Lenovo announced a pair of 7-inch tablets at the Mobile World Congress 2013 yesterday – the A1000 and A3000 – as well as a 10-inch device, the S6000, following the announcements of new devices from HP and Samsung yesterday. While the company has not revealed the pricing of these devices, it is marketing the A1000 as ideal for first-time tablet buyers.
Featuring a dual core processor and an internal storage capacity of up to 16GB, the device could possibly feature as 8GB and 16GB variants with an affordable price tag. The A1000 also provides for storage expansion using a microSD card slot. Dolby Digital Plus, an audio enhancement technology which remarkably improves sound performance, is also featured in the A1000.
The A3000, also a 7-inch tablet, features a quad-core processor from MediaTek and supports 3G data networks apart from Wi-Fi. Lenovo did not reveal any specifics about the inbuilt storage capacity apart from the fact that it would be ‘extensive’. The screen, despite using IPS technology, features a decidedly average resolution of 1024×600 pixels. A microSD card is also included, though it is unclear whether it’ll allow expansion up to 64 GB or 32 GB.
The bigger S6000 might turn out to be a lower-cost competitor to Google’s Nexus 10. The S6000 may not be as feature rich as the Nexus 10, but it does feature a 1.2 GHz quad-core MTK8389/8125 processor by MediaTek and the promise from Lenovo that the battery life will be ‘substantial’ (around 8 hours depending on who you ask). Connectivity options include a micro-HDMI port, the usual Wi-Fi and select variants with cellular connectivity (HSPA). Again, the screen resolution is not too high – only 1280×800 pixels. The device is expected to be substantially less expensive than the Nexus 10, which retails for $399 for the 16 GB version and $499 for the 32 GB version.
All three devices will ship with Android Jelly Bean 4.1 out of the box. Lenovo says that the three devices will be released sometime in the Q2 this year but unfortunately they haven’t hinted at the actual pricing of any of the three. With regard to the UK, Lenovo has said that all three tablets will be released sometime in June-July and will be priced between 110 and 260 GBP depending on the device in question.
