CES: Lenovo unveils Windows 7 IdeaPad Slate

Latest offering is similar to LePad with addition of more heavyweight OS

Lenovo has shown off a 10in tablet dubbed the IdeaPad Slate, which is similar to the LePad announced on the eve of CES but runs Windows 7.

Unlike the LePad, the Ideapad Slate offers finger- and pen-based touch input. Underneath the screen, the Slate will have a yet-to-be-released Intel Oak Trail processor running at 1.5GHz with graphics from Intel's GMA600 chip.

Memory will be 2GB of RAM with storage in the form of a 30GB SanDisk solid state disk drive, about half of which is available after loading Windows.

To supplement the 15GB or so of storage, Lenovo has included a USB port and a microSD slot. A headphone jack and a proprietary connector for a dock and keyboard round out the wired connectivity options, while the obligatory Wi-Fi and Bluetooth support will also be present.

Lenovo is pitching the device at people who need to input text through the stylus, and the Slate benefits from the excellent handwriting recognition functionality in Windows 7.

The most impressive aspect of the IdeaPad Slate is that, while it has a capacitive touch screen allowing for finger-based input, only stylus input is recognised when the stylus is in operation.

This means that users can put their hands on the screen and not worry about scrolling while entering text.

At this stage Lenovo is not giving out pricing or the markets in which the device will be available.

However, even for a pre-production engineering sample, the IdeaPad Slate looks to be in pretty good shape, and it should be an interesting option for those who need tablets for work rather than play.