Lenovo IdeaPad U1 Smartbook review

Lenovo sent us an exhaustive list yesterday of their new PC offerings in time for CES but they omitted this one which I liked the most — a hybrid tablet and touchscreen netbook in one called the IdeaPad U1.

Maybe it’s because this product is
not ready for prime time yet but I really liked the implementation.

I guess they’re just showing it off to people at the moment but should be able to ship it by June this year.

The netbook part runs an Intel Core 2 Duo SU4100 1.3GHz with Windows 7 but if you take off the screen and use the tablet alone, it’s powered by a Qualcomm ARM Snapdragon processor (same CPU in HTC HD2 and Nexus One phones) so it’s basically a smartphone in a netbook (thus the term smartbook).

The IdeaPad U1 has a an nice 11.6″ display (1366×768 resolution), WiFi 802. 11b/g/n, 3G for the tablet with maximum 4GB of RAM (512MB for the tablet). The estimated retail price — $999. I know it’s a tad bit expensive but you’re getting two pretty devices here so let’s call it split even at $499 each.