPU is needed to extend the battery life in slate mode, but anyone using a full-size laptop wants a full-size Windows 7--let's combine 'em for the best of both worlds!" Sorry Hannah fucking Montana, but you can't have the best of both worlds without getting the worst of both worlds, too, plus an even higher cost to include all that extra hardware. If I wanted a Win 7 machine, I'd want it to run the same Win 7 apps in slate mode too. If I wanted an ARM slate, I'd have made the decision to be satisfied with available apps and wouldn't want the OS changing every time I docked the keyboard. And if I really wanted the features of both, for the price (another article states "Lenovo said they're hoping to get the IdeaPad U1's price under $1000 for a May or June release") I could buy both an iPad and a full laptop, and have two fully functional devices each better suited to its purpose than one hybrid.

Sorry, there's still no mythical iPad killer. If this chimera were priced within $100 of the iPad it might be a contender, but not a sure thing. At somewhere just south of $1000 it's not even an also-ran compared with the iPad, it's a never-ran.

Re:But what did Apple want?

[gad_zuki!]

>They're marketing to fanboys who want it to be trendy and 'just work', not to nerds.

Not having flash is the opposite of "just work."

I'm pretty sure we all noticed it

[Kalewa]

The reason I'm not paying any attention to the U1 is because apparently Lenovo doesn't want me to. Around CES there was a bunch of buzz about it, but then Lenovo completely let it drop off the radar. No pricing, no release data, no live demo units at CES. It's like they were trying to kill it. Bummer too, because it's not a bad concept. I can only assume they had some kind of massive hardware or software problems, and decided to keep it under wraps a little while longer.