Great keyboard, but a bit pricey

Laptops like the Lenovo ThinkPad series or Dell Latitude are aimed largely at corporate users. They emphasise on performance, have a sturdy yet lightweight design, and security features to protect important data. On the other hand, tablets which have hit the market so far are used primarily for watching videos, reading books, browsing the web and playing games.

That’s why I didn’t quite know what to expect from the Lenovo ThinkPad tablet. What could it offer corporate users what the iPad 2 or any of the other Android-based tablets couldn’t?

For starters, a USB port, which is sorely missed on tablets despite the popularity of cloud-based services like iCloud. So, files can be transferred from a USB drive via a pre-loaded app.

However, the joy of using the USB port is short-lived as it is used to dock into a protective case that doubles up as a keyboard. So now you have a netbook, which has no USB ports.

The keyboard itself is great to use. It has physical keys that help a lot while punching in longer emails. The leather case is well designed and does its job of protecting the tablet. Seen from a distance, it looks like one of those large planners that are ubiquitous in corporate offices.

The tablet also comes with pen-shaped stylus, which is ergonomic, stylish and performs reasonably well. Lenovo has preloaded Notes Mobile, an app that turns your scribbles into text. You can find other apps that make use of the stylus in the Lenovo App Store.

This is where the list of distinguishing features ends. Inside, the ThinkPad tablet is powered by a
dual-core processor and 1GB RAM, the standard configuration for any top-line tablet.

While there were no niggles with the performance of the device, the Android Honeycomb operating system is far from being smooth. The design of the ThinkPad too leaves much to be desired. A flat rectangular shape with only the slightest of curves fails to distinguish the ThinkPad from the horde of Android-based tablets. It is also considerably thicker and heavier than the iPad 2 and Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1. The rubber plastic back panel gives a nice feel to an otherwise underwhelming design.

Android tablets normally do not have any physical buttons as the operating system has soft keys for basic functions like returning to the home screen. The ThinkPad has not one, but four such buttons: Home screen, back, browser and screen rotation lock. I found all of them except the screen rotation lock redundant.

To sum up, a USB drive, a stylus and a physical keyboard are interesting features, but they don’t justify the heavy price tag of Rs51,000. For that amount you’d expect Lenovo to pack in far more punch.