You won't find Lenovo trumpeting the news, but you can put money down — today, the $199 Lenovo A1 Android tablet snuck into online retail in four classy colors. For many reasons, though, the Lenovo A1 doesn't seem like all that compelling a purchase. When we saw it one month ago, the 7-inch slate possessed merely average specifications, with Android 2.3 running on a 1GHz ARM Cortex A8 processor and plenty of kinks to work out. What's more, the $199 version now seems to only have a lackluster 2GB of storage, rather than the 8GB we were initially told, and you'll need to pay $249 for the upgraded 16GB version. Now that the Kindle Fire has set a $200 bar and the HTC Flyer can be had for $299, it's no wonder Lenovo didn't feel like an immediate marketing push would be worth the while.
Lenovo IdeaPad A1 on sale now for $199
is a senior editor and founding member of The Verge who covers gadgets, games, and toys. He spent 15 years editing the likes of CNET, Gizmodo, and Engadget.
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