With Windows 8 just a few months away from its retail launch, hardware manufacturers are preparing to launch a slew of new products running the operating system. Though the OS will run perfectly fine without a touchscreen, Windows 8's touchy-feely Metro UI does work better on the hardware it was intended for. This week, Lenovo took the wraps off of the ThinkPad 2 tablet, which will launch this fall.
The ThinkPad 2 packs a 10-inch 1366 x 768 IPS HD display, an Intel Atom processor, an 8-megapixel camera in the back and a 2-megapixel camera up front for video calling, micro-HDMI, NFC, a fingerprint reader, and a pen. There's also going to be optional 3G/4G, and Engadget reports that AT&T's LTE network will be the ThinkPad 2's home in the United States. Of course, there's also the obligatory dock, which adds a little more functionality and can be purchased along with tablet. In the ThinkPad 2's case, the dock will bring HDMI-out, an Ethernet port, and three USB ports. In addition to this dock, there's also a keyboard peripheral.
Unfortunately, Lenovo didn't mention pricing for the tablet, the dock, or the keyboard, but we do know it's going to launch in October alongside Microsoft's won Surface tablets. Though Microsoft hasn't released an official spec list for the Surface, we do know it will come in both Intel and ARM flavors with the former packing an Intel Core i5 CPU.
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