14 DAY TRIAL // Once again, things seem to be moving forward on the tablet market, even if not at too an alert a pace, as a certain model developed by Lenovo has found its way onto Amazon's online store.
Much like Samsung, HP and other IT players, Lenovo, naturally, put together its own tablet, one that has been the subject of reports for a while now.
One thing it has in common with these other companies is that, while more or less ready, its product still has to work on the availability issue.
That said, though users still can't get their hands on it, the IdeaPad K1, as it is called, has gotten itself listed by Amazon.
So far, leaks and reports have been saying that one can look forward to see shipments commence in late June or early July.
As such, even though Lenovo hasn't provided an official release date, it is possible that it won't take more than several days for this final step to be taken.
That said, users who want a reminder as to what the IdeaPad K1 ($499) can or cannot do will be interested in knowing that it has all the expected features, plus a few extras.
Verily, the NVIDIA Tegra 2 SoC (system-on-chip) is not the novelty here, and neither is the 10.1-inch LCD (300 nit capacitive touchscreen) with a native resolution of 1,280 x 800 pixels.
What the slate does have to differentiate it from the competition is the “Hardware Digital Rights Management” system, used for movies and music on the go.
Also, the “Social Touch” user interface (UI) makes Twitter and Facebook interaction very simple when added over the Android Honeycomb operating system.
Other specifications include a SIM card slot, micro HDMI, 3.5mm headphone socket, a microSD card reader (there are 32 GB of built-in NAND Flash storage space) and wireless connectivity (Bluetooth 2.1, WiFi and, perhaps, 3G or 4G).