Lenovo educates us on the history of the tablet, has 'exciting products to announce this month'

Okay, Lenovo totally knows how to use Twitter. The company's press account has punched out a teasing little note, inviting us to keep a close eye on the near horizon with the expectation of exciting new products to come. We'll concede that aside from the leaked roadmaps, we have no real lead on where this might be heading, but if the video that accompanied the tweet is anything to go by, we can expect a device that (a) almost certainly has handwriting and touchscreen capabilities built in, (b) is extremely likely to sport the ThinkPad branding, and (c) may or may not have a physical keyboard. That is to say, we could just be looking at a quirky new approach to promoting the latest X-series tablet refresh (X201T anyone?), or maybe Lenovo is going way back to its roots and is about to shock and awe us with a ThinkPad slate. All we know for now is that the video is after the break and well worth watching.

[N900 Posted Feb 15th 2010 3:40PM]

Whoa.

[microlomaniac Posted Feb 15th 2010 3:41PM]

@N900 +1, but too bad he didn't switch it on.

[N900 Posted Feb 15th 2010 3:45PM]

For a general computing device, people won't accept compromise for any of the functions that it performs...it not only has to be a great slate device, it also has to be a great, keyboard device, since they're gonna use it in multiple environments."

Teehee.

[Ridgecity Posted Feb 15th 2010 3:58PM]

@N900 Too bad they didn't continue working on this, Apple wouldn't be considered so innovative just because they actually deliver on the stuff they work on.

I'm sure someone out there is working on holographic displays, yet Apple will be the one to bring it to the public a decade later, and everyone else will rush to show they prototypes they had for years been working on...

[N900 Posted Feb 15th 2010 4:26PM]

@Ridgecity That's sorta true, but I don't think that Lenovo is gonna falter on their tablet legacy. They stopped for a LONG time, but they were back in 2003-4. Their X tablet series were used as note taking workstations. As a commenter said below, they were even used for insurance companies. Lenovo's innovation IMO was in the build, and the features you had. Like the nub, the many mouse click options you had, keyboard etc. If the innovation your talking about in aesthetics, then your right. I don't think anyone can best Apple at that.

[Liquidmark Posted Feb 15th 2010 4:35PM]

@Ridgecity

yeah, there's a big difference between concept and actual product.

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 15th 2010 8:28PM]

@N900 With the X201t should come to the X201...

[varera Posted Feb 16th 2010 7:27AM]

@microlomaniac

it does not work, that's why

[wylee Posted Feb 16th 2010 7:08PM]

moses had a tablet too...

[LAY Posted Feb 15th 2010 3:41PM]

Everyone is bringing the heat on for 2010.

But stock in popcorn.

[LAY Posted Feb 15th 2010 3:42PM]

@LAY

Uh... buy stock.

[bigcow05 Posted Feb 15th 2010 3:43PM]

The passive aggression in this video towards Apple is pretty hilarious.

[N900 Posted Feb 15th 2010 3:46PM]

@bigcow05 Lol true, I hope people don't take it with a grain a salt, though. Why fight an opinion that's impossible to change? Just chuckle it off.

[Prevacator Posted Feb 15th 2010 3:44PM]

I love you so much Lenovo. Keep on keepin' on with ya bad self.

[gigi82 Posted Feb 15th 2010 3:45PM]

look at the bezel on that thing jk

[grammar Posted Feb 15th 2010 3:49PM]

@gigi82

Your wit deserves my up-vote good sir.

[DiGiC Posted Feb 15th 2010 5:08PM]

@gigi82 I was kinda half expecting for him to pop out a new tablet out of that thing and say something like 'this is what we had, now its evolved to this'

[N900 Posted Feb 15th 2010 3:48PM]

@IndyMac What, are you mad?

[thunderbollock Posted Feb 15th 2010 3:55PM]

Youngsters today have no respect for heritage.

Get off my god damn lawn!

[patches66 Posted Feb 15th 2010 4:01PM]

@N900 He's bitter.

[dizzyjw23 Posted Feb 15th 2010 4:02PM]

I think Lenovo is dead on with the convertible style notebook. I can have my laptop for work and if I'm at home on the couch or something i can detach my tablet and mess around on-line. Keep it up Lenovo!!!

[Professor Hubert J Farnsworth Posted Feb 15th 2010 4:14PM]

I wonder what they're going to release.

[Mightydh Posted Feb 15th 2010 4:17PM]

Bring it on. Even if it sucks...competition is a great thing.

[Astounding Posted Feb 15th 2010 4:21PM]

@Mightydh A ThinkPad that sucks? lol... (x100e is doesn't count)

[Mightydh Posted Feb 15th 2010 4:29PM]

@Astounding I work for a medium sized company. There are only 2 types of laptops allowed. Macbooks (obvious reasons), and Lenovo T series laptops. I have nothing bad to say about the T series. My point is that if the Lenovo tablet is a horrible failure, barring OS problems, this will make Apple want to innovate even further.

For the consumer, having competition is a great thing. Just like when the FIOS truck started driving down the street. Comcast got very scared and got rid of the 250 gig limit in our town.

[magallanes Posted Feb 15th 2010 5:49PM]

@Mightydh

I own a macbook PRO (because i must use osx) and still i think that its suck *ss!... hot surface, crappy video card, few usb ports, not full hd and so on.

[Mightydh Posted Feb 15th 2010 6:04PM]

@magallanes Our engineering team is using 15" Macbook Pros with aftermarket SSDs. Compiling code is crazy fast. It gets the job done much faster than any of the lenovos. The corporate / sales team mostly has the 13" Macbook Pro. None of us are doing video editing, so it is the right tool for operating a business. I don't want to waste resources troubleshooting Windows machines, so it was a great investment. I like the OS more than the physical machine.

FullHD? This outputs 1080p to our projector just fine. I'm not aware of any 13" screen that is 1920x1080. Also, don't most people want 1920x1200? I prefer more screen real-estate.

With all of that said, my 3rd gen XPS laptop was my favorite. All 2 hours of battery life, if lucky, while WoWing.

[Liquidmark Posted Feb 15th 2010 4:43PM]

Anyone can come up with a concept. Actually making it happen is the hard part.

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/01/apple-tablet-1983/

[TMC Posted Feb 15th 2010 4:54PM]

And unusually pretty for that era

[glenskey Posted Feb 15th 2010 10:57PM]

@TMC

not just pretty, IBM pretty..

[CDice Posted Feb 15th 2010 5:02PM]

Let's simplify this discussion.

If it runs WinMo 7, it will be a success (if competitively priced with the iPad).
If it runs Win 7, it will be a failure.

For obvious touchscreen UI reasons.

[siva Posted Feb 15th 2010 5:30PM]

@CDice

You mean Windows Phone 7?

[CDice Posted Feb 15th 2010 5:38PM]

@siva

Did you not understand what I meant by WinMo 7? Do you honestly think someone else wouldn't have understood?

Or were you just trying to be an ass? If so, good job.

[DaHarder Posted Feb 15th 2010 5:19PM]

If the capacitive touch-screened/multi-touch goodness that is my Lenovo S10-3t serves as a harbinger of what's to come from the Lenovo Tablet, then we're in for something really spectacular.

[Harrison Posted Feb 15th 2010 5:44PM]

So IBM created the iPad almost 20 years ago. Hah.

[Ed T Posted Feb 15th 2010 8:59PM]

We're innovative, we're smart, no one has anything on us, blah, blah, blah, spoken like a true loser. I have just one question, if Lenovo/IBM had this concept in the bag, why aren't their tablets being used in every business today?

The answer is they couldn't create the software and infrastructure to make the concept work. Them that can do, them that can't license Windows and wax poetic about the good ol' days.

[wylee Posted Feb 16th 2010 7:00PM]

moses had a tablet too.

[user0938 Posted Feb 23rd 2010 12:12PM]

Is it just me or does this guy's opinion on tablets sound quite more sensible than a certain sJobs' ?