Lenovo are famous for their quality laptops, but it seems that their ambitions are higher these days and conquering the tablet market is on their priority list. The IdeaPad K1 was not an utter failure but didn’t come even close to meeting the high expectations and the follow up ThinkPad Tablet, is not a giant leap forward. Compared to its predecessor, it is definitely an upgrade in terms of both computing power and software, although on the visual side it lacks badly and features an unresponsive display.
Speaking of which, the ThinkPad Tablet is considerably larger than its direct competition, and it is enough to put it next to a Galaxy Tab 10.1 or an iPad 2 to notice the difference. Naturally, it is also heavier and the addition of physical buttons at the bottom of the screen do it no justice, since they are both difficult to press and not very attractive. The 10.1 inch touchscreen is not very responsive either and although videos and images look decent on the 1280 x 800 resolution, they don’t come even close to what Galaxy Tab 10.1 has to offer.
The rear-facing camera is a mess, and the lenses are terrible, so don’t even bother taking pictures or recording videos, unless it is something truly unique that you want to capture on digital. In terms of battery life, the ThinkPad Tablet comes two hours short of the best tablets out there, but on the flip side, you can charge it through the USB 2.0 port using a regular cable. The highlight of Lenovo’s latest installment is the pen which is sold separately for $30 and allows the user to doodle or write hand messages. Unfortunately, the latter are seriously hurt by the sub-par software, and you have to be extra careful and very patient when writing your thoughts down.
