As with its IdeaPad K1, Lenovo has made some tweaks to the stock Android Honeycomb interface to improve usability. The three core home screen navigation buttons are redesigned to be more cleanly defined; the recently opened apps scroll offers a way to kill apps; and a redesigned settings pop-up menu, to provide wider access to frequently changed settings than Android provides by default.

Lenovo also replaces the default Android keyboard with Lenovo's FlexT9 keyboard. I didn't like the position of the delete key--I kept mistaking it for a return key--but the keyboard was otherwise better than the default Android one, with predictive text options, and the ability to handwrite with the pen if you tap on the space bar.

The ThinkPad Tablet has some purposeful inclusions that Lenovo counts on holding appeal for business and IT users. Some of these, however, have appeal for consumers, too.

For starters, Lenovo is the first to bring a large-screen Android tablet to market with pen input; the company uses N-trig's digitizer technology. Unlike other tablets that have pen input, the touch sensor grid was not immediately visible or distracting in use. One advantage to Lenovo's implementation of digital ink is that you can use the pen with any app, something you can't do with the HTC Flyer, for example. I liked that flexibility, though I also found the pen input a bit inconsistent. When it worked, it worked really well, with Vision Objects' MyScript Notes Mobile app translating my chicken scrawl penmanship fairly well; the software also lets you keep your handwritten notes as is, and to share notes and sketches via e-mail, Facebook, and other cloud services.