Lenovo IdeaPad K1 Review

Lenovo failed to deliver on their promise of the Le Pad but at least we have a part of it in the form of the IdeaPad K1 tablet. If you look at the pictures more closely, you'll notice the K1 and the tablet portion of Le Pad are virtually identical. The company announced this along with two other tablets a couple of weeks back in a rather grand spectacle. This is Lenovo's first foray in the world of Android tablets and it faces stiff competition from the iPad 2, Motorola Xoom and the Samsung Galaxy Tab 750. The K1 looks rock solid on paper, but what is it actually like in the real world, is what we are about to find out today.

Design and Build
The K1 tablet is built to last, something we've come to expect from Lenovo. The fit and finish of the aluminium body is really good and the brown leather back gives a premium feel while also helping with the grip. The rounded edges and wide bezel allows you to hold it firmly without your fingers interfering with the touchscreen. It's not what you'd call light at 750g and after a short while you feel the fatigue in your wrists. There’s a little 'Home' button on the front which also doubles as a optical trackpad for moving backwards and forwards through web pages and applications. The 10.1-inch multi-touch screen is rich and vibrant although a bit reflective at times. 

Built well with a nice design

The microphone, power button, volume rocker, orientation lock and microSD card slots are placed on the left while the SIM tray is on the right for the 3G model. At the bottom we have a mini-HDMI jack, 3.5mm headphone jack and the docking/charging port. Lenovo uses a proprietary connector for data transfer instead of the microUSB. We would also have liked to see a modular data/power cable, instead we got two separate cables.

A look from all sides

This would have been ok if you could charge and connect the tablet to the PC at the same time, but you can't. We also wished the buttons would have been a little larger making them easier to use. Perhaps the most annoying design choice is the flaps for the SIM and memory card slot, which require you to use a pin to open them, like on the iPhone 4. This is just an unnecessary inconvenience.

Leather-back tablet

Overall, Lenovo has done a splendid job with the look and feel of the tablet. The 1280x800 resolution screen is crisp with decent viewing angles and there’re plenty of connectivity options to keep any enthusiast satisfied. Having said that, we wished Lenovo had added standard USB host support, if not natively then at least via an adapter like Samsung did with the Tab 750.