VISHKI

Lenovo seems to have changed its plans of launching its budget tablet A1 in India, or may have decided not to launch at all in India.

Announced earlier this year, Lenovo A1 is supposed to be available in the market from November. This particular tablet was in my wish list and I was regularly checking Lenovo India website for the availability. Even a week back(3rd week of Dec), the A1 page still showed “Available this November”. November is past, but the page is not updated. Today it is updated, read deleted, Lenovo A1 completely vanished from the Indian website.

Previously the tablets webpage on Lenovo India site was listing the Ideapad K1, Ideapad A1 and Thinkpad tablets. Now the A1 has vanished from the site and only K1 and Thinkpad tablets are listed. Seems like Lenovo will not release the A1 to the market.

Lenovo A1 is a value for money entry level tablet in Indian market. The announced price was Rs.14,990/-(Rs.16,990/- for 3g version). Though there are other tablets priced lower than this, this is the only tablet from a big brand which consumers can rely on. At Rs.16,999/- packed a lot of promise for an average user. Other tablets from the big brands cost north of 25k.

Sad to see the Lenovo A1 not making it to India, wish I’m wrong though. This is the second product on my wish list not making to the market, first being the Nokia 600.

Update 11 Apr 2012 : Saw the Lenovo A1 for sale at Reliance Digital for Rs.14500/-(Only WiFi version available). Though I thought it may not make it to the stores, it did finally. On searching online, one was also for sale at ebay, not sure if it is an indian version or imported one. It is strange that the tablet still does not appear on Lenovo India website. I think it is too late for A1 now, it lost all the charm to the more modern and better tablets available in the market.