Review: Lenovo IdeaPad(130422U)

I've been on the market for a tablet for quite sometime now, but what I've encountered has either been overpriced (iPad), under-powered (Cruz T301), and in one bizarre case, overpowered (Asus eee Slate). That came to a screeching halt yesterday when I ran across a new product being offered by Lenovo, the IdeaPad.

If you're not familiar with Lenovo suffuce to say, they're a Chinese hardware firm who bought the ThinkPad name from IBM a few years back and has been doing an excellent job with it; to be honest I think they dropped the ball a bit with their newest model, the W520, but that doesn't change the years of solid work they've put on the market (and don't get me wrong, the W520 is a powerhouse, it just needs a little more TLC than most Think products due to some driver issues).

The IdeaPad is a bit of a divergence for Lenovo, a consumer product built for home use, but they did a great job. Running Android 3.1 (Honeycomb) with a 10 inch screen and weighing at a little over a quarter of a kilogram it's a great fit for your hand and comfortable to hold on to; the screen is bright and crisp and every bit as responsive as any iPad I've worked with; front and back facing cameras, 5MB back 2 front, it takes decent pictures and has the screen to display them. The standard model is a 32GB wifi (no 3G) and an expansion slot for another 64GB of Micro SD storage. Lenovo also made the decision to minimally tweak Android, it's essentially a stock build of 3.1, and gives you immediate access to the complete Android Marketplace. Best of all, the price, coming in at 349.99 (Canadian) at Best Buy and Future Shop (compare that to the iPad2).

I only played with it a few hours before boxing it up (it's destined as a gift), but before boxing it, I placed an order for a second one for myself. I literally cannot say anything bad about this machine, if you're at all interested in a tablet, do yourself a favor and check the IdeaPad out; I'd could say it's a great product considering it's price, but I won't because it's a great product with an amazing price, this could be an iPad killer if it was marketed right.