I'm Kevin Beck, Lenovo Product Ambassador. I'll be checking in on Thursday to answer any questions you may have about the new ThinkPad Tablet.
Discussion about
Any questions about the new ThinkPad Tablet?
I just pulled mine out of my bag and timed it with an on-line stopwatch. It took about 2.1 seconds to fully switch from landscape to portrait and vice-versa. Not absolutely instantaneous, but not annoyingly laggy to me. To the best of my memory, from the pre-production unit we used in the video till now, there were 2 pre-production updates before the current shipping level.
I thought that was a common issue with Honeycomb tablets? The same thing has been mentioned in connection with most Android tablet reviews.
Here's Engadget's review: www.engadget.com/2011/09/29/thinkpad-tablet-review...
UI Lag seems to still be a concern. I was hoping to not see that come up.
UI Lag seems to still be a concern. I was hoping to not see that come up.
What advice would you offer in purchasing a new ThinkPad Tablet over a ThinkPad X220? When would someone choose a tablet over a laptop? Where would a tablet's uses be advantageous? I hadn't thought about purchasing a tablet until Lenovo released its business-class ThinkPad tablet last month. It's stunning! However, I expect that the X220 would offer much greater functionality. I'm a current & happy X201 user.
I am also a ThinkPad X Series Tablet user as well (X220). I think for most people it comes down to what they are looking to do with the device. I use my X220 for most day to day work (corporate mail, presentations, spreadsheets, etc). The ThinkPad (Android) tablet can do those things as well, but at my age (>35, <45), I'm much more traditional PC keyboard oriented. The ThinkPad tablet has an option for a case with a built in keyboard (the ThinkPad Keyboard Folio), which gives you the keyboard option. In my case, I find I use the (Android) Tablet more at home, on the couch and on airplanes. So for me, it's a 2 device world. For you or other users, I think it comes down to an evaluation of whether you need a PC with Windows and the applications it supports, or whether an Android tablet can do everything you need.
I have a X200 and am considering getting the Thinkpad Tablet, but the main functionality I need is the continued ability to "write" on my PPTs during presentations (and save them into the PPT).. something I can currently do on my X200. It is unclear to me if this is possible when using DocumentsToGo on the new Tablet. Any thoughts on this?
I love my S10-3t with an 8 cell battery on it. Is the 2 cell battery on the ThinkPad tablet going to be comparable? I like what you said about this being a two device world. But I don't know if I can justify the cost for just easier portability.
Do you think this a product that IBM would have made/branded if they had not sold to Lenovo? They did after all have a "branded" Palm Tungsten PDA back in the day...
Interesting question. That said, since we are now 6+ years past the separation of Lenovo from IBM, I honestly don't know. I was around for those branded Palm days and the decision at the time was that to offer what our customers said they wanted, it was better to brand than build. If that same decision were being made today, I don't know which way it would go.
A lot of us pre-ordered from the Lenovo website and were given ship dates of 8/29. The ship dates keep getting pushed out and as of yesterday, Lenovo is now quoting 9/21. Based on comments on the Lenovo forum, no one, that has ordered these directly from Lenovo, has received one. Is there some type of production issue?
So, here's the story. We had a temporary stop ship to apply a software update/enhancement and shipments are scheduled to resume on Sept 12th. And because people will ask, if yours has already shipped, that update will be applied as an OTA update, so everyone will end up with the same thing.
Regarding the 9/12 ship date. It is the evening of the 14th and when I contacted support it seemed that shipments have not started yet. We're now being given "possible" shipment dates of next week. Can you see what is going on?. Also, if the holdup is an update to be installed, why are those that bought from third parties updating OTA, and enjoying the tablets right now, when those of us that pre-ordered direct are not given that option, and waiting in Limbo. Frankly this does not seem to make sense. Any info you can get is appreciated. Thanks in advance.
Just for FYI, I put one together on Lenovo's site and the Estimated ship date is 10/5/11.
Here's the best answer I can give you right now. Our technical team knows of no reason at the moment, based on what they know about ICS, that it shouldn't be possible. However, whether the update will be possible depends on what ICS ends up looking like, how much testing and development work would need to be done to make it possible and what the customer demand for it is. Not the definitive answer I suspect you are looking for, but bottom line is that while there is no official plan as of yet, it should be possible.
