Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet: photos
Over the past year, plenty of tablets have been launched with the aim of taking a slice out of Apple's seemingly unstoppable iPad sales, but few have targeted the business market. RIM's QNX-based PlayBook and HP's TouchPad, which runs webOS 3.0, are the leading general-purpose contenders here. There are also a couple of Android tablets designed primarily for corporate unified communications: Cisco's Cius and the Avaya Desktop Video Device.
Lenovo has now added a 10.1in. Android 3.1 tablet to its ThinkPad range, which should cause business professionals keen to join the tablet revolution to prick up their ears.
The IT administrator-friendly ThinkPad Tablet will be available in the UK in September, and will cost between £399 and £549 (inc. VAT; £332.50-£457.50 ex. VAT) depending on configuration.
Photos: Donald Bell/CNET
The ThinkPad Tablet has a 10.1in. HD (1,280-by-800-pixel) IPS multi-touch touch-screen with extra-tough Gorilla Glass. It's not the most svelte or stylish of tablets, being 14mm thick and weighing 750g. Professionals won't mind too much, though, as the look and feel is typical businesslike ThinkPad and there's room for plenty of connectivity options. A notable feature is an optional digital pen, which lives in a recessed housing on the side. This can be used to transcribe handwritten on-screen notes into text, or annotate documents and images.
The ThinkPad Tablet is powered by a dual-core Nvidia Tegra 2 processor running at 1GHz, supported by up to 1GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage. As well as on-device storage, you get 2GB of cloud-based storage. It's particularly well-endowed with connectivity and expansion options: you get Micro-USB and full-size USB ports, an HDMI port and an SD card reader. On the wireless side there's Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and mobile broadband (the latter listed as 'coming soon' on Lenovo's UK web site). There are cameras at the front (2 megapixel) and back (5 megapixel), and Lenovo claims battery life of up to 8 hours with Wi-Fi enabled.
IT-friendly features on the ThinkPad Tablet include: full device (including SD card) encryption; preloaded security software (McAfee Mobile and Computrace Mobile) for anti-malware protection, backup and restore, location tracking, remote lock and remote wipe; virtual desktop support (via Citrix Receiver); easy deployment (via LanDesk); and secure email (via Good Technology). Documents To Go provides support for viewing, editing and creating Microsoft Office files, and PDF viewing; there's full Flash support plus access to Lenovo's App Shop, which will include enterprise applications.
Photos: Donald Bell/CNET
The ThinkPad Tablet has a good range of optional accessories, including a docking station, the aforementioned digital pen and a folio case that incorporates a keyboard.
Photos: Donald Bell/CNET