Lenovo ThinkPad X200 Tablet Review and Gallery

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The much anticipated ThinkPad X200 Tablet is finally here and is available to buy right now. Let’s face it the tablet format hasn’t exactly taken the market by storm, but if any product can take this form factor mainstream, its Lenovo’s new X200 Tablet.

Finally replacing the square screen 4.3 aspect ratio of the X61 the new ThinkPad X200 Tablet goes wide.  Lenovo has had a difficult job on its hands living up to the reputation of the industry leading ThinkPad X61 but we are happy to report that the X200 Tablet has managed to hold the crown of the world’s number one Tablet PC.

This is a much more refined notebook being ½ a pound lighter, which is mainly due the lighter weight magnesium  alloy chassis. It’s a cheaper option to keep costs down, but being a Tablet, slightly more robust then the super lightweight carbon fibre technology pioneered by Lenovo with the X300.

Compared to the competition Tablet PC’s, the Fujitsu Lifebook and the Toshiba Portege, it’s a comparative featherweight, bearing in mind of course that both the Fujitsu and the Toshiba have an inbuilt optical drive.

To access an optical drive with the X200 tablet you will need to dock to the UltraBase or use a USB Optical drive which is available as an option. Our preference has always been for the UltraBase. It is much more flexible in terms of connectivity and costs exactly the same!

You get 3 screen choices with the X200 Tablet, 12.1″ WideView Standard WXGA panel, 12.1″ WideView SuperBright LED backlit WXGA panel and the 12.1″ WideView MultiTouch + MultiView LED backlit WXGA panel. All 3 of these screens are Wacom enabled to use the Digitized pen with the MultiTouch option allowing you to use your fingers to navigate.

Our opinion? Stick with the second option and go for the WideView SuperBright LED backlit WXGA panel. Once you use the pen, you’ll love it. It just isn’t worth the extra $275 for the MultiTouch in our opinion. If you’re going to be using the X200 for writing, drawing and taking notes, your hardly going to be using your finger!

This is the best writing experience you will find on any Tablet PC

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So how does the little wonder perform as a straight notebook? The wide screen has now enabled Lenovo to fit a full size keyboard with the trade mark ThinkPad red TrackPoint. The typing experience is nothing short of excellent.

Whilst the X61 Tablet held the crown as the top Tablet PC in the industry, it’s main drawback was its multimedia capability.

One of the biggest single enhancement  with the X200 Tablet is the fantastic quality of sound reproduction. Music, videos and voice all sound superb and the dual-array microphones pick up sound exceptionally well. With the integrated Webcam option this really is a notebook for communication on the move.

From a connectivity point you get three USB ports plus SD slot and an ExpressCard slot.  Lenovo has provided every conceivable wireless  option there is with WWAN, Wi-Fi, WiMAX and Wireless USB. The WUSB has a range of about 30ft and also included are  Bluetooth and GPS.

This is the broadest range of connectivity options of any ultraportable, small form factor laptop on the market.

Performance is good but you really should specify the Intel Core 2 Duo SL9400 1.86GHz with its 6 MB L2, 1066 MHz FSB. You will see a marked performance improvement over the standard Intel Core 2 Duo SU9300 1.2GHz processor with its 3 MB L2 800 MHz FSB. DDR3 memory is standard, and you have the option to upgrade to a 7200 rpm hard drive up to 200GB or a 64GB SSD drive.

Lenovo tell us that there will be 128GB SSD Drives available ‘soon’!

The X200 Tablet’s 8 Cell battery life is outstanding at 5 ½ hours and achieves all the now necessary  environmental standards  including EPEAT Gold, Energy Star 4.0, and RoHS.

The ThinkPad X61 was always going to be very difficult to beat, for anybody, let alone Lenovo, but they have done it. The ThinkPad X200 is a superb Tablet notebook. Its light to carry, superbly built and thoughtfully designed and a delight to use both in standard notebook and tablet form.

The ThinkPad X200 Tablet really does have a chance of taking the form factor mainstream. The X200 Tablet really does carry the ThinkPad and the X Series brand incredibly well and in every way deserves the number one place it has so rightly taken.