Late last month, I attended Lenovo’s Accelerate Partner Conference in Las Vegas, and I had the opportunity to chat with Ashley Rodrigue, Lenovo Ambassador, Lenovo Customer Care. Ashley spent time speaking with me regarding the company’s new ThinkPad Helix, which was launched at the event last month. So what were my first impressions of the product?: Lenovo knocks it out of the park with the ThinkPad Helix. It has everything you need to live in a digital world. The Helix is portable, flexible, user friendly and has a great batter life with Lenovo's attention to building a stable and robust product.
Diving a bit deeper, let's start with the fact that if you saw the Helix docked, you would think to yourself: "What a great little laptop, UltraBook." The Helix runs Windows 8 with a fully functioning touch screen, hitting that sweet spot at 11.6 inches. Then, with a simple press of a button on the side of the screen, the screen detaches from the keyboard base and becomes the perfect tablet.
The screen holds all the main parts, including one of the battery supplies with 5-6 hours of battery life. The base adds another 4 hours of life, or the base can be used to charge the tablet battery. The batteries in the base and tablet can be charged together or separately. So while you are using the tablet, you can be charging the base. The overall battery life is 10 hours; now I can live with that!
You can even flip the screen around and re-attach the tablet to the base keyboard and have the screen in a vertical position of your choice in “Stand Mode.” OK, now just lay the screen down back on top of the keyboard, and everything is neatly together and can still be used in tablet mode, "Tablet Plus Mode". Watch the video here, and see for yourself.
If you have traveled with both a tablet and a laptop (with all the extra accessories), you know what a pain that is. I am currently traveling to Hawaii with both my laptop and tablet and also had to lug my tablet Bluetooth keyboard, tablet stand with power cord, my laptop (yes, it's a Lenovo) with power cord. If I had a Helix, I would be in heaven! Yes, I know I am already in heaven because I am in Kauai, but, alas, you can never have enough “heaven” in your life!
So, what more can I tell you about the Lenovo ThinkPad Helix? It comes with up to 3rd- generation Intel Core i7 processor, 8 GB DDR3 RAM and 256 GB SSD Storage, 1.6-inch 1920 x 1080, 1.8 lbs. tablet, 3.8 lbs. with keyboard…and oh yes the “baby” is due on June 2.
P.S. Ashley was 7 months pregnant when this was interview was filmed and she had more energy than anyone else at the conference. That's how excited she was (and is) about Lenovo and the new Helix ThinkPad!
That's my story, and I'm sticking to it. What do you think? Let me know in the Comments section below.
