Lenovo ThinkPad Helix Ultrabook: Your new summer convertible?

Speaking of falling to bits...

I bet that detachable screen is going to be popular with IT departments everywhere.

I can see very little point buying this when I could get a Macbook Air or Macbook Pro Retina for these kinds of prices and better performance and they run Windows and / or OS X (especially the new Maverics version) looks good.

I bought one...

... because

1. I had the budget

2. I wanted a convertible for actual business reasons (client site visits and training sessions. Having all my stuff on a tablet is really useful)

3. Battery life

4. 3G

5. I wanted something I could treat badly - it's very well built

6. I knew that I could easily use linux on it. Saying that, I did need to fiddle with grub2

I've had it for about a month and it does all these things really well.

Some points:

1. Gnome forces 96 DPI, which makes text really small on the screen. You can use text scaling to solve this, but then when you're using a second monitor this doesn't work. I'm going to have to use something else, but not really sure what.

2. the command xinput --map-to-output 13 eDP1 fixes the touchscreen issue mentioned in the article

3. Presentation mode is really useful to save space on a desk when using it in the office with two monitors, a proper mouse and keyboard etc.

4. Windows 8's dual monitor support seems to really suck. Sometimes (who knows why) the start menu rubbish will appear on the external monitor and then you're screwed, it's there forever.

5. I wish it had a SD card slot. I didn't realise how much more annoying a usb adaptor is than just having one.

6. It's really nice to have a touchscreen laptop.

7. The mouse pad takes some getting used to, as it's one of those maccy click anywhere ones.

And who said Apple gear was very costly. It actually makes them look pretty reasonable now.

£1600 -- a quick search online and I can't find anyone selling one with these specs for less than £1750.

price v. spex

One one hand:

£1800 squid

on the other:

last-gen processor (not bad, but for this price, I'd expect something... current)

no sd / xd card slot. Not a drama, but, surprisingly, very convenient, when you want to offload pix off your camara. Cables are... uncool ;)

Unlit keyboard. Never been a fan of those, but apparently, everybody (ex-IBX thinkpad users, etc), swear by it. Given the price point.... and other shortcomings, pointed in the article...I'm disappointed.

Quite a change for the designers, they have gone from putting the guts in the keyboard part of the clamshell to putting it all in the monitor part of the clamshell.

What this may mean though is the fans not being level which might affect their life a little. Rules out normal hard disks in some cases too as they're not always supposed to be used when not level.

Id like to see any of the macs mentioned in the comments to be able to run AutoCAD or 3D studio whist in tablet mode, while also running a couple of other virtual machines....

and have the out of band management of the Lenovo..........

Way over-priced

If it was in the range of $800 and had an AMD A10-5750, then I might consider it.

Comparison with Apple

Worth noting the Helix comes with a 3-year warranty, no extra moolah required unlike the extra-cost Applecare options for extended coverage on their kit. I had a look at the Lenovo website but it wasn't clear what the warranty on offer actually entails, it just says "3 Year Depot/Express Warranty", what that actually means I don't know as the website seems to be rather coy on the subject.

Thank you, Bob, for a great review

A review that presents both the advantages and some of the niggles in detail is so much more valuable than other so called reviews which just present device features. This review confirmed my decision to hold off until Helix Gen II.