ThinkPad x200 Tablet PC With Touch– Second Impressions

ThinkPad x200 portraitThe Lenovo ThinkPad x200 Tablet PC has sparked a lot of interest and I felt I should share some second impressions, now that I’ve used it for a few days. These impressions cover the things I like and the things I don’t like. I’ve also taken a lot of screen images to illustrate these things (after the jump).

Things I like about the x200

Small, portable size. It’s light and the 12-inch size makes it easy to use as either a notebook or a tablet.

Battery life. The supplied 8-cell battery is giving me 7 – 8 hours of life using good power management.

Lenovo Power Management utility. This utility provided complete control over the power consumption, and also gives access to the Battery Stretch mode. This mode can eke out the last few drops of juice from a nearly depleted battery. The utility also shows the actual power consumption in real time to demonstrate how any changes to the settings will affect the power drain.

Fingerprint sensor. The sensor is conveniently located to be used in either notebook configuration or in slate mode.

Two power buttons. Lenovo has included a second power button on the screen bezel so it can be accessed even in slate mode. This button includes a hold function to make sure that no controls are accidentally hit.

Touch screen. I’ve made it clear that having a touch screen requires a slate form to be really useful, and I am more convinced of that than ever. The ability to work strictly by touch while holding the x200 in slate mode is incredibly useful. Windows 7 has made touch a viable input mechanism and the slate form takes advantage of it. There is not enough that can be said about surfing the web in portrait slate mode and completely running the browser by finger. It simply must be experienced to appreciate fully. Using the x200 in slate mode makes it an awesome e-book reader, something I didn’t think I would like. Touch makes it easy to turn pages, and I am enjoying reading books on the big 12-inch screen.

Windows 7 tablet functions. Microsoft has done a good job improving the tablet functions in Windows 7. The Text Input Panel (TIP) works fluidly, and the new onscreen keyboard optimized for touch is really nice.

Things I don’t like about the x200

8-cell battery. I like how the big battery provides extended life, but I wish Lenovo had taken the route of a slice battery. Slice batteries are afixed to the bottom of the notebook and as a result the weight of the bigger battery is evenly distributed. This is significant for slate devices that are designed to be held in the hand. The battery as produced by Lenovo only adds a little bulk to the back of the notebook, but that makes the device heavy on one side when held in the hand.

Webcam. The x200 cam works OK in normal light, but is abysmally bad in lower light situations.

Screen rotation. The screen rotates very fast and I have only a minor quibble about it. It rotates automatically when the screen is swiveled between notebook and slate, as you would expect. There is also a manual rotation button on the side of the screen which works well. The problem I have is that I prefer to hold the tablet with the big battery to the left of the screen when I work in portrait slate mode. While the graphic driver handles this orientation, the x200 pops up a window when the screen is rotated this way, and says that this direction is not allowed. I suspect it has to do with the touch digitizer and driver. I can use it with the battery on the right fine, I would prefer it on the left. The screen can also use the accelerometer to auto-rotate, which is configurable.

Lack of scroll wheel. I would find a jog dial on the side of the screen extremely useful while in slate mode. The lack of one is mitigated by the ability to control things via touch on the screen, but a dial would be appreciated.

 
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