The Lenovo ThinkPad Helix is Lenovo’s attempt at providing a convertible product that can do it all. This 11.6 inch tablet laptop hybrid packs a full Ivy Bridge Core i5 processor in a moderately light package, but it unfortunately comes without the battery enhancements of Intel’s latest Haswell digs. The tablet itself weighs 1.8 pouns, just a hair lighter than competitors such as the Samsung Ativ 700T and Acer Iconia W700. However, with the laptop dock attached, the overall weight balloons to a much less reasonable and far less Ultrabook-like 3.7 pounds. How does this hybrid product weigh in otherwise? Let’s find out.
First Impressions
When I first opened the box from Lenovo, I was disappointed. The ThinkPad Helix doesn’t come with any accessories — not even a cleaning cloth to keep the gorgeous full HD 1080p display clean. Lenovo sent over the tablet, dock, and charging cable. That’s it. Mind you, that’s all you get from almost every computer manufacturer these days. Yet, with the ThinkPad Helix starting at around $1,500 (on discount as of this review), I expect a little something in the box. A case, a cleaning cloth, something.
The ThinkPad Helix has fairly typical UltraBook specs, which is impressive for the light tablet package measuring 11.7 x 7.4 x 0.46 inches. My review unit came loaded with the standard configuration: A Core i5-3337 running at 1.8 GHz and 4 GB of RAM. The device also has a 128 GB SSD, and as I already mentioned, a beautiful 1080p display, which actually makes things on the desktop a little difficult to see.
Aesthetically, the ThinkPad Helix is a utilitarian convertible; it’s no pretty piece of hardware. Instead, the Helix is meant for business and it looks that way. There’s not too much extraneous space with the touchscreen front and center, and the soft-touch plastic feels decent enough in the hand. The only thing you’ll show off to your friends is the cool way you can “Rip and Flip” the tablet in and out of the dock for productivity usage or some media viewing.
The Software
Still running Windows 8 Professional until Windows 8.1 is released later this year, the ThinkPad Helix has all the makings of a professional laptop. Windows 8 has all the enterprise trappings necessary for an office environment, but I’m not sure how many companies use Windows 8 just yet.
Fortunately, Lenovo didn’t load up the ThinkPad Helix with too much junk software. Because the Helix is technically a business laptop, Lenovo kept to mostly useful apps like Evernote Touch and Skitch, which are great for taking notes with the included Wacom stylus. Kindle, Norton Suite, AccuWeather, and various Lenovo apps are also included.
Performance
Although I can’t get Techcitement’s chosen scientific and official benchmarks to run on the ThinkPad Helix due to battery issues, the ThinkPad Helix’s overall performance is fairly good and keeps up with ultrabooks and tablets in its class. It does, however, run extremely (read: dangerously) hot, especially around the lovely ThinkPad logo on the upper right corner. WiFi performance is also slower than comparable devices, such as my ThinkPad laptop and iPad, getting 20 to 30 percent slower speeds than both.
Battery life isn’t quite the panacea of 10hours combined with the battery from the tablet and dock that Lenovo has promised, but nonetheless, it’s quite good. I got about eight to eight and a half hours doing a combination of web browsing, word processing, and watching YouTube videos in an attempt at real-world use-case scenario.
The Strengths
The ThinkPad Helix really can do everything, in a Windows 8 kind of way. While Microsoft has a long way to go before Windows 8 is truly a tablet OS that can take on Apple and the iPad, the Helix can stand on its own as a tablet and as a fully productive laptop.
The 1080p display, while not as high resolution as an iPad or Nexus 10, is plenty bright and crisp enough to watch full HD movies or edit spreadsheets.
As of right now, the fairly compact package is about as good as it gets for detachable convertibles with an extra battery. With Haswell’s additional battery life improvements, we may see even better battery life with even lighter tablets. For now, the Helix is as good as it gets.
Even in the cramped 11.6 inch space, the keyboard is absolutely fantastic and undoubtedly lives up to the ThinkPad name. The only thing its missing is backlighting, which quite frankly, should be standard on a $1,500 laptop.
The touchpad also works fairly well and is much larger than previous ThinkPads, though not quite as large as a MacBook Air. All the Windows 8 gestures work perfectly on it.
The Weaknesses
Price: The ThinkPad Helix may come jam-packed with features, but starting at $1,500, it costs much more than any of its competitors — even with the Wacom stylus and high-resolution display.
Awkward docking mechanism and cover: Understandably, Lenovo wanted to make sure the tablet portion of the ThinkPad Helix is always secure in the dock, but six connector points making it nigh impossible to connect is extremely unnecessary and super frustrating, if not unconventional. On top of that, there’s this awkward flap that allows you to expose the fan, supposedly to help the tablet cool down more easily. Not only is that option strange, but it’s one more easily breakable piece.
Ports: While a tablet can’t have the greatest ports, I expect a little better out of a convertible that purports to be a business device. The dock includes two USB 3.0 ports, a mini DisplayPort, and a power connector. The tablet itself has all of this minus a USB port plus a SIM card slot. This does not a business laptop make. Where’s the SD card slot? Ethernet port? An adapter at the very least? Maybe some HDMI love? Disappointment abounds.
Weight: While it may be the lightest in its class, 3.8 pounds is way too heavy for an 11.6 inch convertible when 13 inch Ultrabooks weigh 3 pounds or less. Lenovo, you really ought to get some fancy materials in there to make this stuff lighter
Pricing & Availability
After some delay, the ThinkPad Helix was released in June 2013 and starts at around $1,500 on the Lenovo website, though there is a version available from Amazon available here.
Wrap Up
Overall, while I thoroughly enjoyed my time using the Lenovo ThinkPad Helix, I can’t recommend buying it unless you’re a business professional who absolutely can’t wait to buy a convertible tablet. That is, a business professional who has no usage for any sort of ports. Furthermore, the Helix runs a last-generation processor that will most likely be updated within a few months, most likely yielding better battery life as well as hopefully dealing with the scorching heat issues. The design issues and weight problems are problematic, even if nothing else on the market matches it.
For now, the Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga and Dell XPS 12 are both better convertible options. It’s only potentially weeks away until all manufacturers update their Ultrabook lines to Intel’s new Haswell processors for increased battery life, graphics, and performance. So, have patience, friends.
Comments are closed.