Other two levels above the basic model are available. The first one has 4GB of RAM and a 500GB hard drive for a price of $579. A second model comes with added Bluetooth, which is missing on the other two models, and sports a 750GB hard drive. A few customizations include some extras, such as the video dock or external mice.

All configurations are expected to ship within the twelve days following the order.

Lenovo has said it would deliver multiple tablet models in the near future and one of them is supposed to be unveiled this year, in September. It is not certain whether the seven-inch tablet is the expected model.

The Chinese PC maker had one of the slowest reactions to the iPad. It produces its own tablet and had warned about the risks by arguing that tablets were necessary to stay relevant and prevent from being pushed aside because of Apple.

Cai told TechRadar that the company has enough potential for a 23-inch tablet. Moreover, they had to take care of battery life, but they are also working on getting the weight down.

The tablet’s design is supposed to be based on the manufacturer’s existing all-in-ones, but powered by batteries. Cai also suggested that the new tablet will be able to be used as a television, or reproduce a desktop experience when paired with a keyboard.

Even if further details are yet to be known, Lenovo’s 23-inch tablet is expected to start shipping sometime in 2011.

No explanation was given of how Lenovo would still sell the original tablet in parallel with the new device. The price below $500 of the 10-inch slate may represent its strongest attraction.

The history of the LePad is a bit troubled at Lenovo. Unveiled as half of the IdeaPad U1 in 2010, January, it has been broken out as its own device afterwards. Lenovo has tried to utilize its Linux interface first, but had to switch to Android. Delays ended up moving the device to June this year.

Lenovo’s CEO considered a tablet was vital to fend off Apple. He has motivated that Apple was lax in China and not having a worldwide spread would remove Lenovo from the modern market and would let Apple’s iPad without enough competition.

Lenovo’s ThinkCentre M81 can be had in either a small or tower form factor. Storage can be had up to a 160GB solid state drive, as well as a choice of AMD discrete Radeon graphics or Intel HD graphics. There is also USB 3.0 and SATA III onboard. The Lenovo Enhanced Experience 2.0 for Windows 7 and RapidBoot tech offers the possibility of faster boot up times for either new PC.

Lenovo’s ThinkStation E30 will start shipping in May, being priced at $629, while the ThinkCentre M81 will arrive sometime in April for $599.

The Ebox is in development for over two years and should target casual gamers with its motion-controlled interface, camera-based. Sixteen global game developers are said to have agreed to sign contracts to supply content for the new gaming console. When shipping, in early 2011, the console would be bundled wit thirty free titles. The hardware should cost between the price of a Wii and that of the Xbox 360, which is sold for $300.

Eedoo hopes to have sales of one million units within its first two to three years of presence on the market. The real challenge for the company is, however, to develop games having a Chinese cultural element incorporated, which would significantly increase the interest for the device in its origin country.

The Xbox 360, although manufactured in China, is not allowed for sale in this country, due to a ban which forbids importing gaming consoles since 2000. Microsoft is negotiating with the Chinese government the possibility of selling the gaming console in China.

Hewlett Packard has consolidated its lead by rising slightly to 25.7 percent. It has sold 4.72 million PCs on the American market. Dell continued to decline and has now exactly 24 percent.

The economy has not recovered too quickly and consequently the average growth rate moved slower than it was expected and reached only 12.4 percent. This does not explain, however, the drop of Acer in market share. The company had a spectacular spring season in 2009, but new reports have shown Apple’s iPad seriously impacting on netbook sales, which was one of the core businesses for Acer. Apple also updated its MacBook as well as MacBook Pro computers, maybe some of its most important products, which have also helped the company’s growth.

Computer shipments worldwide have been up 22.4 percent. Companies like Hewlett Packard, Dell, Acer, Lenovo or Toshiba kept their positions, although a growth of 83.6 percent has been recorded for ASUS which virtually tied Toshiba on the fifth place with 4.32 million computers. Similarly to the United States, Dell and Acer have seen a small loss in their share, but Hewlett Packard also had a drop and has now 18.1 percent, which means 14.77 million PCs.

As Apple did not rank in the first five companies, IDC did not record it, but recent estimates show it on the eighth place, due to the fact that Samsung’s abrupt growth has pushed it ahead.

An important part of the continued growth has been attributed to companies replacing aging systems and also to those having more available income home, in countries that already awake of the financial crisis. There are areas on the globe with still low access to computing equipment and therefore are growing faster than do developing areas. The significant fall of Acer is probably due to its orientation towards home users. Dell would instead have benefited from focusing its efforts on business users.

The first to arrive on the market will be the 1.60GHz Core i7 configuration, benefitting from 4GB of RAM and a standard 500GB of hard disk storage space. The new system will be available straight from Lenovo and other retailers, being priced at $1500.

Lenovo will most likely expand its customization options in the near future; for a start, the company may offer Core i3 and up to a 1.86GHz quad Core i7. The IdeaPad Y560d will be available with a Blu-ray drive and the manufacturer’s hybrid storage system (the RapidDrive); the latter joins a quick-booting 64GB SSD and a classic 750GB disk drive.

Researchers have attributed the growth to the success of the iPhone. This one may have created a halo effect, similar to the iPod, as Windows customers who get an iPhone are so much enjoying the experience that they immediately proceed to buy a Mac.

Southeast Asian companies, such as Acer, Lenovo, ASUS, Samsung and Toshiba have grown faster. The fastest of them was ASUS with 136.2 percent. A major factor has been the strong Chinese economy, but netbooks and low-end notebooks also contributed to this growth.

Desktops have stopped the near-constant decline of their sales and have grown one percent. The trend did not extend on portables, as this category has moved up in a year with 26.5 percent.

The statistics show a rare picture with Apple strong in the computer market, while other research firms report results which exclude Apple from the top five worldwide.

IBM and Lenovo have seen the strongest growth and share the first place for the first quarter of this year. Although Apple has maintained the highest overall score in 2009, it is only ranked third. Asus comes second according to this report, while Toshiba ranks after Apple. The last place in the top five is shared between HP and Compaq.

However, a Consumer Reports comparison presents quite different results and places Apple in front of its competitors on the first spot with more than 36 percent. The scores in this report are based on consumer ratings of tech support teams of each company. Comparatively, Rescuecom is comparing the number of calls the third-party support service has received.