By Holy smokes, Droid-o-claus, what do we have here? It looks like the ASUS Transformer Prime won’t be the only Quad-core Android Tablet to launch this holiday season. And what’s more, the Lenovo Android Tablet leaked by Engadget is said to be running Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, has high enough specs to clear as a skyscraper, and will be launching before the year ends. But still a rumor, keep in mind.
Above is a render of the device’s back which includes a fingerprint scanner that doubles as an optical trackpad, a camera of unknown specs, and the body is supposedly “Special Fusion-Skin Body”- whatever that means. The anonymous source claims some features are set in stone:
- 1.6GHz Tegra 3 Quad-Core Processor
- Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich
- 2GB RAM (1,600MHz DDR3)
- Standard-size USB port
This news follows on the heels of another Lenovo Android rumor regarding the ThinkPad X1 Hybrid, which would combine the X1 ultraportable line of Lenovo devices with Android and an “Instant Media Mode” that doubles battery life. Nice feature, but Sean Hollister of The Verge appropriately asks if they dual-boot separately or can you switch instantly between the two modes? That is not yet known.
Lenovo has been turning up the heat on their Android offerings in the past year. As far as I’ve seen (at least in the United States) they haven’t struck gold, but if they continue to pursue the level of innovation and flexibility as of late, they’ll be just fine. And it doesn’t hurt to offer one of the first (if not THE first) Android 4.0 tablets with quad-core processing power and a bunch of specs to boot. It remains to be seen if this will all develop as rumored, but we’ll certainly have our fingers crossed.
This might make me hold off on buying the Transformer Prime, if the specs are true this looks extremely promising.
Yeah, was gonna ditch my iPad2 for the Transformer Prime. But now I’m preemptively ditching the TP for this beast.
Given the history of ASUS with upgrades on its transformer (which were superfast and on time), I wouldn’t care if anyone put 50GB of Ram in it. I’ll still go with the Transformer Prime just because of Asus support it’s second to none. The rest of them seem to mainly care to sell units while Asus cares first and foremost supporting its users. ASUS TP all the way.
yup,I’ll buy the Prime for their solid software updates.
Looks like I’ll finally be picking up an Android Tablet come tax time.
Wow, 2gb ram and ddr3.
That’s a step above asus prime
can someone please explain what i will be able to do with that much power in a tablet? Did android all of a sudden become a content creation platform or is this just so we can play angry birds faster? The transformer prime is basically just a laptop without the flexibility a non mobile OS provides (i.e. – content creation). So im wondering what everyone is planning to do with all that power? I wouldve been in that same boat as well if i hadnt had a chance to use a dual core HP Touchpad running CM7 which is plenty fast. Lower price tablets, better battery life and a tablet specific innovations would be great.
Why would you be complaining about more power. Apparently these quad cores have lower power consumption then the dual cores. Also, this quad core is comperable to a core 2 duo pc cpu, so its not THAT much power :) Lastly, I guess it would be nice if these tablets made better use of the multi cpu’s
For reference, we all remember the pc days where pc manufactures just kept throwing power at everything? Ok with that said, we now live in a world of apple who worked on refining the experience with a solid experience and then brought the hardware in. So android, (which ive been using since OG Droid Launch day) has not made a seamless software experience. Are they turning into a full desktop os now? What can i do better with those 4 cores? Will i be able to do real video editing? Real photo editing? are they just building another desktop OS? What do you think you can get out of those cores?
Robb, not to be rude, but you are a little ignorant. Let me reply to your comment the best I can.
“For reference, we all remember the pc days where pc manufactures just kept throwing power at everything?”
When did they stop making more powerful CPU’s? You don’t think Intel’s latest i7 is more powerful than the one before it? Each and every next generation is more powerful. What’s next in Intel’s pipeline for consumers? A six core…oh my gosh, what are we going to do with six cores??????
“Ok with that said, we now live in a world of apple who worked on refining the experience with a solid experience and then brought the hardware in.”
Did you know that Steve Jobs designed the Tablet before the iPhone? He had to put the Tablet on hold because the hardware wasn’t there yet. Yes, the HARDWARE was not powerful enough to do what he wanted.
“So android, (which ive been using since OG Droid Launch day) has not made a seamless software experience. Are they turning into a full desktop os now? What can i do better with those 4 cores? Will i be able to do real video editing? Real photo editing? are they just building another desktop OS? What do you think you can get out of those cores?”
If you don’t need 4 cores, than do you need two? How about 1 core? How about a tablet with 1 core, running at 200 Mghz and gives you 20 hrs of battery life? Would that be something you’re interested in? Oh, that already exist, it’s in my pocket, it’s called a free cell phone. Want to install android 2.x 3.x 4.x (whatever) on this device? And why can’t Android be a real OS? Real in a sense of photo editing, videoing edit, 3D gaming (oh we’re already there thanks to the supported GPU in the Tegra and other SOC’s), and everything else that a PC does.
My point? Simple…just a thought if I may… What came first, software or hardware? If Adobe and Activision stop writing software that requires more and more power, would hardware makers continue to make more powerful processors (be it CPU or GPU)? If hardware makers stop making more powerful processors, how can Adobe and Activision come out with better applications?
Applications such as video streaming, content sharing, supporting multiple simultaneous video streams, along with simultaneous wide band audio codecs will chew on some core.
Consider the applications the business clientel (the people who buy these in the numbers that get attention) will be using.Enterprise users will be using Office Suite applications with other real time voice and video simultaneously. That will need processing power.During off time, streaming the baseball game while using the GPS or streaming whatever replaces Netflix will use the quad core badness.The direct answer to your question is: A lot more than sitting around playing Angry Birds.
For reference, remember when IBM computers didnt have hard drives, they only had 3.5 floppy slots and we all croweded around them to play Montezuma’s Revenge and Where in the World is Carmen Santiago (7 disks, really?!) Jeeze, what do you need a hard drive for? What do you need more than 2.4 GB for anyway?
I want it. It will match my laptop minus Windows.
OK Lenovo…where the bloody hell is the Lenovo Hybrid U1 :@ I have been waiting for you to release that for almost 2 years now!!!
Nice! With Lenovo’s usual quality it will be a fantastic tablet I’m sure. :)
My Lenovo laptop is not proving your words about quality. Will be heading to the service with:
1. color vertical lines on the display.
2. overheating under demanding tasks.
3. WD HDD with 300 bad sectors.
4. WiFi losing network and disconnecting.
If it is describing the good quality – then i don’t know what to say…
(IdeaPad y460 with core i3 processor and ATI 5650 GPU).
You were stupid for not getting a Thinkpad, one of the better lines on the market.
Yeah, and you are so stupid, that don’t take into account the matter of cost.
Stop being so cheap. I hate people who wanna get the most out of paying nothing. You get what you pay for.
Oh, you are right!
Everyone should buy only top-priced products. Are you kidding? 1996 – is it your birthdate? If so – I understand you and will not be angry. :)
They’ve yet to deliver on their ThinkPad Tablet. A lot of them have mis-soldered micro-USB ports, and it was like pulling teeth to get service. And Lenovo still has not told its customers which production runs had the faulty soldering: http://thinkpadtabletforums.com/thinkpad-tablet-general-discussion/how-we-customers-can-kick-lenovo%27s-butt-into-gear-on-this-one/msg2007/#msg2007
Yeah…. I hate Asus… Terrible Customer Service!
I will be buying this, hand down over the transformer.
Ewwww….. China products sucks.
Everything seems to be made in China these days
Made in china, maybe. But not everything is designed or engineered in china. Except this one.
I have an unusual fear of the Lenovo brand, weird? probably.
I have a Lenovo Thinkpad. I only bought it because it was an IBM design and the best Windows-based notebook.
There is plenty of reason to be wary of Lenovo:
http://thinkpadtabletforums.com/thinkpad-tablet-general-discussion/how-we-customers-can-kick-lenovo%27s-butt-into-gear-on-this-one/msg2007/#msg2007
I don’t think I can go wrong with transformer prime or this……I just want a nice tegra 3 tablet that won’t break my piggy bank.
The ThinkPad Tablet is nice. I love the digitizer and stylus, and the WiFi
setup is strong and quick, but there are problems. Before buying any Lenovo android product, it would be prudent to search the web for:
thinkpad android gps (still doesn’t work for almost anybody; seriously.
GPS. doesn’t. work.)
thinkpad android camera focus (works for some; for others not)
thinkpad android broken micro-USB (no one knows whose is just waiting to
break; lots of customers had theirs break)
thinkpad android accelerometer reversed
These problems (and others) have been plaguing the ThinkPad, and Lenovo
has been unwilling or unable to deliver a working product some three
months after launch.
I guess some of them will be fixed, but we’ve already been waiting three
months.
I’ve posted about these problems here:
http://thinkpadtabletforums.com/thinkpad-tablet-general-discussion/how-we-customers-can-kick-lenovo%27s-butt-into-gear-on-this-one/msg2007/#msg2007