The Lenovo IdeaPad U1 Hybrid, Two Birds With One Stone?

Lenovo has come out with something I think will turn out to be a "must have" product later this year, the IdeaPad U1 Hybrid.  This thing is both a full laptop running a dual-core Intel processor AND a tablet computer with multi-touch running on a Snapdragon 1Ghz CPU!

The display is the tablet part of the computer and when snapped into the laptop housing serves as the primary display for a Windows 7 laptop computer.  When you remove the display from its housing though it switches, almost instantly to a multi-touch tablet running a Lenovo customized Linux distro.  Further, if you have a website open on the tablet and then snap it back into the housing Windows 7 will launch a web browser to the page/s you were viewing before.

The Windows Weekly team sat down with one of the executives from Lenovo and got some hands on time with this new device and it just flat blew me away!  When it's in laptop mode the device can draw from both the laptop and tablet batteries to deliver between 8 and 10 hours of battery life.  In tablet mode it's up 8 hours of 3G web browsing and streaming duties.  That's right, this puppy will also be 3G capable and offered via subsidy to various US cell phone carriers for purchase!

The device should be out sometime this fall in the US.

Check the links above for some hands on video love of this device!