Though tablets are growing more and more popular among mainstream consumers, they have yet to prove themselves as viable replacements for laptops when it comes to productivity. With the 10.1-inch ThinkPad Tablet ($499,16GB; $569, 32GB; $669, 64GB; direct), Lenovo puts forth a tablet aimed at business users, but it lacks reliability and performance that has made the company's ThinkPad line so successful in the corporate world. The most intriguing aspect of the ThinkPad Tablet is not the tablet itself, but its stylus and keyboard folio accessories, which cost an additional $140. There's some good design and functionality here including a full-size USB port, and an option to add 3G connectivity, but frustrating app crashes and some unresponsiveness hold this Lenovo tablet back.

Design and Accessories
Those fond of the classic yet staid ThinkPad aesthetic will appreciate this tablet, but much like its laptop counterparts, it lacks the slickness and wow factor of many of its competitors. And at 10.3 by 7.2 by .6 inches (HWD) and 1.6 pounds, the ThinkPad Tablet is chunky. The iPad 2 ($499, 4.5 stars) is nearly half as thick and shaves off 0.3 pound. The rear panel is covered in rubberized black plastic, typical of the ThinkPad moniker, making the tablet easy to grip. There are physical Orientation Lock, Browser, Back, and Home below the screen; as well as a plastic volume rocker and Power button along the top right corner. I found the physical buttons a bit redundant given the on screen navigation buttons, but they were also less susceptible to accidental presses than capacitive buttons included on other tablets. Below the physical navigation buttons, there's a standard 3.5mm headphone jack, a mini HDMI port, a micro USB port, and a proprietary dock connector. Next to those ports, hidden behind a plastic flap, is slot for a SIM card, as well as a 3-in-1 media card reader. The card reader can be used to expand the storage on the tablet using SD, SDHC, or MMC.  

Lenovo also included a full sized USB port, which can directly access external hard drives. This is a nice feature that we've only seen in the Toshiba Thrive ($429, 3.5 stars), but it also adds to the tablet's heft. The bezel also houses a 2-megapixel front-facing camera on the top right corner, with a 5-megapixel rear-facing camera on the top left corner of the back.

For connectivity, you get 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.0, and there's that aforementioned SIM slot to add cellular connectivity. Lenovo says the tablet will work with AT&T and Sprint's 3G networks here in the U.S., and also supports global GSM roaming.

The 10.1-inch, 1280-by-800-pixel IPS display is covered in Corning Gorilla Glass, which is also used in the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 ($499, 3.5 stars). Though both screens share the same glossy sheen, I found the Galaxy Tab's display brighter and colors were more vibrant. Viewing angles were comparable on both. The big problem with the ThinkPad Tablet's screen; it was occasionally unresponsive. I found myself tapping multiple times before input would register, and swiping through home screens and the lock screen was often delayed. This wasn't a huge deal, but it was frustrating to have to repeat gestures so often.

Lenovo offers two marquee accessories that really take the ThinkPad Tablet to the next level in terms of productivity. The first is the keyboard folio case, which connects via the full-sized USB port and can prop the tablet up for a laptop-like experience. The second is a ThinkPad branded stylus pen, which fits nicely into the top of the tablet. The keyboard folio case costs an additional $99.99 and the stylus adds another $39.99, but honestly, you want to use both of them to get the most out of your ThinkPad Tablet.

The optional keyboard appears small, but, like most ThinkPad keyboards, it's a pleasure to type on. There is some delay between typing and text appearing on screen, but it is still far better than the on-screen keyboard experience. I initially thought the keyboard also included a traditional ThinkPad TrackPoint nub, but was disappointed to find it is actually an optical trackpoint. It is more of a tiny touch pad that you wipe your finger across, rather than a nub you push in any direction to move the cursor. The folio case converts the tablet to a near-laptop form factor, but it is much more comfortable on a hard, flat surface; I had less luck using the Thinkpad in my lap. It also folds flat and serves as a carrying case, but full 1.25-inch-thick package is bulkier than many netbooks. The pen input works well, though there is a slight delay while writing. The handwriting recognition is accurate, especially considering my questionable penmanship. My one gripe is that pen-optimized apps, like the included Notes Mobile, recognizes touches from your hand while it moves across the screen, causing stray strokes. Pen input was generally responsive, though I did find tapping on icons often required multiple tries to register. Aside from Notes Mobile, there are a few available pen optimized apps, like SketchBook, that are useful for drawing quick sketches or diagrams.

OS and Performance
Lenovo did not heavily skin Android 3.1 here, but there are some significant changes to the interface, and the company adds some preloaded apps and widgets. The standard Android icons for Back, Home, and Task Manager buttons have been tweaked, but the notification area is untouched. The one major addition is the App Wheel, found in the middle of the home row, which offers up quick access to your favorite apps. Apps can be added and removed, and the App Wheel opens on top of whatever you're currently running. It's similar to the Mini Apps Tray on Galaxy Tab tablets, but this is more of an app shortcut, as opposed to Samsung's approach to simple multitasking. The home screens are populated with a few widgets, most prominent being the Lenovo Launcher, which features four customizable panes, with the default functions set to Watch, Email, Listen, Read, with a browser shortcut in the center. Watch and Listen take you to the preloaded video on demand and Internet radio apps mSpot Movies and mSpot Music, which are both inferior to the, also preloaded, Netflix and Slacker Radio apps. Read, by default, takes you to the Zinio app, but, like the rest of the panes, can be customized to open any app of your choosing.

Lenovo also bundles some useful business-focused apps, like McAfee Security, and Citrix Receiver, which offers some interesting desktop virtualization options. And there are two options for finding third-party apps on the ThinkPad Tablet: The Android Market and Lenovo's own App Shop, which the company could have used to offer up tablet-specific apps. Instead, it only had a small collection of Lenovo approved app categories, such as its pen-optimized app collection, which only includes 10 titles. All of the apps are selected to work with the ThinkPad Tablet, but they still include many that are phone optimized as opposed to tablet optimized. The ThinkPad Tablet suffers from the fundamental problem facing all Android tablets: a lack of easy-to-find tablet-optimized apps.

The ThinkPad Tablet is powered by a dual-core 1GHz Tegra 2 processor with 1GB of RAM. Though the tablet scored slightly higher than the similarly equipped Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 (4,912 versus 4,671 on our Antutu benchmark),  actual performance was disappointing in my tests. I experienced far too many app crashes and system lockups. For instance, listening to Slacker Radio while switching between Google's Talk app and the browser would often cause the music to stop or one of the apps to freeze up, requiring a force close. In a few instances, I would wake the tablet from sleep only to find that the DocsToGo app was no longer responding. Luckily I was able to recover my work, but it was still pretty disconcerting. And I had similar issues on two different ThinkPad Tablets. Also, the tablet just feels sluggish compared with other 10-inch tablets including the Samsung Galaxy Tab and the Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime ($499, 4 stars). The latter costs the same, and with its quad-core Tegra 3 processor is much faster and more fluid than the ThinkPad Tablet in general use. The Transformer Prime also has an optional keyboard accessory, which makes it a viable laptop replacement.

Like most tablets, the ThinkPad's cameras are just average; taking moderately sharp pictures with some noise problems in low light and a lot of blur with moving objects. The rear facing camera is capable of 720p30 video, but our tests revealed the frame rates ranged from 15-20 frames per second and the video quality wasn't great. I was able to video chat using the front facing camera, but the picture was choppy and the sound was delayed or, in some cases, didn't work at all. For audio files, the ThinkPad Tablet supports AAC, FLAC, OGG, WAV and WMA. It also plays DIVX, H.264, MPEG4, and XVID video files without any problem.

Lenovo claims that the ThinkPad Tablet will deliver up to 8 hours of battery life, but in our tests, which loops a video, with Wi-Fi on, and the tablet's screen set at maximum brightness, the ThinkPad Tablet lasted just 5 hours and 5 minutes. This was pretty disappointing for such a hefty 10-inch tablet, especially compared with the iPad 2's 7 hours, 30 minutes and the Asus Transformer Prime's 7 hours, 38 minutes.

Conclusions
Like most products bearing the ThinkPad name, Lenovo's business-oriented Android tablet is a well-built machine with sensible design and software choices. But as far as stability and performance are concerned, the ThinkPad Tablet doesn't live up to its namesake. You do get features like a full-sized USB port, optional cellular connectivity, business-specific apps, and handy add-on accessories that will be appreciated by the corporate crowd. If you're not looking for a tablet for business reasons, but you're a Lenovo fan, the IdeaPad Tablet K1 ($499, 3.5 stars) is a better performer. But overall, it's tough to justify choosing the ThinkPad Tablet over a more powerful device like the Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime, which has the same base price, a much faster processor, more stable performance, and an add-on dock accessory that turns it into a laptop too.

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