Lenovo may have put its innovative Skylight tablet and IdeaPad U1 Hybrid notebook with a detachable screen/tablet on hold indefinitely — but it looks like the projects aren’t entirely dead. As the company hinted a few weeks ago, Lenovo is looking at Google Android as an alternative to the Skylight operating system that had been developed in-house for these devices.
Tablet PC Review caught up with some Lenovo reps who explained that the company isn’t killing off the Skylight and U1 form factors… but is indeed working on bringing Google Android to these devices.
So it looks like Lenovo is scrapping the Skylight OS, which is a mixed blessing. On the one hand, the company spent a fair bit of time and energy developing the custom Linux-based operating system and it would have been nice to have another choice for this type of device beside iOS, MeeGo, and Android. On the other hand, there are thousands of third party apps available for Android, which makes any device running the operating system instantly much more useful than one running a proprietary OS that nobody else uses.
There’s still no release date for the IdeaPad U1 or Skylight, but it looks like these products aren’t exactly dead yet.