Lenovo Ditching Custom Linux on IdeaPad U1 Hybrid and Skylight for Android

May 28th, 2010 by Mark Spoonauer, LAPTOP Editor in Chief  

The bad news: two of our favorite products from CES are getting pushed back–again. The Lenovo Skylight and U1 Hybrid have been delayed by the company. The good news: the reason is that Lenovo wants to equip the sleek smartbook and tablet-notebook with Android. Overall, we think this is a smart move given the momentum behind Google’s OS. When will these products hit the market? Our guess is by the end of the year, but no one would tell us for sure. See the official comment from Lenovo below:

“After careful consideration of market conditions and user feedback, Lenovo has decided to focus its resources on building a family of next-generation mobile internet devices based upon open technologies such as (but not limited to) the Android kernel, similar to the Lenovo smartphone, which is available for sale in China now.

As a result of Lenovo’s strategic shift towards open standards such as an Android kernel based environment, the Company has shelved its plans to release the initial version of the Skylight smartbook that featured a proprietary Linux based OS.

Lenovo remains committed to working with our strategic partners to deliver innovative products in the growing mobile internet space, including the aforementioned smartphones and smartbooks, as well as exploring innovative new concepts that continue to “push-the-envelope” like the U1 hybrid PC.”

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2 Responses to “Lenovo Ditching Custom Linux on IdeaPad U1 Hybrid and Skylight for Android”

  1. Charles Says:
    May 31st, 2010 at 9:16 pm

    It’s not smart because of momentum behind Android. (driven by dirt cheap phones) It’s smart because Windows, even the improved Windows 7 sucks on a tablet. It doesn’t have a good touch driven interface and it uses too many resources. Without Google supporting a nice tablet android store I have to wonder about the success these devices will see. The web app store is cool, but it still seems ahead of its time.

  2. Daniel Says:
    September 16th, 2010 at 3:15 pm

    Laptop,

    Help me out guys. Im testing and researching tablets and netbooks for work to see if we can go paperless in the field. We tried traditional laptops, and they are just to cumbersome to carry around a construction site (obvious, right). So tablets seem the way to go. 90% of our work is done through online databases.

    My goal: To find a portable device that is lightweight, is easy to use (typing, navigating, etc), has good internet connectivity, has decent battery life, can run a complicated excel workbook (with locked cells, crazy formatting, macros, etc.), and that can run explorer (some of our online databases are only able to run on explorer properly).

    I’ve tried the iPad, and it doesn’t cut it because of the excel and explorer issues. What are ya’lls recommendations. Right now i’m leaning towards the lenovo Ideapad S10 3t tablet with the 8cell battery? Would it be worth waiting for the Hybrid? Are there other devices out there that would be better. I’m looking for a purely production device- don’t care about multimedia or beauty or anything like that right now.

    Thanks for any information,

    InOverHisHead

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