Lenovo IdeaPad Miix 10 Tablet

Pros Compact and convenient tablet design. Decent battery life.

Cons Intel Atom processor offers limited performance. Keyboard accessory not available. Bottom Line The Lenovo IdeaPad Miix 10 Tablet is a fairly well-built Windows slate tablet, but it does little to distinguish itself in a crowded field of competitors.

By Brian Westover

Touch and Windows 8 go together like peanut butter and jelly, each bringing out the best in the other. With the IdeaTab Miix 10, Lenovo has combined the two with a highly portable, energy-efficient tablet, letting you take this sandwich of goodness with you on the go. The Miix 10 is a decent Windows tablet, but it's not the only one on the market, and like a PB&J, if you've had one, you've had 'em all.

Design
The Miix 10 is a 10-inch slate tablet with a slim design similar to other competing tablets, like the Lenovo IdeaTab Lynx K3011 and the Asus VivoTab Smart ME400C—the 10.1-inch display makes up the entire front of the device, and the chassis is backed by a polycarbonate plastic back. While it's sturdier than some, the Miix 10's construction feels decidedly middle-of-the-road. It's not noticeably flimsy, but it lacks the solid feel of an Apple iPad or Microsoft Surface Pro. The Miix 10 measures 6.8 by 10.4 by 0.4 inches (HWD), and weighs only 1.3 pounds.

In many respects, the Miix 10 is similar to the Lenovo K3011, with the main differences being the 1-inch delta in screen size and the Lynx's inclusion of a docking keyboard. Like the Lenovo K3011, the Miix 10 is sold as a tablet alone, but a separate keyboard will soon be offered by Lenovo to offer laptop-like functionality. While pricing isn't yet available, the keyboard puts Lenovo's AccuType chiclet keyboard into a portfolio-style case which doubles as a stand. Retailers are currently offering the Miix 10 tablet for sale without the accessory keyboard, but it was not available for our review, which will similarly focus on the tablet alone.

The 10.1-inch display offers 1,366-by-768 resolution, which is far from impressive, especially when compared to the high-res displays seen on smartphones and smaller CE tablets, but it's par for the course among Windows tablets. The touch screen offers 5-finger tracking, and the touch functionality worked well the entire time I tested the tablet. Tablets rarely have good sound quality, and the Miix 10 is no exception. The sound was fairly anemic, with little bass and tinny sound at the high end. As with most tablets, you'll be better off with headphones.

The 10-inch display is actually a bit easier to use than the 11-inches of the Lenovo K3011, but the 16:9 aspect ratio of the display is a little too long when held in portrait mode. This problem is by no means isolated to the Miix 10, but is something we've run into with most Windows tablets.

Features
The slim confines of a tablet chassis don't leave much room for full-size ports and connectors, so everything's mini and micro on the Miix 10. On the bottom edge of the tablet is a micro USB 2.0 port, along with a micro HDMI port on the side, and a microSD card slot (supports up to 32GB cards). The micro USB port looks a little different, as it doubles as a docking port for the accessory keyboard, but it will still work with any micro USB cable. The micro SD card slot is a little inconvenient, with a removable cover and a recessed slot that's a little hard to reach. The micro HDMI port will also require picking up a separate adapter before you can hook it up to your HDTV.

On extra feature is Lenovo's Motion Control, which leverages the Miix 10's integrated 1-Megapixel webcam to let you use gestures in the air for things like turning pages, fast forward or rewind through music, and adjust volume with the wave of a hand. But why use gestures in the air when you have a touch screen literally in your hands? Webcam based gesture controls have always been something of a gimmick, but incorporating them into a tablet, with touch and gesture controls already baked in, seems like a waste.

Also using the webcam is Veriface, which lets you log into the system with both security and ease thanks to facial recognition. Lenovo puts just a few other programs on the Miix 10, but given the small storage capacity, you may want to remove any that seem unnecessary. On the Miix 10, Lenovo pre-installs a 30-day trial of Microsoft Office 365, one-month trial of McAfee Internet Security, as well as apps for shopping (Amazon, Ebay), media consumption (FilmOn Television, RaRa Metro, Zinio Metro, Amazon Kindle) and some productivity as well (Skype, Evernote). Lenovo also expands on the limited local storage with Lenovo Cloud Storage by SugarSync, which also lets you share files easily between the Mixx 10 and any other PC you use. Lenovo covers the Miix 10 with a one-year warranty.

Performance
With the same 1.8GHz Intel Atom Z2760 processor and 2GB of RAM seen in a half-dozen other competing tablets, I wasn't expecting much deviation from the norm in terms of performance, and I was right. In PCMark 7, the Miix 10 performed in line with competitors, scoring 1,443 points, and CineBench R11.5 with 0.53 points, nearly identical to all of the similarly equipped systems. The Miix 10 will do the trick for web browsing and media, along with some basic productivity, though you will likely see it bog down if you're browsing with several tabs open or trying to work with a large data set in something like Excel.

This overall performance is okay, so long as you recognize that these sorts of Atom-powered tablets are meant to serve as second or third devices and not replace a Windows PC. For example, the Miix 10 finished Handbrake in 6 minutes 43 seconds. While this is par for the course among its Atom-powered peers, it doesn't compare well against more expensive tablets equipped with Intel Core processors, like the Microsoft Surface Pro, which completed the same test in 1 minute 28 seconds.

But where Atom processors shine is in energy efficiency. The Lenovo Miix 10 lasted 7 hours 20 minutes in our battery rundown test, which means it will last you well through a full day in regular use. Compared with the likes of the Microsoft Surface Pro (4:58), this sort of battery life is superb, but it's actually on the low-end for Atom tablets, which frequently last longer than 8 hours. The Asus ME400C, for example, lasted 8:43, and the pint-sized Acer Iconia W3 lasted even longer (9:24).

The Lenovo IdeaPad Miix 10 Tablet is a solid entry into the ever expanding category of Atom-powered tablet PCs. While the overall performance and battery life don't deviate too drastically from the average, it does have the downside of not being sold with any sort of keyboard, an accessory offered bundled with or sold alongside most competitors. With or without a keyboard, the Lenovo Miix 10 is a thoroughly middle-of-the-road offering, without much to distinguish it from its peers. The current Editors' Choice for Windows Tablets remains the Microsoft Surface Pro.

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Lenovo ThinkPad Edge E431

Pros Windows 7. Nice price. Removable battery. Good multimedia performance. Sturdy, comfortable keyboard. Dual pointing devices. Fingerprint reader. Function keys work as icons first, F1-F12 second. Matte finish screen. Large multi-touch trackpad.

Cons Middling battery life. USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 ports are both black. No 5GHz Wi-Fi support. 1,366 by 768 resolution. Bottom Line We recommend small business owners buy a true business PC like the Lenovo ThinkPad Edge E431 rather than trying to repurpose a consumer budget laptop. It will pay off in comfort, performance, and peace of mind.

By Joel Santo Domingo

The E431 has a comfortable keyboard, dual pointing devices, security features like a fingerprint reader, and you can grab one for less than $600. It's our latest Editors' Choice for small business laptops.

Design and Features
The E431 looks like a pretty standard business laptop. No fancy, exotic materials or swoopy shapes, but the E431 nevertheless instills a sense of sturdiness by using a pair of offset hinges, which give the system a premium look and feel. Speaking of feel, the E431's large trackpad combines a row of three buttons on the top edge to service the TrackPoint pointing stick. This way the E431 will keep older users happy. You know, like the ones that learned how to use a laptop on their 1990s-era ThinkPad? The chiclet-style keyboard is comfy and sturdy, with none of the keyboard flex that tends to crop up in less expensive systems. The E431 also comes with a fingerprint reader located to the right of the trackpad, in case you or your clients require biometrics for security or one-touch login needs. The trackpad itself is large, multi-touch, and is just as responsive as the pointing stick.

The row of 12 function keys at the top of the keyboard all function as the icon denotes (vol+/-, mic off, search, etc.) and F1-F12 requires the user either hold down the Fn key or activate the FnLock. This makes more sense than the reverse, particularly since F1-F12 kind of lost their charm after Windows replaced DOS. You can reverse the Fn key behavior in a control panel if you prefer F1-F12. The E431 still has its DVD burning optical drive, contributing to the system's 4.44 pound weight. The system comes with a full set of I/O ports, including a USB 2.0 port, two USB 3.0 ports, VGA, HDMI, SD card reader, and an Ethernet port. There is one nit, since the USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 ports are all the same black color. You'll need sharp eyes to see the USB SS icons next to the ports on the left side of the chassis. The industry habit of blue USB 3.0 ports would've been a more prominent and identifiable. That said, the system has more ports and features than similarly priced laptops like the Toshiba Satellite C875-S7340 ($620) and the Lenovo IdeaPad S405 ($550).

The ThinkPad Edge E431 and its larger brother, the E531, are notable in that they are pioneering Lenovo's new OneLink dock (stay tuned for our full review). OneLink is wider than a standard power plug, but it allows mostly sedentary laptop users to keep USB peripherals, Ethernet, and HDMI monitor(s) permanently connected to a $120 Lenovo ThinkPad OneLink dock for convenience. Future Lenovo ThinkPad and ThinkPad Edge products will use OneLink as well, but the E431 is the first.

The E431's screen measures 14 inches diagonally and has a matte finish. It's not a touch screen, but the system is running Windows 7, which doesn't require touch, and the non-touch screen contributes to the lower purchase price. Systems like the touch-equipped Editors' Choice Lenovo IdeaPad Z400 Touch ($700) are much more expensive. The screen has a 1,366-by-768 resolution, which is fine for 720p videos and most websites, but users who need to work in larger spreadsheets may want a 1080p screen, though again you will have to pay more. One business-friendly feature that comes with the E431 is the removable battery. Unlike many recent systems, the E431's battery can be swapped for a freshly charged one if you're running out of juice. Another 6-cell 48-WHr battery will cost you $99.99. See below in performance to see why picking one up is a good idea.

The E431 came with a few pre-loaded apps like Evernote, Skype, and a selection of Lenovo utilities, but the system is relatively unencumbered by bloatware. One app of note is WiDi, which will let you stream the video from the E431 to a HDTV, display, or video adapter with WiDi capabilities. The E431 comes with a one-year warranty.

Performance
The E431 comes with a third-generation Intel Core i5-3230M processor, integrated Intel HD Graphics 4000, 500GB 7,200rpm hard drive, and 4GB of system memory. While these specs don't seem too impressive compared with components in some ultrabooks, the system is actually a very good performer on our benchmark tests. The E431 completed the Handbrake video encoding test and the Photoshop CS6 test many minutes faster than other budget systems like the Lenovo S405 and Dell Inspiron 17-3721 ($450). It just goes to show that if your business is on the line, it pays to spend a bit more than the bare minimum on a system. It will certainly last longer that way. Expect a good three to five years of service from the ThinkPad Edge E431.

That said, The IdeaPad E431 has adequate, yet unimpressive battery life from the included battery. The system lasts almost four hours (3:55), which used to be a notable number, but now is merely adequate. You might want to make a habit of carrying the AC adapter or another fully charged spare battery if you want to use the E431 all day. Face it: you'll have to pay more for a 4th generation Intel Core powered system like an ultrabook if you want all-day battery life. The E431 is more of a part-time portable.

And there's the rub. The Lenovo ThinkPad Edge E431 won't make you stop pining for one of the high-end ultrabooks, nor should it. That's not its place. The ThinkPad Edge E431 is an excellent business laptop for the money, and certainly a more portable and capable business PC compared to a lighter duty tablet like the Microsoft Surface RT ($699/499) or Dell XPS 10 ($649). In addition to Office, the E431 is capable of running full Windows software like Quickbooks, Photoshop, or TurboTax. We haven't given an Editors' Choice for dyed-in-the-wool Small Business laptops in ages, and the ThinkPad Edge E431 certainly qualifies in terms of bang for the buck. It's a much better business choice than just buying one of the less expensive consumer laptops, since it will have a much longer useful life on your desk or on the move.

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Lenovo IdeaTab A1000

Pros Loud, front-facing stereo speakers. Affordable. Runs Android 4.2.

Cons Below average display with poor viewing angle. Clunky build. Middling battery life. Bottom Line The Lenovo IdeaTab A1000 might be among the most affordable tablets available, but its entertainment focus and front-facing speakers aren't enough to make up for an otherwise below average device.

By Eugene Kim

It's no longer enough to simply make a serviceable low-cost Android tablet—they have to be able to compete with high-quality, low-cost products like the Google Nexus 7 or Amazon Kindle Fire HD. The Lenovo IdeaTab A1000 ($159.99 list) is, at this point, a below-average tablet aimed at media consumption. It leans on its dual front-facing speakers as its sole distinction, but they're not enough to make the A1000 a compelling buy, especially since the Asus MeMO Pad HD 7 offers better features at an even lower price.

Design and Features
Lenovo's never really wowed us with its tablet designs, and that trend continues with the A1000. The glossy, plastic tablet measures 7.8 by 4.8 by 0.4 inches (HWD) and weighs 12.32 ounces, which is noticeably heavier than the MeMO Pad HD 7's 10.7 ounces. The A1000 does feel more solid, though, and doesn't have as much flex as the HD 7. The overall design is more pebble-like than rectangular, which makes the A1000 comfortable to hold. Around its edges, you'll find Volume and Power buttons, a micro USB port, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and a flap covering the microSD card slot. There's no rear-facing camera, but there is a 0.3-megapixel front-facing camera at the top left corner above the screen. Above and below the screen are two speaker grilles.

The display is a pretty big letdown here, as 1,280-by-800 has become the standard for even low-cost tablets. The A1000's 1,024-by-600-pixel display looks noticeably grainier than the MeMO Pad HD 7's and downright ancient next to the Nexus 7's full HD display. On top of that, viewing angles are subpar, and colors begin to wash out from pretty much any angle other than straight on. The actual display seems too recessed under the glass surface, making the whole surface even more reflective.

This is a Wi-Fi-only tablet that connects to 802.11b/g/n networks, but only on the 2.4GHz band. Bluetooth 4.0 is also onboard, but there's no GPS radio. Lenovo offers the A1000 in a 16GB for $159.99 and a 32GB model for $189.00.

Hardware Performance, Android, and Mutlimedia
The A1000 is powered by a dual-core 1.2GHz MediaTek MT8317 processor with 1GB RAM. In our synthetic benchmarks, the A1000 scored significantly lower than the MeMO Pad HD 7, which uses a quad-core MediaTek processor, and got absolutely smoked by the Nexus 7. The HD 7 scored a 12877 to the A1000's 7422 on the Antutu overall system benchmark. On graphical benchmarks the A1000 fared even worse, scoring just 7 frames per second on the Taiji benchmark to the HD 7's 14 fps. In real world usage, the situation isn't quite as bleak as the benchmarks would indicate. Navigating around the system is generally quick, but I'd chalk that up to strides Google in general has taken to smoothing out the Android user experience. Some performance issues crop up when you try to switch orientations, which can take painfully long, and switching between multiple apps can often causes hang-ups.

In our battery rundown test, which loops a video with screen brightness set to max and Wi-Fi on, the A1000 lasted 5 hours, 5 minutes. That's shorter than the HD 7's 5 hours, 50 minutes and the Kindle Fire HD's 7 hours in the same test.

There's nothing inherently wrong with Lenovo's Android 4.2.1 skin; it just doesn't really add anything useful. There's a persistent Menu button along the status bar and a few fairly useless Lenovo-branded apps and widgets, but otherwise nothing major. The big selling point here is the audio optimizations, provided by Dolby Digital branded equalizers. It's basically Beats, but with more flexibility and more presets. Like the Slate 7, you can hear the differences in the audio profiles, but Bass Boosts make tracks sound muddy, while the Rock and Pop profiles are virtually indistinguishable. Lenovo would be better off following Toshiba's example and releasing stock Android tablets. The MeMO Pad HD 7 and Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 8.0 have useful multitasking features that actually add value. Lenovo's just seem gimmicky.

The front-facing speakers get loud and don't sound all that bad, especially when compared with most tablet offerings. The Dolby audio profiles only work with headphones in, but you're not missing out on much when using the tablet's speakers. There's still no bass to speak of, but no tablet speakers really have any. To Lenovo's credit, things don't sound overly harsh here and the mids and mid-highs are well represented. Things do start to distort at max volume, however, especially on challenging tracks like The Knife's "Silent Shout," which features a lot of sub-bass content. The Kindle Fire HD also has the Dolby stamp of approval and features above average speakers, but most other competitors fall short.

For music the A1000 supports AAC, MP3, WAV, and OGG, but not FLAC or WMA. It's easy to remedy with a third-party app, but those omissions don't make sense on a tablet focused on music playback. For video you get MP4, H.264, DivX, Xvid, and WMV files at up to 1080p resolution.

Conclusions
The Lenovo IdeaTab A1000 is affordable and has an above average set of speakers, but it makes too many sacrifices with features and performance. The display is fairly dismal and the performance is as pedestrian as it gets. The Asus MeMO Pad HD 7 is better in nearly every way, with a sharper display, faster performance, and extras like a rear-facing camera and dual-band Wi-Fi. It also currently lists for less than the A1000, making this choice a no-brainer unless your tablet is also your main audio source. If that's the case, I'd recommend checking out any number of affordable Bluetooth speaker options. And if you're looking for the best combination of features, performance, and price, the Google Nexus 7 is hands down the best small-screen tablet you can find. 

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