First of many tablets debut at CES

On the eve of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the first of what's expected to be many new tablets running Windows 7 and Android emerged at yesterday's pre-show CES Unveiled event for the media.

Some tech watchers are predicting as many as 80 different tablets to debut at CES, from companies as diverse as Samsung, Cisco, Vizio, Ace Computers and Research in Motion.

Here are two that were on display yesterday.

Lenovo

Chinese PC maker Lenovo showed an interesting hybrid laptop with a detachable touch screen. The IdeaPad U1 runs Windows 7 as a laptop, but when you detach the 10-inch screen, it switches to Android and becomes "LePad". (Lenovo first showed the prototype at last year's CES running Linux, but never released it.)

The hybrid will be released in China first, and won't be available in the U.S. until Android 3.0 is available, possibly by this summer.

Here's a demo from Engadget.

Motion CL900

Targeting business users in vertical industries, Motion Computing introduced the CL900, a "ruggedized" tablet that runs Windows 7. Designed for businesses with mobile workforces, such as healthcare, retail, or any mobile sales organization, the device supports both touch and stylus input. A peripheral module enables the addition of task-specific tools such as a magnetic-stripe reader.