The Consumer Electronics Show always provides device manufacturers with an avenue to excite and fascinate current and potential customers, and this year Lenovo appear to have brought their A-game with their latest addition to the Tablet/Notebook hybrid space: The ThinkPad Helix.
At first glance, the ThinkPad Helix certainly appears to be one of the many recent Windows 8-based tablets that include a keyboard dock– and. at its core, you might say it is. However, there’s a twist. That “generic” keyboard the Helix is sporting is anything but: In fact, this attachment is more of a docking station with keys! Inside the housing are power supplies that provide the Helix with an additional 5 hours of battery life (I say additional because, when away from the “dock”, one can expect 5 hours from its on-board battery).
What’s more, upon connecting the Helix to its keyboard/dock/charging station, a cooling system hiding inside the hings activates, giving the Helix’s components cold air it requires to–speaking loosely– overclock its own CPU (the exact specifications– model and clock speed– may vary based on the build you select when purchasing a Helix. In any case, Lenovo has opted to select Intel as its supplier for this tablet). Oh, it’s also worth noting that, when connecting this unit to the dock, it can be seated to face towards or away from the keyboard.
Adding to the coolness (pun intended) of the included dock, the Helix itself houses some nice internals including (but not limited to) 8 Gigabytes of system memory, both front and rear-facing cameras (shooting 2 and 5 megapixels, respectively) 256 Gigabytes of flash storage, an NFC module and a SIM tray.
Outside the box, the Helix continues to impress with an 11.6-inch, 1080p display, a respectable array of I/O connectors (including USB, SD, HD Video-out), a touch-pad and a stylus.
The Thinkpad Helix will be available for roughly $799AU (“roughly”, as this is the price tag that has been revealed for US customers) from June this year.
