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Lenovo will be 'first to market' with a Windows 8 tablet, says source

Lenovo will be 'first to market' with a Windows 8 tablet, says source

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We've learned that Lenovo is internally planning to be the very first manufacturer to release a Windows 8 tablet, and that the company believes that October is when the operating system will ship.

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Gallery Photo: Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga hands-on pictures
Gallery Photo: Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga hands-on pictures

Michael Dell said that he would offer an enterprise tablet "on the exact day" that Windows 8 ships to customers, but his company may have some competition right out of the gate: We've learned that Lenovo is internally planning to be the very first manufacturer to release a Windows 8 tablet, and that the company believes that October is when the operating system will ship. Our source wouldn't provide any details on the slate, save that it will use an Intel chip, but we already saw one possible machine at CES: the 13.3-inch Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga, pictured above, with an attached keyboard on a 360-degree hinge that lets you flip the machine into a laptop configuration. Of course, Dell and Lenovo aren't the only companies building Windows 8 slates, as HP, Nokia, Asus, and others are vying for a piece of the action. It's also worth noting that just about any Windows 7 machine can use the new operating system, too... and it can even be marketed as a Windows 8 slate so long as it supports five touchpoints, houses a wide variety of sensors, and sports certain hardware buttons according to Microsoft's tablet requirements.