Lenovo ThinkPad Helix review : Look and Feel

LOOK AND FEEL

Take away the keyboard dock, and the Helix looks sort of like the ThinkPad Tablet 2, which in turn looks like any recent ThinkPad. Clearly, the company knows it has a good thing going with its design and, just as important, that its entire brand is wrapped up in soft-touch materials, red accents and sturdy keyboards. Besides, it was a really, really big deal when Lenovo revamped its touchpad layout, so it makes sense the company isn't taking chances on any other part of the design.

Obviously, the main thing that makes the Helix different from the ThinkPad Tablet is that it's bigger (adding a heavy-duty Core i5 processor will do that). Also, this has an 11.6-inch screen, not a 10.1-inch one. If we're talking about just the tablet, it feels heavy, in the way most tablets above 10 inches feel sort of cumbersome. In the grand scheme of things, however, it couldn't have been much lighter: theSurface Pro, which has a 10.6-inch screen, weighs two pounds, though its smaller footprint admittedly makes it slightly easier to handle. In the strictly 11-inch category, the only lighter Core i5 tablet we can think of is the Acer Aspire P3, which weighs a similar 1.74 pounds. All of which is to say: if you've already decided you want a Windows tablet with this kind of horsepower, you've probably already come to terms with the weight tradeoffs.

It's only when you connect the included keyboard dock that the Helix starts to feel heavy. The full package weighs 3.8 pounds -- nearly half a pound more than the 12-inch Dell XPS 12 convertible Ultrabook, which tops out at 3.35 pounds. Even Lenovo's own Yoga 13, which has a larger 13-inch screen, weighs just 3.3 pounds, and that, too, can be used in both laptop and tablet modes, if you recall. There are some design issues with the dock itself as well, but we'll get to those in a moment.

First, taking a tour around the device, you'll find a 5MP camera around back -- strangely with no LED flash nearby. Also on back, there's a subtly drawn marking that shows where the NFC sensor is hidden. Up front, there's a lower-res 2-megapixel webcam for video chatting. Assuming you're holding this in landscape mode, that top edge is where you'll find the vent, which makes sense since it's out of the way whether you have it docked or you're cradling it in-hand. Still focusing on the top edge, you'll find a slot to stow the included pen, which, by the way, has the same red TrackPoint-inspired cap as the one on the ThinkPad Tablet.

Also on top there's the all-important power / lock button, which is just recessed enough that you might find yourself using a fingernail to get at it. Over on the right are the headphone jack, Kensington lock slot and volume rocker for when you're using this in tablet mode. The left, meanwhile, is totally blank. Finally, we get to the lower landscape edge, which is where all the action is. Arranged in a neat row, from left to right, are a power connector, SIM card tray, Mini DisplayPort and a USB 2.0 socket. On the back of the keyboard dock, you get two additional USB ports, a DisplayPort and a power connection -- the same USB-like one found on the tablet itself.