Lenovo X200 Tablet Hands-On

This evening at the Pepcom event in New York, Lenovo unveiled its latest ultraportable tablet, the X200 Tablet. We received a review unit yesterday, and after playing with it for a while, we’re ready to post our initial reactions. While it’s the same size as the  X200 we reviewed earlier this year (and which garnered an Editors’ Choice), it’s more of a successor to the X60 and X61 tablets. Either way, it has the potential to be one of our favorite tablets of the year.

Design of the ThinkPad X200 Tablet
The first thing you notice about the X200 Tablet is that it’s light, almost mini-notebook light. According to Lenovo, the X200 Tablet with the 4-cell battery weighs just 3.5 pounds. Our review unit, which came with the 8-cell battery, weighs in at 4.2 pounds.

This is achieved through using a carbon fiber and glass-fiber shell to protect the screen, which has the added effect of extending the range of the wireless antenna. The bottom of the chassis is made of a magnesium alloy. While the 8-cell battery makes it somewhat heavier, having the battery protrude out the back makes it easier to hold.

The X200 Tablet has a full-size keyboard, which of course, has the comfortable ThinkPad design. To save space, Lenovo has eschewed its usual TrackPoint / touchpad comingation in favor of a TrackPoint only, but at this size, there are always going to be some compromises. The notebook features three USB, VGA, Ethernet, modem, and headphone/mic ports.

X200 Tablet Touchscreen
Unlike previous ThinkPad tablets, which only allowed users to rotate their screens in one direction, the ThinkPad X200 Tablet offers the ability to swivel the 12.1-inch, 1280 x 800-pixel screen a full 360 degrees.  This will undoubtedly appeal to southpaws in the mobile business world.

Although the X200 Tablet we received had an LED-backlit screen that only recognizes stylus inputs, two other options will be available: a traditional CCFL panel that also only recognizes pen inputs, and an LED-backlit panel capable of fingertouch and pen input. When we rotated the system into tablet mode, the screen quickly responded, changing its orientation in just under two seconds.

Lenovo has improved its touchscreen technology, which, according to the company, requires 28 percent less pressure than before to register inputs, and can better detect the stylus. The stylus, which slides into the right side of the chassis, is very light, and has a slightly rubberized skin, making it comfortable to hold.

The X200 Tablet was able to sense the stylus when it was nearly three-quarters of an inch away from the screen, also an improvement over the X61 Tablet. Handwriting detection was very accurate; the writing pad application understood almost all of my chicken scratch.

Multimedia
Lenovo placed a greater emphasis on multimedia with the X200 Tablet, adding stereo speakers (on the bottom of the chassis near the palm rests) and dual microphones, which, used in conjunction with noise-canceling technology, helps eliminate ambient noise–including keystrokes–while a user is on VoIP calls. Look for our tests in the full review.

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