The Lenovo Group Ltd will launch its first ultra mobile personal computer (UMPC) in August to compete with ASUS and HP in the small-sized PC market, China's No. 1 PC maker announced yesterday in Shanghai.

The UMPC sector has become a fiercely competitive market, fuelled by ASUS' EeePC debut, industry insiders said.

Lenovo's new UMPC models, called S9 and S10 with 9-inch and 10-inch screens, are expected to sell from 2,999 yuan (US$435) to 3,999 yuan. Unlike ASUS' first-generation EeePC with small-capacity solid state hard disks, Lenovo's UMPCs feature a hard disk with a 120 gigabyte capacity and Windows XP as an operating system, according to Lenovo, now the world's No. 4 personal computer maker.

"They are fully functional PCs - just smaller sized," said Peng Jun, Lenovo's consumer business market director based in Shanghai. "We are not the early birds (of the UMPC market) but we aim to test the market response with these products."

For consumers, UMPC is often seen as a second choice laptop with super mobility. It's a new segment market meeting the demand for equipment sized between a laptop and a mobile phone, according to CCID Consulting, a Beijing-based IT consulting firm.

Up to now almost all PC vendors have already launched or announced their UMPC models. Millions of UMPCs, like ASUS EeePC or HP Mini, have been sold worldwide.

More firms like MSI and Acer have said they will launch UMPC models this summer and ACER and ASUS said they expected to sell several million UMPC models this year.

Meanwhile Lenovo expects its laptop sales, excluding Thinkpad, will grow 60 percent year-on-year in the third quarter as young students choose their models.

Lenovo's laptops will be welcomed by the market with functions including high definition video play, a large hard disk (250G) and facial recognition.

The majority of laptop sales will come from the 13-inch models and Lenovo will launch a 13-inch model with an LED (light emitting diode) screen this summer, Peng said.

(Shanghai Daily July 1, 2008)