Lenovo IdeaTab S2110A Review

Recently, Lenovo has introduced several new Android tablets to the market. One of those being the mid-range A2109 that we reviewed in September, which comes with a 9” display and is designed as general multi-purpose tablet. But for those of you looking for a tablet with a larger screen and designed with business customers in mind, there is the IdeaTab S2110A, which as a suggested retail price of $429. Not only does it comes with a 10.1” display and business oriented apps included, but there is also an available keyboard-dock for $80 to give you a “netbook” feel with 83 keys and extra battery capacity. But with other tablets, such as the upcoming Google Nexus 10, being around the same price, this Lenovo tablet has some tough competition.

Included in the retail package is the Lenovo S2110A tablet, wall charger, microUSB cable, and user guides. The Keyboard dock is available as an option.

The overall look of the Lenovo IdeaTab S2110A is a bit bland – all black with silver trim around the edges. Though the construction feels well made, which is good for business travelers. Even though the weight of the tablet is average at 1.3lbs, when you add the optional keyboard dock of 1.5lbs, the total weight is close to 3lbs, which can feel a bit heavy if you are carrying it around all day and is almost equal in size to some netbooks.

Attempting to press the power/lock key at the top is more of a challenge than it should be, as it’s fairly flat – almost recessed into the surrounded bezel – making it hard to find by touch alone. Though the volume rocker on the right side is raised enough and is easy to locate. Around the edges we also find a microUSB port, microHDMI video output, 3.5mm headset jack, and stereo speakers. Above the display is the front-facing 1.3MP camera, and on the rear is a 5MP autofocus camera with LED flash.

Our review unit included the optional keyboard, which retails for $80, but we believe that this is a must-have accessory for those who are looking to type a lot. It connects easily to the bottom of the tablet by clicking into place (making use of the microUSB port), and can be removed at the push of a button. It’s silver and black color combination also matches the tablet nicely, as does the fit and finish. The layout of the 6-row QWERTY keyboard is similar to what you would find on most other standard keyboards, but instead of “F1-F12” keys at the top, this keyboard has dedicated keys for such tasks as accessing Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, volume, rewind, play, fast-forward, and web. Typing on the physical keyboard is a pleasure, as the keys have a nice size to them and are well spaced, meaning you won’t accidently press a neighboring key. Below it is a track pad with two select buttons, and when used will show an arrow on the tablet’s screen. Unfortunately, we found the responsiveness of the track pad a bit lacking, and at times found it easier just to press the display instead. Integrated with the keyboard is an extra battery, which is charged through a separate microUSB port of the left side. Next to it are two standard size USB ports, though the documentation doesn’t specify what can be attached to them. Even though the tablet itself doesn’t have a microSD memory card slot, there is a full-sized SD card slot on the front of the keyboard, which will accept up to 32GB SD cards.

For $80, the keyboard dock does offer a lot, and like we said earlier, it really makes the experience of using the tablet better for anyone who will be typing on it daily or needs the extra battery life and SD memory card slot.

The Lenovo IdeaTab S2110A comes running Android 4.0.3 Ice Cream Sandwich, and has a customized skin layered above it, similar to the IdeaTab A2109, though there’s no word yet if an update to Jelly Bean will be made available. We like how Lenovo's customized widgets on the homescreen expand to show its contents (such as social, games, media, business, and tools), but we're not particularly fond of the oversized 3D cube- like effect when scrolling through the 5 homescreens and app tray, as it appears slow and stuttery. Sure, it adds some eye candy, but we've seen this transition effect for a while now on other long forgotten platforms – like HTC's 3D cube in its TouchFLO UI for Windows Mobile years ago.

For on-screen typing, we're presented with two keyboard options, the stock Android keyboard and the GO keyboard. We highly recommend using the default Android one since the GO keyboard looks like a stretched-out smartphone keyboard. Despite that, both are naturally responsive enough to keep pace with our fingers, but overall we still recommend using the optional physical keyboard for lengthy typing.

When it comes to the core organizer apps, the IdeaTab S2110A doesn’t deviate from the typical Android ICS experience, as the calendar, calculator, clock, E-Mail, and Gmail apps all follow in form to what we’ve seen constantly in the past.

There are numerous third party apps included with the tablet, some more useful than others, such as AccuWeather, Amazon Kindle, Documents to Go, ES File Explorer, Evernote, GameTanium, News Republic, Norton Security, ooVoo, PrinterShare, Rara, Shazam, Skype, SugarSync, and Zinio. For games, there is HW Backgammon, Euchre, Hearts, Solitaire, Spades, and our favorite Vendetta Online.

Instead of featuring a 1.2GHz quad-core NVIDIA Tegra 3 processor that is on the IdeaTab A2109, the Lenovo IdeaTab S2110A comes with a 1.5GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 APQ8060A processor with 1GB of RAM. Even though running apps on the tablet is plenty quick, we did see some slowness when moving between the homescreens and apps list.

Images that we took outside with the 5MP autofocus camera are downright abysmal as detail is lacking, and colors are not accurate and have a blue hue to them. Inside images also fared poorly, as there was plenty of grain visible in low light, and the LED flash is so weak that it can’t illuminate a standard sized room.

Even though you are able to record video at 1080p resolution with 30 frames-per-second, chances are you won’t want to watch them. It’s a painful process as videos will show poor contrast, inaccurate saturation and color rendering, meaning you won’t use this tablet to record any videos of importance.

Using the standard stock Android music player (Play Music), it has the balanced appeal with its presentation to remain relevant. However, with its two speakers, which offer SRS WOW HD, it doesn't really deliver any potent punch with its output to throttle any sort of commanding tones – though, the available equalizer settings help things a little bit.

Again, it isn't all that unexpected to find the tablet easily handling most high-def videos we throw at it – like 1080p ones encoded in H.264, MPEG-4, DivX and Xvid. However, due to its washed out looking display and poor viewing angles, it doesn't present us with the best viewing experience. 

But one nice feature is the addition of the microHDMI output to provide you with a mirrored experience on an HDTV.

Lenovo IdeaTab S2110A demo unit only supports Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n (2.4GHz), but the range is good, as we were able to stay connected to our router for up to 50 feet. 

Regarding the battery life, the IdeaTab S2110A by itself is capable of 9 hours of web browsing or app usage, but when you connect the optional keyboard dock (that has a built in battery), you can get up to 20 hours of web browsing or app usage.

When compared to other tablets on the market, the Lenovo IdeaTab S2110A is geared more to the business professional or student that is looking for an Android tablet to use while on-the-go, and have the benefit of a physical keyboard that can be easily added or removed at will. Overall, the performance of the tablet is good, but it still remains a mid-range device, since the display quality isn’t as good as other high-end tablets, the camera quality is severely lacking, and data connectivity is limited to Wi-Fi unless you get an optional add-on 3G network card, which doesn’t appear to be available yet. All of this together, means the Lenovo IdeaTab S2110A does not stand-out from the myriad of other Android tablets that are on the market, but it still should not be overlooked.