Lenovo showcased its ThinkPad Tablet 2 at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last month, and within days had it on sale globally, including through its online store.
At 10mm thick and weighing from 565g, it is a stylish, lightweight and thin Windows 8 tablet that runs the full Windows, not just the cut-down RT version, thanks to its 1.5-gigahertz Intel Atom Clover Trail processor. It has a 10-inch widescreen 1366 x 768 pixel display, with 32-64GB of storage and 2GB of RAM. The upmarket models come with an optical digitiser pen, so you can scrawl on the screen.
We found the Lenovo flew when accessing Windows Metro apps and performed respectably when running programs on the desktop - although in this mode it would occasionally freeze for a few seconds before resuming.
The new Clover Trail processors let you run familiar Windows programs on these smaller tablets, but it would be wise to choose carefully what you let whirr away in the background. The tablet comes with a microSD and optional SIM card slot, a full-sized USB and micro USB connections.
For $100 over the basic price you get a dock with a full-sized HDMI connector, 2 USB ports and an ethernet port. A Bluetooth keyboard costs $149.
RATING: 7.5/10
PRICE: $749-$1069 online through Lenovo or partners.
