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We tried something a little different at CES 2011. Instead of shooting individual hands-on videos with a bunch of different laptops, we instead invited the most promising systems (including some experimental prototypes) all up to the CNET stage at once, where Molly Wood and I hosted what might be the world's first live laptop talk show.

Highlights included the under-development Razer Switchblade gaming laptop and Toshiba's prototype 3D eyeglass-free laptop, along with Samsung's slim and sexy 9 Series and Lenovo's back-from-the-dead IdeaPad U1 tablet/notebook hybrid. Watch the show to see us give each one a … Read more

LAS VEGAS--Between its ThinkPad and IdeaPad brands, Lenovo had a ton of laptop announcements at CES 2011. While many are basically revamps of existing lines adding new processors, there are a few standouts: the ThinkPad Edge series has bold, higher-end ultraportable models, and the Lenovo IdeaPad U1 Hybrid tablet/laptop has finally emerged as a real product.

>>One year later, the IdeaPad U1 rises as a Windows 7 laptop/Android hybrid

>>IdeaPad S205 and S100: 11.6-inch AMD Fusion ultraportable and 10.1-inch Atom Netbook

>>IdeaPad B, V, G, Y and Z series updates … Read more

A year ago, Lenovo's bold concept device, the IdeaPad U1 Hybrid, astonished us not only for its neat transforming design and its detachable tablet, but for anticipating the year in tablets to come. Indeed, we're still wondering how laptops and tablets can play well together.

Back then, the U1 had a tablet running a Linux-based Skylight OS developed by Lenovo, while the base laptop it attached to had undefined specs. Now, the U1's specs are clear: Windows 7 Home Premium and a 1.2 GHz Intel CULV Core i5-540UM CPU, 2GB of DDR3 RAM, and a 320GB … Read more

Let's face it: CES is often about hype. New products, new promises, and a lot of very thick carpeting greets us every year, and as we sort out what impressed us most about the show, we can only hope that some of these gadgets actually deliver.

With CES 2011 just around the corner, it's a perfect time to take a look back at the year that was, and see how the biggest stories of CES 2010 fared. Some of them did remarkably well, including our best-of-show winner, the Panasonic TC-PVT25 Others, not so much (remember the Motorola Backflip?). … Read more

Back at CES 2010, we saw two parallel trends developing: a renaissance of touch-screen tablets and slates, and a series of smaller-than-Netbook laptops called "smartbooks" that promised to have automatic 3G, simplified operating systems and very slim profiles.

Well, so far one has come to fruition (thanks largely to the iPad), whereas the other has gone into a state of hibernation.

Lenovo's recent announcement that its "Skylight" smartbook and U1 hybrid tablet/laptop would be delayed underlines the sudden lack of momentum smartbooks have suffered. Lenovo claims it's due to an OS switch from proprietary Linux-based software to Android, … Read more

A pair of the most-anticipated mobile computers from this year's CES show were Lenovo's U1 Hybrid and Skylight smartbook. Both ran a custom widget-based Linux OS (sometimes also called Skylight), and were powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon CPU. But since then, both devices seem to have fallen off the map, and now we think we know why. Both systems are getting a software overhaul, jumping to the Android platform in search of better performance and more usability.

We've been hearing for some time that both systems were being tweaked far beyond their original expected Spring 2010 debuts, … Read more

LAS VEGAS--Call them tablets or slates, but companies at CES seem obsessed with showing off the possibilities of PCs stripped of their keyboards and touch pads. These slate devices are essentially handheld screens that do some or most of what your laptop does, but with touch controls and, often, 3G data access.

We've seen several versions this week, in situations ranging from extensive hands-on demos to arms-length sneak peeks of devices that may or may not ever see the light of day. Of course, all of these products are operating under the very long shadow of Apple's still-unannounced tablet. (… Read more

LAS VEGAS--Lenovo has made an impressive splash at this year's CES and the main halls haven't even opened up yet: its bold new takes on ultramobile notebooks--the IdeaPad U1 Hybrid, Skylight, and IdeaPad S10-3t--have caused a big stir and bigger discussions as to whether each will perform as well as they look. In a one-on-one hands-on today, we got a chance to spend time with all three and their more buttoned-down IdeaPad S10-3, and our impressions are positive but mixed.

To start with, the Lenovo IdeaPad U1 Hybrid is a fascinating idea. The sleek round notebook has … Read more

UPDATE: Hands-on impressions added below. The IdeaPad U1 Hybrid is our Best of CES 2010 Award Winner in the category of Computers and Hardware. Also be sure to check out our hands-on impressions of Lenovo's other Netbooks and smartbooks from CES.

Tablets are rapidly becoming the hot chatter-buzzword of 2010. Netbooks were very 2009. Combine them both and perhaps you end up with a great idea--at least, so hopes Lenovo. In one of the boldest moves in laptop technology at CES, the IdeaPad U1 Hybrid doesn't just flip its screen to become a tablet--the screen detaches completely as … Read more