Lenovo ups its game with a 10 inch Windows ThinkPad

If tablets are to replace laptops and desktops, they’ll need to have the form-factor that make them usable in most situations, and that’s where Lenovo hopes its latest ThinkPad has the guts to compete with other tablets out there.

Built for business but ready for just about anyone keen for a high end tablet experience, Lenovo’s latest ThinkPad seems to be more a ThinkTab, with a design centred around a 10 inch made for people who want to work and play.

The tablet comes with a 1920×1200 Full HD screen, protected by Corning’s scratch-resistant Gorilla Glass technology, with the entire tablet encased in aluminium to make it strong.

Inside the ThinkPad, you’ll find a quad-core Intel Atom chip, working with either 2 or 4GB RAM, either 64 or 128GB storage, with room to move when a microSD card is thrown into the card slot. That’s fortunate, because some of the space will be taken up when you first boot the tablet up, thanks to Windows 8.1 being present here.

WiFi is native to the model, working over the 802.11a/b/g/n protocols, with Bluetooth 4.0 available, but if you decide you need a connection where ever you go, a 4G LTE version will also be made available adding fast 4G speeds and Near-Field Communication (NFC) technology.

The ThinkPad comes off as being more tablet than laptop, and because tablets tend to have cameras in spades, the ThinkPad 10 is no different, with a 2 megapixel front-facing camera and an 8 megapixel rear camera, both capable of capturing 1080p Full HD videos.

This sits under the aforementioned 10 inch screen, which can be used as a tablet, but with an optional accessory, the ThinkPad 10 can become like an Ultrabook as well.

We say “like” because the Atom inside means it’s not technically an Ultrabook, due to Intel’s specifications of what an Ultrabook can be, but with the Lenovo ThinkPad 10 Keyboard, it is, like a keyboard with another tablet, similar to having a desktop, and you even get a glass touch-pad to make Windows a little more user friendly.

Other accessories include a digitiser pen, a desktop dock with USB 3.0 ports, and a cover with a “Quickshot” flap that folds down when you need to take pictures with the rear camera on the tablet.

We're still not quite sure we understand why people take pictures with their tablets, but if you engage in this method of taking photos, the QuickShot case might help.

Pricing for the ThinkPad 10 comes in at a starting price of $799 which appears to be for the WiFi only model with 2GB RAM and 64GB storage, though we are checking with Lenovo to find out how much the price rises when you add the good stuff like 4G and 128GB of built-in storage.