Product Listing

Lenovo IdeaPad Tablet K1 - New Kid on the Block

By Sidney Wong - 9 Sep 2011
Launch SRP: S$699

Conclusion

A Good Attempt

Before the era of tablets, Lenovo is only known for its line of laptop models, especially the ThinkPads. When Lenovo finally announced its entry into the tablet market with three models of its own, we were hardly surprised. In fact they were a late to the game. Most other laptop vendors took the plunge into the lucrative tablet market and had some presence much earlier (e.g Acer, ASUS,Toshiba). With the IdeaPad Tablet K1, has Lenovo differentiated itself from the rest of the pack? A little bit perhaps, but to anyone not scrutinizing the details, it's definite no.

We consider Lenovo's first attempt at offering a tablet device a fairly good one. Although it does offer some minor new features, the user experience is significantly marred by the weight, the plastic build and frequent system crashes.

Lenovo brings nothing new to the table with the IdeaPad Tablet K1 - in terms of physical expectations. Appearance-wise, it looks similar to the rest of the tablets in the market. Its ordinary design makes it very hard for the K1 to stand out. As the first retail tablet offering from Lenovo, we feel that the K1 should have some unique physical attributes to attract attention (and possibly sales). For example, the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 has the slimmest chassis (8.6mm) and lightest weight (565g) in the market at the moment. These two physical attributes are enough to attract eyeballs for the product.  What does the K1 have? 750 grams of plastic chassis and a thickness of 13.3mm are unacceptable by today's standards. Perhaps if Lenovo considered retailing the IdeaPad U1 beyond just the China market, it would have made a bigger splash in its tablet momentum for its unique hybrid functionality appeal.

On the note physical appeal and appearance, the hardware button on the right side of the screen resembles an implementation similar to that of an Apple iPad. In times like these where Apple is suing Samsung for copying its designs on its line of smartphones and tablets, it is better to be safe than sorry by not trying to be another iPad-wannabe. On one hand, it is handy to be able to take screenshots by pressing and holding the button. On the other hand, the button does not improve on the functionality or the user-friendliness of the tablet in any tangible way. In our time using the K1 tablet, we didn't  even use the button for its intended purposes (except for taking screenshots for this review) as we can easily replicate the same actions on the touch screen.

Last but not least, the persistent system freezing and crashing really tarnished the user experience of the tablet. While it is widely known that the Android platform can be unstable at times, we have not seen problems of this extent until the K1 came into our hands. The occasional rebooting of the tablet on its own without warning really irked us a lot too. This issue is also unacceptable considering that the review unit we had is the retail version found in stores currently. 

Putting these issues aside, the Lenovo IdeaPad Tablet K1 does have some new features that other Android tablets do not have. The most notable of all is the app-kill function in the multitasking tab. Instead of waiting for Google to improvise on this aspect, Lenovo has thoughtfully included this much-needed feature in the multitasking tab. It is much easier to close applications directly from the multitasking tab than to go through layers of menu settings to kill active applications. While Lenovo is not the first to incorporate screenshot capability on Android tablets, we still appreciate the fact that Lenovo did not miss out on this little feature on the K1.

Lenovo also gains some brownie points for the K1 because of its preloaded apps. With more than 30 free and paid apps available out of the box, it is hard to ignore the convenience and cost savings for users. Furthermore, instead of just slapping on the usual Android interface, Lenovo adds its personalized touches with the LaunchZone app and SocialTouch apps. Although they are not as polished as its competitors (the HTC Sense and Samsung TouchWiz), it is good to see that Lenovo took effort to design their own unique user experience on the K1. Sometimes, it is these little things that give hints to how the company views its products and for Lenovo, we feel that it is taking a serious approach for its tablets (although the usability needs polish as mentioned earlier).

The Lenovo IdeaPad Tablet K1 32GB Wi-Fi is retailing now at a recommended retail price of S$699. When compared to the other tablets in the market, it may seem like a good buy, but it isn't. Although the Apple iPad 2 and Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 (both 32GB Wi-Fi models) are priced at S$798 which is about S$100 more, the K1 falters when it comes to design, handling and user experience. The Apple iPad 2 trumps the K1 in all of these aspects while the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 manages to maintain a featherweight of 565g and a thin profile of 8.6mm, which makes it the slimmest and lightest tablet around. By forking out an additional S$100 more, you can get better alternatives to the K1. The odds are stacked heavily against the K1 and there is nothing game-changing about the K1 that would compel you to buy it.

Perhaps if the tablet worked without hiccups, it would have been a reasonable consideration, but we reckon its pricing would still need to have more bite - even with its gamut of pre-loaded apps. The problem is while the apps are valuable, that's probably not the first thing most people would realize when trying out the tablet at the store front. The only way they're going to find out is when someone convinces them of the value of the apps and its usefulness or if you are a savvy follower of tech to know its value proposition. Overall, it's a good try from Lenovo, but we're not quite convinced from what we've experienced. Probably their upcoming Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet may have a better proposition.

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6.5
The Good
Enhanced multitasking tab
Valuable preloaded apps
The Bad
Plastic build
Bulky
Frequent system freezes and crashes
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