Lenovo IdeaPad K1 is the first Android-based tablet produced by the Chinese, already famous for its family of business-oriented notebooks and tablet, called the ThinkPad. This is a device in some ways different from others on the market. The hardware platform is actually very common, with the Nvidia Tegra SoC 2 250 T20, consisting of dual-core ARM Cortex A9 1 GHz GPU and NVIDIA GeForce ULP with a clock rate of 333 MHz, in combination with 1 GB of DDR2 RAM 600 MHz and SSDs with capacities of 16, 32 or 64 GB and the operating system Google Android 3.x Honeycomb.

What sets him apart, however, is above the ‘user experience, thanks to an interface with special functions and app other than the usual, and especially the price (32-GB version costs about $ 100 less than the equivalent Apple iPad 2 and Galaxy Tab 10.1). In the coming months so it will be interesting to see whether all this will be enough to bring out the IdeaPad K1 as a device with an excellent and most interesting contribution r price / performance. Meanwhile, a first idea we can make it through to the review published by LaptopMag, who has thoroughly tested in preview.

The review course starts from an analysis of the outward appearance, judging very good construction and choice of materials, as well as the design, but specifying that none of these aspects of the tablet is innovative or different from usual. Of the same opinion on the content display, which offers good color, even if judged inferior to those of the Galaxy Tab 10.1, and above all, a wide viewing angle in the horizontal plane, however, penalized by an excess of glossy reflections caused by the usual treatment of the display .

The proposed virtual keyboard is the standard of Android, but was typing fast, effective and fair, although the reviewer would have welcomed the possibility of using Swype technology, which allows you to write by tracing the path of all the letters that make up the word, never taking his finger. The allocation of ports is satisfactory, but the staff did not like very LaptopMag proprietary connection to the docking station instead of a normal USB port, which would make it easier to ricarca operation of a device in case of loss or lack of cable with the specific attack.

Were greatly appreciated but the customizations made to the GUI of Android, especially the ‘App Launcher to five customizable icons located at the center of the screen and the’ App Wheel, which lets you view the thumbnails at the bottom right of our favorite apps and 6 leaf through only with the movement of the thumb, while holding the tablet. Profit of course also the Recent Apps button, which displays thumbnails of all open apps recently, real-time allowing them to switch between them or close them, saving valuable space in RAM. Moving on to audio-visual department, the jury is again good but not enthusiastic.

The video playback is smooth and not have been good colors, but often showed a slight presence of pixelatura, as if the display resolution is not sufficient. The volume offered by the two front speakers are often judged too low, even if the playback quality was satisfactory. The better the rating on the mail app, which was especially appreciated the opportunity to display panels of the mail (list of folders, message list, view the same).

Less positive was the opinion on the widget that allows players to manage social networks. Social Touch it allows you to view real-time updates posted, and clicking on each one, to expand the interface through which to interact. However, the application was still considered poor functionality. Instead excellent reviews regarding the performance of the platform, in line with those of equivalent solutions, and the battery life, with its 8 hours and three minutes proved to be generally higher than the average of 6 ½ hours of competition.

In general then the final decision has been balanced, and concluded that the Lenovo IdeaPad K1 offers the perfect blend of style, performance and user experience related to the interface enhancements, and that is a good compromise between price and functionality, although the weight a little ‘higher than the competition, the relatively low volumes and some audio app a little’ too immature at the time did not make a complete and successful on all fronts.

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