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Editor's rating (1-5): Tweet What's Hot: Digital pen, full HD display, small and light. Slim but strong. 3G/4G LTE option. What's Not: It's an Intel Atom, so it won't replace your desktop in most cases. Fiddly port covers. The ThinkPad 10 is a tablet that wants to be your laptop. That's not an unheard of concept, thanks to the likes of Microsoft Surface Pro, various transformers like the HP Split x2 and keyboard-optional tablets like the Dell Venue 11 Pro. However, at just 10.1", the ThinkPad 10 is one of the smallest to straddle both worlds. Make no mistake, it's a tablet first and foremost though, and one that runs full Windows 8.1 32 bit rather than the hobbled RT edition. The ThinkPad 10 will start at $599, which is a wee bit on the steep side, but you do get higher end amenities like a slightly better than full HD 1920 x 1200 display, both multi-touch and Wacom digital pen and a full size USB 2.0 port on the tablet rather than a fiddly and obscure adapter-craving micro USB port. Since it's a ThinkPad, you also get a rugged build and Gorilla Glass, but that doesn't mean the tablet is bulky and heavy; it's 1.3 lbs. and 0.35" thick. Put it next to the iPad Air and it doesn't look like a wildebeest. Put it next to the slower, lower resolution ThinkPad Tablet 2 it replaces and it looks similar.

As with most smallish Windows tablets, the ThinkPad 10 runs on the quad core Intel Atom Bay Trail CPU. This is the faster 1.6GHz Z3795 with Turbo Boost to 2.4GHz. It's about twice as fast as the last generation dual core Atom and much faster than Netbooks of old. No, it's not nearly as fast as Ultrabooks or Surface Pro 2 and Surface Pro 3 with Intel Core CPUs, but it's plenty competent to handle everyday productivity and school tasks like MS Office, web, email, full HD video playback and photo editing. The tablet has 2 gigs of DDR3 RAM soldered on board (not upgradable), and Lenovo's website says up to 4 gigs for configurations, though we've yet to see a manufacturer follow through with a 4 gig Intel Atom tablet. Like all Atom-based machines, the ThinkPad 10 uses eMMC storage (think of it as a non-removable MMC or SD card) rather than the faster ATA-based SSD storage. That means the 64 gigs of internal storage doesn't contribute great speed here, but it does use much less power and is shockproof, unlike spinning HDDs. The tablet has dual band Broadcom WiFi 802.11n, Bluetooth 4.0 and 3G/4G LTE with a micro SIM card slot is optional. The front 2MP camera is quite capable for video chat and the rear 8 megapixel camera with flash is pretty good by tablet standards. It works with Lenovo's $45 black and red Quickshot cover that protects the screen and when flipped back has a magnetic flap that reveals and launches the camera app. Location services are provided via WiFi triangulation on the WiFi model, but we'd assume inserting a SIM card would provide aGPS location. There's no other way to put it: the tablet looks ThinkPad-ish. That matte black finish, rigid build and no-nonsense design say ThinkPad as much as the logo on the back with the usual glowing dot on the "i" that lets you know that tablet is turned on. There's no flex here and the glass mates with the casing evenly. Our only small complaint is the fiddly plastic covers for the USB port and card slots: they seem a bit cheap and the USB cover is hard to seat. Like the ThinkPad Helix (a more expensive and powerful Intel Core tablet with included keyboard dock), the tablet's top corners are rounded but the bottom edge is flat since it mates with the optional $119 Ultrabook keyboard. Happily that accessory isn't the complex contraption that is the Helix keyboard.

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