Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Hybrid sneaks out, appears to switch to Android mode for twice the battery life

Lenovo’s line of Android tablets haven’t been the portable darlings we’d hoped, but the company’s computer cadre is doing just fine. What’s a more-profitable manufacturer to do? Seemingly, shoehorn Android into the ThinkPad laptop line. This is the ThinkPad X1 Hybrid, coming out later this month, which marries the firm’s slick X1 ultraportable with an “Instant Media Mode” that looks just like the heavy-handed Android skin Lenovo’s been tossing onto its tablets thus far. According to our fancy new source, the new mode provides an instant boot and doubles battery life, too, for up to 10 hours of web browsing — the same amount the original X1 promised when you attached the optional slate battery. If that sounds like a familiar idea, perhaps we can reintroduce you to the Lenovo U1, which promised to do the same with a removable slate and keyboard combo many moons ago. Of course, the question here is whether we’re looking at a dual-boot (a la Splashtop) or whether you can actually swap back and forth between the operating systems on the fly.