Lenovo IdeaPad A1 Android tablet rocks IFA with $199 price tag

[.BZU.]

Been waiting for someone to make a serious splash with a budget-priced Android tablet? Hold on to your hats, people, because Lenovo has just rocked IFA 2011 by announcing the $199 IdeaPad Tablet A1.


The price is less than half what you’ll pay for most 8 or 10 inch Android tablets in retail stores right now (including Lenovo’s own).



The 7-inch A1 will feature a 1024×600 IPS touchscreen display, a single-core 1GHz ARM Cortex A8 processor, 3MP rear and VGA front cameras, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity, GPS and accelerometer, microSD expansion, and Android 2.3. Lenovo estimates the A1′s battery to be good for about 7 hours of Wi-Fi web surfing, though it’s capacity isn’t specified in the press images.




Four different color options will be available: black, white, blue, and pink. And while you might not expect a sub-$200 to be all that sturdy, the IdeaPad A1 sports a magnesium-alloy skeleton to protect its internals from jolts.


Concerned about the fact that the A1 isn’t going to ship with Honeycomb? Don’t be. An upgrade to Ice Cream Sandwich is expected to arrive shortly after Google makes the code available to its partners.


Those of you who missed out on a dirt-cheap HP TouchPad might want to seriously consider the IdeaPad A1. Then again, you may want to wait and see how other manufacturers respond now that Lenovo has thrown down the gauntlet.