Lenovo to roll out Android 4.0 for ThinkPad Tablet

As companies prepare for MWC, everyone wants to be flaunting the latest in hardware and software, else you find yourself with an empty booth, tucked away somewhere in the corner of the exhibition hall. Lenovo launched a trio of Honeycomb tablets, sometime last year and are planning on an Android 4.0 upgrade path, starting with the ThinkPad tablet, their rendition of an enterprise tablet. The company said they will issue the update, sometime in the second quarter of this year.

ICS enroute!

While we still don’t have any exact dates as to when the update will roll out, we should be getting it over the air (OTA) as Lenovo has done so in the past, with their previous products. With the latest version of Google’s Operating System, users will be able to enjoy a slicker and faster interface, better connectivity, application and multimedia improvements. This is also the first OS from Google to support tablets as well as smartphones, so finally, all you apps should work just fine on either platform. We still wish they would create a separate section for tablet apps like iOS, though, maybe in the future. More importantly, Ice Cream Sandwich will bring with it much better security features, which is key for enterprises.

Certain features present by default in ICS may not come to the ThinkPad tablet, simply because it lacks the hardware support. Features like Android Beam, which allows you to quickly share data, contact information, etc by simply bumping two compatible Android phones, will not work since the tablet does not have NFC yet. This update should give the ThinkPad tablet a slight edge over the competition, which it faces at the moment from Cisco with their Cius tablet. Lenovo are not the only ones to have announced or the ones who will be launching ICS for their tablets. Motorola has already issued the update for the Wi-Fi version of the Xoom and very soon, we’ll be saying good riddance to Honeycomb, altogether.