After the Thinkpad Tablet and the Ideapad P1, it’s time to take a look at the third Lenovo tablet presented this week. The Ideapad K1 is still a 10 inch tablet, but it’s not powered by Windows 7, like in the P1′s case and is not meant for business use either, like it’s the case with the Thinkpad model. Lenovo Ideapad K1 is what you would call a consumer tablet, meant to take on the other Honeycomb tablets on market at this point.

    So the question is: what did Lenovo bring to the table to make this model stand out in front of the competition? Don’t think hardware specs are changed, as you get the same 10 inch 1280 x 800 pixels IPS screen with Gorilla Glass, a 1 GHz dual core Tegra 2 CPU, 1 GB RAM and the already usual 16, 32 and 64 GB of internal storage. Looks are somewhat a reminded of the Samsung Galaxy TAB 10.1, with rounded edges, but an overall thickness of 0.52″ which won’t impress anyone in 2011. It’s not bad, but not great either, and the weight of 1.65 pounds puts it in the position where you can’t say slim and light about the Lenovo Ideapad K1.

    Also what’s different from the Thinkpad tablets is the lack of full size ports: only a mini HDMI output port and a microSD card are present on the edges of Ideapad K1. There’s a docking port at the bottom that can be used with a charging doc or a keyboard dock (both sold separately), but that’s pretty much it. No dedicated Honeycomb buttons like on the Ideapad K1, but one difference worth mentioning at this point: the Ideapad K1 is world’s first Netflix certified Android tablet. It’s not much, I know, as other tablets will probably bring support for Netflix pretty soon, but that’s what Lenovo has to say about the K1. Oh, and the Ideapad K1 tablet is able to play DRM protected movies, that’s a first too, but soon others will follow, I’m sure.

    Nice looking, but a little bulky by today's standards

    Nice looking, but a little bulky by today's standards

    Is it a bad tablet? Not really, considering the $449 starting price and the fact it gets up to 64 GB storage and will come later on with optional 3G. It also has access to Lenovo’s App Shop for certified and tested for security issues Android apps. That’s something some users will like, plus it comes with Lenovo’s own custom user interface, which is nothing more than a shortcuts widget placed in the middle of the screen. The conclusion is that the Ideapad K1 is not really something we haven’t seen before, but it’s not a bad deal, especially for those who trust the Lenovo brand. It’s just a matter of taste.

    Lenovo IdeaPad K1 tablet – details and pricing

    Here’s a video preview of what to expect from the Lenovo Ideapad K1 tablet:

    [source]