back to article Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet goes on sale

Mere days after HP threw its TouchPad tablet under the bus, Lenovo has tossed its new iPad-killer candidate into the marketplace. The 10.1-inch Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet, which went on sale on Tuesday, has a focus and features that give it a far better chance than HP's megaflop to claw some market share away from Apple's "magical …

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  1. pcsupport

    I thought woohoo...

    … until I saw the word 'Android' :(

    Why can't anyone make a decent non-iphone / non-android tablet?

    1. Anonymous John

      HP have.

      It's called the Touchpad. Oh, wait a minute....

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Well..

      ...RIM have. Making a decent tablet is the easy bit, it's getting developers to support it and therefore people to actually buy it that seems to be where the problems lie...

      1. DrXym

        RIM?

        RIM's tablet would have been far more favourably received if the software was finished when it was released. The thing wouldn't even let you read email without bridging the tablet to a phone. Supposedly this was for "security" but the real reason is likely that their backend code was so bolloxed that it was easier to write this horrible kludge than fix the thing properly in the timeframe.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Nice specs...

    ...shame about the slightly tacky looks.

    And I'm still not seeing the business USP either...nothing unique from other tablets?

    1. General Zod
      WTF?

      Tacky?!

      What's so tacky all of a sudden about a minimalist black rectangle? I believe large numbers of people, within living memory, were willing to pay hundreds extra for a device in black. Personally, I think metal trim on plastic and shiny chrome finishes are tacky, but what do I know. It must be all those useless buttons. So few of us today have fingers.

    2. Roland6 Silver badge

      Boxes ticked for my clients

      Positives

      1. Pen/Handwriting input and document markup.

      2. Lenovo build quality, support and eco-system.

      3. Lenovo business 'vaqluepack' (although compared to the suite of applications included with the Thinkpad it does seem a little lightweight).

      4. Significantly cheaper than a Windows Tablet.

      5. Easier to deploy enterprise applications on to than an ipad/iphone.

      Negatives

      1. Running Android, so existing mobile client applications will need to be ported - however the availability of enterprise tools such as iAnywhere will assist (yes I know there is an overlap with the Good-for-Enterprise suite but none of my clients use it).

      2. Glossy screen (okay its gorilla glass) does rule out many field worker applications where the screen needs to be readable outdoors.

      3. No fingerprint reader.

  3. a_been

    Yawn

    So there USP is "we have a couple more ports than an ipad and a whole load of bloatware". Well im sure a lot of Businesses will be thinking "hmm, we can save $50 a go on a dongal, thats almost $17 a year over 3 years, bargin and Lenovo unlike HP are a big company so we can be sure of updates fixes and support".

  4. AbortRetryFail
    Happy

    Fn key

    What, no Fn key where the Ctrl key is? Can't be a proper Thinkpad unless it has that hugely irritating quirk.

    1. Ammaross Danan
      Coat

      Connector

      At least it has microUSB, miniHDMI, and an SD card slot. At the same price point as the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, if the screen is as nice, this might lure me away....

    2. Steve Evans

      Re: Fn key

      That's nothing! Where's the nipple that should be in the middle?

      1. Evil Weevil
        Joke

        The nipple ....

        ....will be on the TIT who'll be using the ThinkPad.

  5. Volker Hett

    A shame

    wide format again, hopefully somebody (else) will put out a 4:3 which is more useful to me.

    1. Steve Evans

      @Volker Hett

      Indeed... Only thing I like about the ipad is the aspect ratio. Widescreen if for playing movies, not work!

      Still, nice looking tablet, classic Thinkpad Business looks.

      Posted from the R52 Thinkpad

  6. ceebee

    loving my HP

    despite the Touchpad being a commercial failure ..I managed to pick one up cheap... and you know what it is actually quite good... surfs the web, plays FLASH video ... and has great audio.

    the WebOS is so much nicer to use than Android in the tablet form factor ... maybe Honeycomb fixes the tablet issues?

    That said I hope someone else succeeds ..having a monopoly player, whether it is Apple or Microsoft or Google is not a great thing.

    1. Eric Hood

      me too.

      I too have a Touchpad. The first thing I noticed that is better than my iPad is the on screen keyboard has numeric keys above the letters. So much easier when typing in passwords.

      The second thing is you tube. I plan to use this for playing video. The device plays youtube clips better than my iPad and the audio is better because of the stereo speakers.

  7. Ken 16 Silver badge
    Thumb Up

    So can I replace my Transnote now?

    no HTML!

  8. KroSha

    Tempting

    I actually think that they may be on to a winner here. OK, as a niche product it'll never shift shedloads, but I know several IT depts that are sick of telling their users that they will not supply or support iPads for the business. Some of these run Lenovo as their staple laptops, so I can see them at least testing whether they have a use for the business. If Lenovo have bundled this thing properly, then it could become the business tablet of choice, as the iPad is the consumer one.

    Lenovo did manage to turn IBM's business laptop division around, maybe they can do the same for Android tablets?

  9. TeeCee Gold badge
    Coat

    In the light of conversations elsewhere here....

    ....shouldn't it be badged as a Telepad?

  10. John Ruddy
    Happy

    Doesnt it look

    a bit like the ones in 2001? Could IBM sue?

    1. Magnus Ramage

      2001 lookalike?

      More like the monolith...

  11. Mondo the Magnificent
    Thumb Up

    Sure looks different

    Good to see Lenovo didn't try and emulate the design features we've seen from Apple, Samsung and a few others, it looks quite unique.

    I don't believe their choice of Android is a bad one, it works well and most fondleslab owners can relate to it.

    Good luck to them in what has sort of become a two horse market (Samsung / Apple) and let's see if Lenovo can commit to their product unlike HP. If so, the consumer becomes the winner again

    1. Magnus Ramage

      Unique up to a point...

      Well it looks unique as far as tablets go. It does however look exactly like every ThinkPad ever made. Which isn't a terrible thing - they're pretty robust and long-lasting (this typed on a 3-year-old ThinkPad which shows all signs of lasting for several more years) but in design terms not exactly exciting. Which of course is what corporate IT departments everywhere want!

  12. Andy Gates
    Thumb Up

    Good is good

    Nice to see that they've addressed the enterprise complaint of insecure droidery with that Good kit. Just don't let my consultants see them, or we'll have to buy a bunch for them to wave x-rays at punters with..!

  13. DrXym

    Still too much money

    Archos are releasing an Android 3.2 10" 16GB dual core device in September for $379. This is the direction prices should be heading. If a relatively minor company can put out decent spec tablets for that price, then why can't the brand names?

    I reckon they still don't get it. They think people are going to spend stupid money for a tablet. Of course some people might spend stupid money but those people are likely to be buying an iPad. Android has to offer the same experience for less. Tablets should be competing with each other not with the iPad.

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    GASP!

    It's just another wannabe tablet... what is different from all other Android tablets ?

    Why don't we get 3G ?

    Is it thinner / lighter than an iPad ?

    There is no point whatsoever making a tablet business oriented the way Windows customers think they want it, all the safety is in NOT having business data local on the tablet.The tablet is the UI to the corporate virtual desktop or Citrix or MSTS or cloud, not a stand alone computing device. Do NOT repeat the failure of business phones from some 5 years ago.

    1. Spearchucker Jones

      Err... not quite.

      Many business users will use thick client apps that store (local data) and forward (remote data). There's no point to a mobile device otherwise (see endless criticism against Chromebooks). Granted, given that most data hacks are done when data is at rest, app devs need to think through their security implementations.

      The other thing businesses need is enterprise group policy on the tablet, and associated management tools. Google's cloud-only approach, and it's comptetitive relationship with Microsoft means Android isn't going to get anything like such enterprise support.

      It's why I believe that non-iOS tablets won't hit the business mainstream until Windows 8 is released.

  15. John 73
    Stop

    Widescreen is better

    I've said this before, but widescreen is actually better for business. I've got both an iPad and an Eee Transformer, and I've used both for work.

    A4 docs don't fit on an iPad's screen nicely. Most docs are portrait, and in portrait mode, the iPad has large black bars down the sides of A4 docs at full page view; it's even worse when apps have toolbars. On the Eee, by contrast, a portrait doc fills the full width of the screen and still just leaves space for toolbars top or bottom. In other words, A4 portrait docs (which is the majority of business docs) are much more readable on the Eee than on the iPad without resorting to zooming and panning (which is a pain).

    1. Baudwalk

      +1

      And also for reading e-books on.

      Not that there's anything wrong in some preferring 4:3, but for me, the Transformers' 16:9 is a plus not a minus.

      And I don't even use it for movies. At all.

      9x% of the time, I keep it in portrait mode.

      (Android icon?)

  16. Taz Taziuk
    Megaphone

    A4 versus Letter

    4:3 ratio sucks because it conforms less well to the A4 paper size ratio. 16:10 widescreen, while not perfect, is a *much* better ratio match to A4. And much more of the world uses metric paper sizes.

    So Nyah.

  17. DZ-Jay

    $499, seriously?

    Another one for the dustbin of history. D.O.A.

    -dZ.

  18. John Dougald McCallum
    Thumb Up

    another fondle slab

    at £304+ tax going in the correct direction price wise but too much bloat ware an empty tablet (OS only) with the software on a DVD rom yes so one can load it IF wanted.

  19. Myself

    Anyone remember the IBM 2125, the original ThinkPad?

    1992 called, they want their concept, and their name, back.

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