After being the center of attraction for media, users, Windows enthusiasts and others, Windows 8 will finally be out this year and with this curiosity to know what tablet manufacturing companies will have their names added with it has also increased among all!

So, any idea which companies will be tagged as Windows 8 tablet makers once the new Windows hit the market this year? Well, there are number of popular manufacturers that will get to included in the long list of tablet manufacturing companies, some of these are HP, Dell, Lenovo, Acer and Asus which will come up with their Windows 8 tablet sometimes in October this year.

The other names that came into limelight for working on their own set of Windows 8 tablet to be introduced in the earliest possible part of 2013 happen to be Sony, Toshiba, Samsung, and Lenovo.

Well, as far as Dell is concerned, it has been keeping quiet about its plans for coming up with its tablet. It did launch the Dell Streak 10 tablet based on Android Honeycomb last year but it kind of kissed goodbye to it soon.

There’s a somewhat similar story about HP. It did land up into tablet market but couldn’t taste much success with its HP TouchPad which did gain popularity but it couldn’t last that long.

Interestingly, both the companies got ready to try out their luck in the tablet market once again with Windows 8 tablets.

Lenovo is believed to be the first manufacturer that will be releasing a Tablet based on Windows 8 as per the company insiders. Lenovo is looking forward to release its Windows 8 based tablet soon after the coming up of Windows 8 from Microsoft. And the estimated time is believed to be October 2012.
The tablet has not yet been named. It is said to be sporting a chip powered by Intel however no other specifications of the tablet are known yet. The buzz has it that the first Windows 8 tablet that Lenovo would be releasing would be IdeaPad Yoga, which is a kind of prototype device which was showcased at the CES 2012 that had impressed the viewers of the show. This device sports 13.3 inch display which has a resolution of 1600X900 together with 10 touch points.

It is the flexibility of Yoga that makes it stand unique. It has display that can be flipped over, and you get to either think of using it as a full-blown notebook or instead a full-blown touch screen tablet. Have the device work for you the way you want.

It appears that the magic of Netbooks is coming to an end and has lost the kind of power it had earlier.  At least from the move taken by Lenovo, one gets this notion. Lenovo has stopped selling netbooks online, so if you had any online buying plans, you’ll have look for some other place to look for as Lenovo’s website is no more the place for you.  And the company hasn’t decided whether it’d starting the sales in the near future.

Lenovo is not the only company to take such a step; many other companies have taken similar decision on seeing consumers being less interested in netbooks over the time. With the availability of more technically strong tablets and mini-laptops at lower price tags, netbooks have seen dramatic drop in the sales. Dell too had stopped selling netbooks sometimes back, and the companies like HP and Acer have reduced their offerings.

Netbooks were a tremendous success but by the second half of the year 2010, their sales started declining, this actually started little by little after April 2010 when Apple’s iPad kindled the tablet market.

The total shipment of netbooks got reduced to 6.3 million in the fourth quarter of last year which was down by 29 percent or can be said to be just the third of what was sold in the fourth quarter a year back.

All the major netbook producing companies observed around 30% drop in the shipments and Lenovo alone found a shipment drop of 43%. However, netbooks are believed to be doing well in some parts of Latin America and Asia.

Right now the Lenovo’s site lists all its netbooks as “temporarily sold out – more stock is expected”.  But interestingly, Lenovo doesn’t seem to be changing its plan of releasing two of its S series netbooks namely S200 and S206 this June, which it announced last month during the CES 2012 in Las Vegas.

Perhaps Lenovo is going to be the first Windows PC builders selling their ultrabook at a price less than Apple’s MacBook Air. This shows that the ultrabook battle is getting pretty heated up as the companies are found to be bringing out their products at lower prices. However, no other product has yet come to such lesser price.

Lenovo’s 14 inch “mainstream” ThinkPad ultrabook is going to be launched next year by the month of May or June at quite a less price around $800 which happens to undercut Apple’s MacBook Air. Its price will also be considerably lesser than the presently available model.

There will also be a 13 inch “Premium” model in continuation with the ThinkPadX1 which is scheduled to be brought out at about the same time. Both these ultrabooks will be using Ivy Bridge processor architecture from Intel and Chief River, which is a matching platform to the mentioned processor.

Along with this an interim update named ThinkPad X1 Hybrid, is also going to be out soon.  You will get dual boot along with Windows and Android’s customized version with this 13 inch ultrabook just the way as is in the case of IdeaPad K1 however, the battery life is better in this case.

It is equally notable that with leaner mobile operating system it will be starting up quickly and the battery life will also be doubled to about 10 hours which will prove a boon to all those who use the system for music, web and e-mailing.

The price for this X1 Hybrid isn’t available yet but it is expected not to go below $1,199.

Lenovo seems to be creating some more price differences with some other ultrabook line which will go beyond current X1 and the IdeaPad U300. Currently, the ultrabooks that it is offering is found to be having functional equality with the 13 inch system from Apple and at the time they are found to be more expensive when compared to the other Windows alternatives available in the market, which is said to be going down to $899 for the ultrabooks models like Acer Aspire S3 and ASUS Zenbook UX21.

Yesterday, Lenovo declared its three IdeaPad notebooks, offering thinner appearance and brand new processors from Intel. IdeaPad U300s was the central attraction of the show. It happens to be first ever “Ultrabook” design from the company which is an excellently sharp looking system with a thickness of just 0.6 inch. 1.6 GHz Core i5-2647M or 1.8 GHz Core i7-2677M (both of low voltage) is being included by the notebook specifications. Other important features include a RAM of 4GB, SSD of up to 256 GB for the storage purpose, various connectivity options like HDIMI, USB 3.0, and WiDi from Intel.

A single piece of aluminum shell has been used to build IdeaPad U300s and it weighs light somewhat below 3lbs. It is notable that the heat is not vented out through any bottom vents; instead Lenovo has something that it calls “breathable Keyboard” which has a unique way of circulating the air through the gaps between the keys and  a detached vent placed somewhere on the left hand edge.

Lenovo also boasts about the 20 second boot time taken by its IdeaPad as well as about the resume time that happens to be below five seconds. The company promises, the battery life of eight hours of “productive use” and it could be charged up to 50% in a time span of just 30 minutes.

The next two IdeaPads on the line also offer the same kind of style and form; however these two don’t qualify technically the way the Ultrabooks do. Displays of 13 and 14 inch are being offered by U300 and U400, along with that RAM of up to 8 GB, II generation Core processors, Solid-State drive (SSD) as well as Platter hard drive, and graphics from AMD’s Radeon HD 5470M are being used up by both the notebooks. Added to these specifications, U400 also offers a slot-loading DVD-RW drive.

All these three laptops will be available from October at the starting prices of $1195 (U300s), $799 (U300), and $849 (U400) and can then be bought through Lenovo.com as well as some select retailers.

Lenovo’s forthcoming business oriented device, ThinkPad tablet is all set to be launched on August 23. It is said to be priced at starting price of $47 9.99. This is going to be using Android’s Honeycomb 3.1 OS along with a standard hardware load-out.

The ThinkPad tab includes a Nvidia’s Tegra 2 dual core processor that operates at 1 GHZ and a system memory of 1 GB. Its IPS display of 10.1 inch offers a resolution of 1280X800 and comes covered with Corning Gorilla glass. One will be able to get the tablets with the capacities of 16 GB, 32 GB and 64 GB.

On simply glancing at the ThinkPad, it appears to be same as any other 10.1 inch Android tablets already available in the market. However, on closely investigating one can say that the optional accessories that it offers can catch some attention of the buyers.

The dock of the tablet provides data synchronization, charging, and even the expansion of the device in an ergonomically created vertical positioning stand. One gets a micro USB port, USB 2.0 port, HDMI port, stereo out, and microphone in. Other than this, one can configure it with ThinkPad USB keyboard or a combo or Edge wireless keyboard and mouse.

If you are ready to spend a little more you can also get special tablet pen and keyboard folio case by paying some additional amount. Its stylus pen will be appreciated by graphic artists or the users who have already used the older versions of Lenovo tablets but it seems less likely to be liked by the newer users.

Its keyboard folio has a special possibility of being converted into a netbook like device quite similar to the Transformer tablet of Asus which the users have much liked in the recent times.

Other than the accessories that it is providing, one gets hold of 25 additional applications preloaded on the tablet which will prove beneficial in providing better usage and experience.

Lenovo is coming up with a number of new tablets that are going to be the part of already flourishing tablet market just in next few weeks. As it informed the members of its affiliate program that the company is going to announce its IdeaPad K1 Android tablet in the later part of the month; however, this month is left with just a few days which means that the announcement can possibly take place in the early part of July.

Notably, the news won’t be very surprising as the tablet’s product listing has already started appearing over the market in the recent weeks. The company’s affiliate newsletter also talked about a ThinkPad Tablet that will be declared this very Tuesday, i.e. June 28. However, it is yet to be clarified whether this ThinkPad is going to be similar to the ThinkPad Android tablet which came up in the earlier part of the year, or it is going to be a dashing new convertible slate PC powered by Windows platform.

The IdeaPad K1 Android tablet that’s going to be out soon will offer a display of 10.1 inch with a resolution of 1280X800, NVIDIA Tegra2 dual core processor of 1GHz and will be powered by Google Android 3.0 Honeycomb at a very basic which will be well appreciated as there won’t be any need for software update that very soon. The estimated price is $500 which is quite common lately.

Lenovo is coming up with several new tablets including a 10 inch and 7 inch Android devices, and a 10 inch tablet based on Windows by the end of 2011.

Lenovo, after launching its LePad tablets is now ready to announce its two new Android devices, out of which one will be 10 inch and the other will be 7 inch in length. Other than these two, Lenovo also have plans for anther 10 inch tablet that will be based on Windows.

The 7 inch tablet will be working on Android Honeycomb operating system on the top of which it will have a custom user interface (UI) named LeOS. It will feature a dual core ARM processor, and a high definition 1280×800 pixel screen.

The tablet lovers across the globe will be able to get hold of this new tablet only by the fourth quarter of this year, i.e. sometimes between October and December.

It also has the plan of shipping off a Thinkslate tablet in a few months. It will be a dual core ARM based tablet with an aim of targeting the enterprise segment and will focus more on the customization, manageability and the security parts.

This tablet will also work on Android Honeycomb with the LeOS user interface on it. It will have Tegra 2 processors, a capacitive touch screen, along with a touch pen and an optional digitizer. The tablet will also offer an optional keyword.

Two versions of Lenovo’s LePad are already being sold in China. Out of which one is a 10.1 inch tablet that uses a 1.2 GHz ARM processor which is based on Android 2.2 Froyo and the other one is a hybrid device which only uses Windows 7 and can be transformed into a laptop.

Lenovo lovers have two wonderful pieces of news. First, Lepad and Ideapad U1 from Lenovo are going to be releasing this summer with a possibility of their international release in July. Second, Lepad won’t be the only tablet from Lenovo as it has recently leaked the specs and release date for its new Android 3.0 tablet.

The Android Thinkpad which has not yet been named formally has been following a kind of trend in the tablet market which was set by Asus Eee Pad Transformer. This refers to the addition of a secondary dock which lets you use your tablet like a quasi notebook PC. Detailed information is not available yet, it is believed that the battery life of the tablet will be increased a little.

As far as the hardware part of the tablet in concerned, it will be offering a 10.1 inch touch screen that will have a 1280X800 resolution display, an Nvidia Tegra 2 processor, along with front and rear cameras. Its thickness will be about .55 inches and weight will be 1.6 pounds. One will also get USB 2.0, micro USB, and mini HDMI ports along with an SD card reader with all the functionalities.

An optional digitizer and android pen will also be available that will recognize the inputs from an electronic pen. It will have a touch screen which will only be recognizing the touch of the electronic pen. This will the users handle their tablet like digital pen and paper.

The technical specification of the Android Thinkpad Tablet from Lenovo will include- Flash Storage of 16, 32, or 64 GB; Support for Wi-Fi or 3G; option for 4G support; Android 3.0 Honeycomb; and a long battery life of 8 hours.

Finally, those who are desperate to take this tablet home, there’s really a good news for them that its sample units are going to be out in June and there is also a possibility of their being available in the market in a full-fledged way by July or August. Its pricing will start at $499.0; however, the price of the optional active digitizer or the keyboard is not yet disclosed. It is believed that they’ll be offered at reasonable prices. Android Thinkpad will be competing against iPad 2.