Lenovo May Be Working on a Dual-Core 5" Tablet

Lenovo is reportedly working on a 5-inch Android-powered tablet with HDMI output and a front-facing camera.

ZoomVarious reports are indicating that Lenovo is currently working on a 5-inch dual-core IdeaPad/LePad tablet to take on the Samsung Galaxy Note and the Dell Streak 5. Very little is known about the tablet at this point save for photographs revealing a micro-USB port, HDMI output and a front-facing camera.

As for an operating system, the images show Android-type physical buttons on the face, indicating that it may use Android 2.3 "Gingerbread" rather than v3.0 "Honeycomb" or v4.0 "Ice Cream Sandwich." There's also no indication that the device will sport voice call capability although, let's face it, a 5-inch device would be rather large next to your ear.

News of a 5-inch Lenovo tablet follows reports of a larger 10.1-inch Ice Cream Sandwich Lenovo tablet powered by a 1.6 GHz Tegra 3 SoC. The device is slated to arrive before the end of the year, and will include 2 GB of 1,600 MHz DDR3 RAM, a standard USB host socket covered by a pop-out flap, a back-facing camera of unknown resolution, and a "special fusion-skin body." A fingerprint scanner will also be mounted on the back that will double as an optical joystick.

Nvidia officially announced the Tegra 3 a few weeks ago, a quad-core SoC that promises to bring PC-class performance levels, better battery life and improved mobile experiences to tablets and phones. It provides up to 3x the graphics performance of Tegra 2, and up to 61-percent lower power consumption. However unlike the 10.1-inch model, it's safe to bet that Lenovo will use the current Tegra 2 SoC in its unannounced 5-inch tablet to keep the price tag low.