Combine a Tablet and a Laptop: The Lenovo IdeaPad U1 Hybrid Emerges

Pushing the limits of laptop and slate design, Lenevo showed off the IdeaPad U1 Hybrid at this year's past CES. For those who haven't heard, yes, this is a laptop, but it also acts as a touch-screen tablet with it's own processor and eight hours of battery life. This wasn't an afterthought either; this is the real deal, and is looking real good.

You could almost think of the U1 as like having two computers in one. As a matter of fact, that is exactly what it is.

If you get a look at the IdeaPad U1 Hybrid when it is in its laptop mode, you wouldn't have any idea of the potential this device has. You'd believe it was your everyday notebook. With that in mind, there is nothing particularly noteworthy here: an Intel Core 2 Duo SU 4100 processor, a 128GB SSD hard drive, 3G connectivity, and Windows 7 Home Premium round out the laptop specifications. Typical stuff, right?

But it is only when you pull out the tablet portion and watch as the screen loads into Lenovo's Skylight OS — a custom made operating system that is planned to load within three seconds — that you can really appreciate this product's design and realize the appeal.

The tablet features a Qualcomm 1Ghz Snapdragon ARM processor, 11.6" HD LED screen capable of displaying 720p resolution, the Skylight OS, and an impressive eight hours of battery life. It certainly has enough lasting power to accomplish most of what people would use the tablet for. The operating system is key though.

The Skylight OS, a custom built interface running over Linux, features a multi-panel design. There are six panels displayed at a time, and more can be viewed by swiping the screen to the side to see a set of six more panels.

Each panel acts as widgets, and you can add various widgets like a calculator, RSS reader, weather information, e-mail, and more. I'm sure social networks like Facebook could make an appearance as well. However, a few questions come to mind: how many widgets will be available, will people be able to develop new widgets, and how well will they be maintained?

There is also a unique media interface that allows you to access things like movies, music, photos, and documents with ease, and it does look seem nicely integrated. Although the interface is beautiful, it appears to be all about flash and flair instead of functionality, but maybe future refinements will address that.

One other noteworthy feature is that if you are viewing a webpage in Windows and remove the tablet, it will load up the webpage in the browser on the slate's Skylight OS as well. This works the other way as well — if you are viewing a webpage in tablet mode, after reattaching it for laptop mode Windows will sync with the Skylight OS to display the page as well.

Unfortunately, as can be seen in the video demonstration by Engadget, the interface does appear to be somewhat laggy — especially with the swiping motions and multi-touch gestures — but Lenovo has said that the press are working with very early builds and the performance issues will be worked out.

Should the soon to be released Apple iPad have anything to fear? It's far too early to tell. But it shows great promise.

The Lenovo IdeaPad U1 Hybrid will be available for purchase later this summer.