Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet Pro Reviews

Heavy, black and hewn from the finest plastics known to man, the ThinkPad Tablet is exactly what you would expect a 'droid tablet carrying the TP moniker to be. The smart and business-like design is complemented by a solid range of physical connectors and the N-trig digitizing pen is sure to find fans, even if it’s not as talented as the Wacom stylus you get with the Samsung Galaxy Note. The only major grumbles are the abysmally quiet speaker and merely adequate battery life.

Its chunky profile and weight mean Lenovo’s executive ThinkPad Tablet isn’t for everyone, but its unique combination of class-leading connectivity, ruggedness, charging over USB, a pressure-sensitive stylus and keyboard folio accessory make it the most versatile option on the market. It also offers many business-centric features such as pre-installed Anti-virus and a vetted Lenovo app market that makes for worry-free downloading. As a tablet the Transformer Prime is superior, but if you’re a business user or a consumer who wants a stylus and the best typing experience going, the ThinkPad comes highly recommended. We can’t wait to see a slimmer sequel with Tegra 3 and a Wacom digitizer.

If you are dead-set on the stylus pen, the ThinkPad Tablet could be the Android tablet for you. If you are an IT professional or a ThinkPad fan, again this could be worth your consideration. But if you can stand to wait a bit longer for Tegra 3, I think the performance benefits of four processing cores, improved graphics and Ice Cream Sandwich will be worth the wait.

The Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet boasts excellent accessories that can transform the tablet into an on-the-go business machine. But short battery life and some stability issues make it a questionable choice for casual and corporate users alike.

Back when we reviewed the IdeaPad K1, we came away feeling disappointed. Our verdict, in a sentence, was that the tablet was okay, but we'd rather see what the geekier, more fully featured ThinkPad Tablet had to offer. If anything, though, reviewing it brought on a serious case of déjà vu. Again, we were confronted with a not-so-responsive display, sluggish performance and the same hit-or-miss software tweaks. After testing Lenovo's first two Android tablets, it seems clear that the problem isn't a saturated market, where decent Honeycomb slates can go unappreciated. No, the problem is that right now, at least, Lenovo just doesn't make tablets with the same panache that it does computers. That's not to say the ThinkPad Tablet is a failure. It lasts through eight hours of video playback, offers full-sized ports, packs a high-quality IPS display and supports pen input (however imperfect the experience actually is) -- all while paying homage to the ThinkPad line's storied design. It also offers lots of options for IT managers and is offered with a pitch-perfect keyboard case -- two ways in which the tablet makes good use of Lenovo's ThinkPad know-how. Particularly if you've been looking for something with a stylus, it's tough to argue with it, as the flawed writing experience still beats having none at all. And we can see where businesses might be willing to overlook the ho-hum performance in favor of those remote control features. But if it's just the SD slot and USB port you're after, you could easily get the ASUS Eee Pad Transformer and dock and spend about $50 less than you would on the ThinkPad Tablet-plus-keyboard-case combo. And if you don't even care about the ports, well, there's not enough reason to plunk your hard-earned greenbacks down on something this poky.

With the ThinkPad, Lenovo has taken a giant step toward a true enterprise level mobile tablet. Unfortunately Android is not quite as ready for the business environment.

The Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet has several business-oriented features that should bring a smile to the IT crowd, along with digital pen support and a beautiful screen. The tablet is relatively thick and heavy, with unnecessary navigation buttons and uninspired Android interface optimizations.

This sturdy, well-built tablet comes with most of the features businesses need in an Android-based tablet. It has a few small quirks, but it's a solid tablet pick.

The Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet is a smart option for those who need to use a tablet at work. It has an understated but somewhat bulky design that fits well with a full-size laptop. Movies and other media are hit and miss, but mostly miss because of the less than colourful screen and choppy playback. Our final conclusion is that this tablet is better than many other Android models, mostly because of the extra ports and the business apps, but the larger size and weight make it a runner-up to Apple and Samsung models.

Lenovo's ThinkPad Tablet is the first Android device that really gives mobile professionals the tools they need to be productive along with the security IT departments demand. For those who need to edit documents and take notes, the tablet's pen support is invaluable and unmatched in the industry. This tablet's sturdy design also inspires confidence. The audio quality is lackluster, and we'd like to see features such as automatic cloud syncing added to the note-taking app, but overall this slate is worthy of the ThinkPad brand.

This tablet is pretty decent and should be great for business users and professionals. While the stylus works for full navigation everywhere the user needs from swiping through homescreens and choosing apps and more. Certain applications have no use for it, like Documents to Go — it has no doodle or stylus support so the stylus us useless here. We can expect to see more apps take full advantage of the pen in the future and the Lenovo App shop has a few that are confirmed to support it also.

The Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet is aimed squarely at business users and comes with a digitiser pen for drawing.