Lenovo Group Ltd, China's biggest maker of personal computers, will start sales of two new tablet devices in the US to compete in a market dominated by Apple Inc's iPad.

The company will take orders for the IdeaPad Tablet K1 from today, and start sales of the Thinkpad Tablet from Aug 2, it said in a statement Wednesday. Lenovo began sales of its LePad tablet in China in March.

Hewlett-Packard Co, Dell Inc and Lenovo, the world's three biggest makers of PCs, are offering new tablets as the popularity of Apple's iPad curbs growth in demand for desktop and notebook computers. Global PC shipments rose 2.3 percent in the three months ended June, according to Gartner Inc, less than the 6.7 percent increase predicted by the research company.

The IdeaPad Tablet, priced from $499, and the Thinkpad tablet, priced from $479, use version 3.1 of Google Inc's Android operating system, Lenovo said. The company plans to sell a new tablet based on Microsoft Corp's Windows 7 system in the fourth quarter, it said.