Lenovo announces IdeaPad A1: $199 Android Tablet

Lenovo has announced at this year's IFA conference in Berlin that it will be making a new tablet - Lenovo IdeaPad A1 - which will be priced starting at $199. And while most Android tablets at that price point come from no-name manufacturers and are saddled with plastic, resistive touchscreens, this one comes from the maker of the ThinkPad, and uses an iPad-style glass screen.

The IdeaPad's screen is only seven inches across, roughly the same as the Barnes and Noble Nook Color's and about as big as an iPad split across the middle.

The budget IdeaPad sports a single-core 1 GHz processor, plus a basic rear-facing camera and a VGA front-facing one. Video chat will apparently be possible, but don't expect the quality to be very good.

The device brings the "Gingerbread" version of Android, the top of the line version for smartphones.

Besides its external color schemes, the IdeaPad A1 will come in three different varieties, based on how much flash memory they have. The 8 GB version is the one that'll cost $199, and it won't be available in the States. It's $249 for the 16 GB model, and $299 for the 32 GB one. That'll make it the cheapest way to get a 32 GB tablet, at least until the next shipment of HP TouchPads comes in.

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