Lenovo Smartbook Rises From the Dead, Toshiba Preps Its Own

There are no official announcements and most of the information swarming the net is conflicting, but, at the very least, there are rumors that Lenovo and Toshiba, if not more companies, are planning on making a strong impression on the nascent smartbook market. To be more specific, the duo will, sooner or later, unleash a Dynabook Series and the Skylight and/or the IdeaPad U1 Hybrid, respectively. At least, this is what a recent Digitimes report appears to suggest.

As some consumers might know, Lenovo, some time ago, supposedly scrapped the so-called initial version of Skylight, along with the IdeaPad U1 Hybrid. The reason, back then, was said to be the need to upgrade the hardware and software. Digitimes now states that the Qualcomm single-core 1GHz processor will be replaced by a 1.5GHz dual-core, such as the MSM8260, MSM8660 and QSD8672. Furthermore, the custom-made Skylight OS will be given up in favor of Google's Android OS.

For Toshiba, the situation is not as complicated. While Lenovo will have to push back the launch of its smartbooks, the former needs to only finalize the one it is currently working on. In short, the PC maker will soon bring out a Dynabook-branded model with a 10.1-inch screen and the Android OS. It will be centered around the NVIDIA Tegra 250 processor and will initially sell in Japan. Africa, Middle-East and Europe will get their collective hands on it later on.

Since it didn't have to make any major design modifications, Toshiba will be able to formally add the new Dynabook sometime in August. Lenovo, on the other hand, will only finish work on its own product much later, leaving the end of the year as the earliest possibility for the announcement to take place.