Build Quality and Design
I have to admit, the build quality is pretty decent and better than I initially thought. It’s light-weight, but feels sturdy and strong. This is all thanks to its carbon design and . When you have the unit in your hands, it does feel smaller than an iPad and it’s definitely lighter. No complaints here.
You’ll notice that the panel uses a 10.1 inch (16:9) IPS LED touchscreen (backlight, anti-glare, 5-finger multitouch) and is capable of HD WXGA (1366×768) 720p resolution. It’s literally a widescreen laptop without the bottome half, keyboard or rom-drive!
User Experience
When I first switched on the unit, the first thing that came to mind was … oh boy, it’s going to be a disaster! A tablet powered by an Atom processor running Windows 8 Pro, is going struggle. Surprisingly though, it was not as bad as I thought. The boot time was around 7-10 seconds (from cold), after which you’ll need to register the device using your MSN/Live/Hotmail login or create a new account.
After the registration process, you’re greeted with the infamous Windows 8 desktop with large square and rectangle /windows. Each of these Windows offer a different function (email, photos, music etc) and thus colored differently for easier identification.
Built-in email is via Outlook.com, which you get that during your registration process. There’s also a photo viewer, media player for music and videos. And let’s not forget Skype, which is built-in as part of Windows 8. So you now also get excellent video conference and chat capabilities. The optional digitizer pen (yes, it’s extra) is great for tool for selecting menus and drawing free-hand … use it like a remote mouse, except you have to touch the screen with it.
Now, this is the fun part. What about the Windows “Desktop” ? … Yes, you do get an option to run the Windows 8 Pro as a desktop, fully laced with icons and a start menu. During this “Desktop” mode, users are supposed to be able to run desktop apps such as Office 2010 and Photoshop. But in my opinion … I wouldn’t really recommend this if you’re using the Lenovo Thinkpad Tablet 2. The Atom processor isn’t really designed to handle these type of Office apps. To run Windows 8 Pro smoothly, plus all of the Office applications … I recommend a tablet with at least an Intel Core i3 or i5 processor.
