Lenovo, the new owner of IBM’s PC business unit, has unveiled the first ever ThinkPad tablet PC targeting customers across healthcare and insurance industries. The new tablet PC will be equipped with all IBM ThinkVantage technologies and will be able to act as a typical lightweight notebook.

IBM reportedly has been developing tablet PCs for a while now. However, the tablet PC is still a niche product, which is why the company has never offered such a product commercially. By contrast, Lenovo is trying to broaden IBM’s product portfolio in order to gain its PC market share.

The ThinkPad X41 Tablet is based on Intel Centrino mobile platform in its latest incarnation code-named Sonoma, which is designed to provide additional multimedia functionality to notebooks. Lenovo’s ThinkPad X41 Tablet will use either Low Voltage, or Ultra Low Voltage Intel Pentium M processors as well as up to 1.5GB PC2-4200 (533MHz) DDR2 memory. The computer is equipped with 802.11 a/b/g wireless LAN controller and features Intel GMA900 graphics core of Intel 915GM chipset.

Lenovo ThinkPad X41 Tablet is as 12” tablet PC that weighs approximately 3.5 pounds (1.58 kilograms) in default configuration. It is unclear, how many hours the tablet PC from Lenovo can operate in default configuration, but Lenovo said that being equipped with a 8-cell battery as well as yet another Extended Life battery, ThinkPad X41 Tablet can operate up to 8.5 hours.

A convertible tablet PC offers mobile professionals the choice of working in two ways – as a tablet with digital pen, or as a traditional notebook PC. Equipped with the ThinkPad signature full-size keyboard, the ThinkPad X41 Tablet provides 170-degree viewing, an optional integrated fingerprint reader for additional security, the latest ThinkVantage Technologies for reliability and convenient wireless connectivity, as well as flexible one-step expandability through the optional new ThinkPad X4 Dock.

The ThinkPad X41 Tablet comes equipped with Microsoft’s newest operating system, Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005. This builds on Windows XP Professional, extending the core operating system with capabilities that support digital pen input, handwriting recognition, speech input and the tablet PC form factor.

The ThinkPad X41 Tablet will be available on June 14, 2005, through select resellers and through Lenovo and IBM web-sites. Prices for the ThinkPad X41 Tablet start at $1899. Besides additional battery options Lenovo offers ThinkPad X4 Dock and ThinkPad X41 Tablet Sleeve for additional functionality.