Lenovo made a slew of Mobile World Congress (MWC) announcements tonight, including a new portfolio of consumer 2-in-1 convertible and detachable laptops and a tablet. But the third generation of its tablet, the Tab M10 Plus, piqued my interest for one little reason – it’s taking on the Kindle and it’s a more affordable iPad option.
The problem with a Kindle is that it’s just a Kindle. But the plus side to a Kindle is that it’s easier on the eyes than reading something on a laptop/tablet/phone. Well, Lenovo has the answer to that, its new Tab M10 Plus tablet comes with reading mode.
The Tab M10 Plus
This thing doesn’t look too game-changing, it looks like a tablet and it does tablet things. Looking from the top down, it has the dual tone design that we’ve come to know Lenovo for (that’s on the back) and on the front, the Tab M10 Plus boasts an 85 per cent screen-to-body ratio. It also packs an improved 2K, 10.61-inch display and Dolby Atmos quad speakers.
Lenovo is positioning the Tab M10 Plus as the ideal tablet for “all kinds of media consumption”. It’s with that we can see this tablet being a solid rival to the iPad.
Out of the box, the Tab M10 Plus comes with Android 12 and it will be Android 13 ready by 2023. Which means it does many of the Android things you can do on a more-than-a-phone-but-not-quite-a-laptop. But one of the new features Lenovo has added is something called Reading Mode. And if you’re looking at documents that contain colour, the display can make the colours a little bit more muted, which makes it a lot easier on your eyes than staring at vibrant, saturated colours. Reading Mode can be set to automatically trigger when opening certain app. The Kindle-killer? Not quite, but it’s certainly a goooood feature.
Pens are great while you’re using them and they are a nightmare when you’re carrying them around. To solve this, Lenovo has also made a case for the Tab M10 Plus that has a couple of slots for you to store the pen and protect the tablet.
It really comes down to the small innovations to be a differentiator in the tablet space these days, eh?
IdeaPad Flex 5 2-in-1 series
Quickly running through the other announcements in this batch – Lenovo unveiled these by saying the IdeaPad Flex 5i and IdeaPad Flex 5 convertible laptops have a “new design language”. Ya. Anyway, the 5i features up to a 12th Gen Intel Core i7 U-series processor and Intel Iris Xe MAX Graphics, and the Flex 5 comes with up to AMD Ryzen 7 processor with built-in Radeon graphics. They both boast a 360-degree hinge and are available in 14-inch and 16-inch forms.
The IdeaPads are slimmer and lighter than their predecessors – starting weight for the 16-inch 5i or 5 is 2.1 kg.
IdeaPad Duet 3 and 5i
The IdeaPad Duet 3 is only 7.9 mm thick and as it’s fan-less, Lenovo says the machine runs cool and quiet. It weighs only 516.5 grams. The 11-inch 2K LCD 5:3 touchscreen has optional stylus support and it will give up you to 12 hours of video playback from full charge. This machine runs Chrome OS.
Meanwhile, the IdeaPad Duet 5i is booked as “stylish and super slim”. The 12-inch Windows 11 device comes with a Bluetooth keyboard and can convert between four usage modes, including laptop mode with accompanying folio kickstand, tablet mode or doodle in pen mode with the optional Active Pen 38 and the last mode is ‘free mode’. It’s 9.45 mm thick, weighs 810 grams and packs up to a 12th Gen Intel Core i7-1255U processor.
Pricing and local availability for the Tab M10 Plus, IdeaPad Flex 5i, IdeaPad Flex 5, IdeaPad Duet 3 and IdeaPad Duet 5i is to be announced.