Lenovo readies Ipad 2 killer, the Lepad 2

CHINESE PC manufacturer Lenovo has revealed that it will rival Apple's recently announced Ipad 2 with a second generation of the Lepad tablet some time this year.

The announcement came from Yang Yuaning, CEO of Lenovo, who told China Daily that his company has every confidence that its LePad can compete with the Ipad 2 on the Chinese market.

The original Lepad touts a 10.1-inch display and a 1.3GHz Snapdragon processor. It was also set to feature Android 2.2, but Lenovo has delayed its release to ensure that version 3.0, Honeycomb, is featured instead, which is probably a very wise decision.

Beyond that the specifications of the Lepad 2 are not known, but it won't have to be a major upgrade to compete with the Ipad 2, given how minimal an upgrade that was over the original Ipad. Whether or not Lenovo decides to use a smaller display remains to be seen, but since Apple kept to its 9.7-inch size we imagine Lenovo will too.

The original Lepad release date for the Chinese market was slated for the fourth quarter of last year and was delayed until the first quarter of 2011, not to mention an even longer wait for US and European folks. They may have to wait until the summer so it will be some time before the Lepad 2 gets launched. We expect a pre-Christmas release. µ