The IdeaPad K1 is one of two new tablets from Lenovo, each with the same processing guts and the same size of displays, but with very different physical designs. While the is boxy and in basic black, the IdeaPad is contoured, with metallic edges and your choice of a black, white, or red plastic back.
Inside, the IdeaPad packs features that have quickly become standard for Honeycomb tablets: Android version 3.1, a dual-core 1GHz Nvidia Tegra 2 processor, and 1GB of memory. The front face is a 10.1-inch, 1280-by-800-pixel display, with a generous black border around it.
The display looked good overall, on a par with the 's and the 's (which are good but not outstanding), and I found that on some images, the IdeaPad had better color saturation. The viewing angle was actually a bit better than that of the Thrive, likely because the air gap between the display and the outer glass is smaller on the IdeaPad than it is on the Thrive. I did note the fine-line grid of the touch sensors, though, and found its presence distracting on many of this Lenovo unit's screens--particularly on white backgrounds. The grid looked identical to what I've seen on the Thrive and the Xoom, among others.
We'll update this review with our full PCWorld Lab test results--including battery life and recharge times, and the performance and display tests--as soon as those results are ready.