Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Tablet Gen 2

Versatile modules ; Extendable battery life ; Excellent keyboard cover

Middling battery life ; Poor 'lapability'

For the ThinkPad diehards out there, you've just met the best business-bent tablet that money can buy. For everyone else, Apple or Microsoft's pro tablets can handle about the same tasks for less altogether.

The ThinkPad X1 Tablet is a peculiar mix of the wonderful and the awkward, then, but how does it stack up against its key rivals, the Microsoft Surface Pro 4 and HP Elite X2 in terms of the overall package? In some ways it surpasses both of them,...

Solid productivity performance ; Excellent detachable keyboard ; Unique expansion options ; Fanless design ; Strong build quality test for MIL-SPEC 810G

Not as sleek as Surface Pro ; Can get hot when working hard ; Display doesn’t measure up for the price ; Battery life is just ok

The ThinkPad X1 Tablet is not a perfect 2-in-1, but it is a good one. It offers a robust build that’s more resistant to dings and dents than most tablets, and its detachable keyboard is superior to most. It’s held back, however, by a mediocre display...

Generally solid construction with some smart design touches ; Fold-down kickstand makes for a comfortable lap experience ; Fingerprint reader adds Windows Hello capabilities

Mediocre performance ; At press time, on the pricey side ; Expansion modules cost extra

Though the Lenovo X1 tablet and keyboard are shipped as a single unit, Lenovo refers to the keyboard as the ThinkPad X1 Tablet Thin Keyboard Gen 2, as opposed to the first-generation keyboard that shipped with the original X1 Tablet.

Superbly designed kickstand makes lap use comfortable again ; Dual pen loop/holders actually secure the pen, unlike competition ; Traditional ThinkPad keyboard performs respectably

A little slower than the competition ; Trackpad and pen could improve ; Pricey enough that you'll want your company to pay for it

The ThinkPad X1 Tablet’s chip runs at the same 1.1GHz core clock speed as the chip in the competing HP Elite x2. Though the two chips are , the x2’s processor includes both vPro and a set of instructions focused on multithreaded performance scaling....

relatively easy maintenance for a tablet/convertible ; very good input devices ; fast system performance ; reasonable operating temperatures ; acceptable battery life ; greatly improved brightness and contrast

sustained performance drop still applies due to passively-cooled chipset ; low-frequency display PWM will likely bother sensitive users ; no Thunderbolt port ; poor speakers ; only 1-year warranty standard

While it’s true that this year’s ThinkPad X1 Tablet (“Gen 2”) amounts to little more than a chipset refresh, the advantages conferred by that update upon the device’s total performance in our testing today were more than minor. For instance, three of...

novel kickstand design which improves lap comfort ; good WLAN performance ; comfortable, well-tuned keyboard ; spacious and accurate touchpad with good integrated buttons ; vivid display panel with reasonably good color gamut ; speedy general system...

case, while rigid, is more susceptible to torsion than the Surface Pro and other competitors ; difficult to carry one-handed while open ; middling brightness and contrast pales in comparison to most rivals ; PWM is present at all brightness levels up...

Lenovo was one of the pioneers of the convertible market long ago, but the X1 Tablet ($1,549 as reviewed) marks the company’s first foray into the Microsoft Surface-style designs with their flagship ThinkPad line of products. The goal of the device was...