Lenovo IdeaTab S2110A with keyboard dock: Review & Rating


By on 20:06



Specifications

* 10.1 "1280 x 800 pixel IPS display
* Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Plus Dual Core 1.5 Ghz
* Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich
* 1 GB RAM and 16/32 GB internal memory
* Camera: 5 MP (rear) and 1.3 MP (front)
* Dimensions (H x W x D): 259.8 x 178 x 8.69 (in mm)
* Weight: 580 grams
* Ports: micro HDMI, micro USB, SIM slot (optional), Line-In
* Dock: 2 x USB 2.0, MMC / SD / SDHC card reader, Micro-USB 17-pin dock connector

Visually makes the tablet a good impression. Of course there are nicer alternatives, but really ugly is definitely not the S2110A. From the front, it is precisely the quasi-standard tablet screen with a black border and the back is made of very thin plastic, the pattern strongly devices, recalls how the Samsung Galaxy S 2. That in itself is pretty neat as well made, but nothing outstanding.
It becomes problematic when processing. Because the back is so thin, they can be pressed quite easily. If you increase the pressure, you can create even the known wave formations on the display. The same is also possible when the edge of the front side exerts somewhat greater pressure. Also falls on negative that the unit creaks like when it is a bit spirited anfässt. Here, once again shows how thin the individual components are. On the other side you have the tablet certainly hold good, it's just pretty easy. Personally, I have to say that I would prefer a higher weight and a correspondingly better choice of material.
Quite practical, however, are of course the ports for SD card and USB devices. Which is to be connected easily, the system recognizes this immediately and starts as a USB stick or an SD card, just the built-in file manager (in this case, ES File Manager). This is refreshingly simple and makes for such a device a lot of sense.

Display



The resolution of 1,280 x 800 pixels IPS display is unfortunately only average. In times when tablets with  1080p Full HD resolution and higher on the market breaks, the resolution is definitely no longer the stool and it definitely looks pixels. I personally bother me less because pixels are visible, however, is exactly this point more important and I also know some who want to see something not today.
The colors on screen are for the most part pretty good. Everything looks pretty authentic, but black areas come every now and then something washed over, which is sad, because something must nowadays with IPS displays are no longer simple. All in all, the display quality is fine, but definitely not more.
Software


In fact it is used in the Android version is a fairly vanilla-like installation. Added were only some Lenovo widgets which are mostly basically glorified folder. These widgets are available but in themselves and slow down the system considerably if they are active on the homescreen. This slowing down is achieved not only through the home screen itself, but also affects the App Drawer, the jerky significantly. Through the animation when switching pages, selected by Lenovo (a 3D cube effect), this jerk is still obvious. By removing these widgets but, once the system is running noticeably smoother.
Another criticism on Lenovo Launcher is that he was apparently not fully adapted to Android 4, what is seen as the menu button that appears next to the three navigation buttons. Pressing the, is also still a menu to light that comes optically clear even from pre-holo-times of Android the second Visually incongruous are the bubble icons to remove / uninstall apps and widgets that can be seen if you want to customize the home screen. With an alternative launcher is one that is a lot better off. My personal favorite example is Nova launcher, with the IdeaTab can also operate much smoother.
Tablet apps at this point I have to break a lance times - at least partially. The commonly held idea that a lack of any Android tablet apps is true in this severity is not easy. I have on my tablet as installed apps that are fully adapted to tablets, or at least look good on such devices. The range starts out from Twitter and Facebook clients, via e-mail apps, to text editors of various kinds. Of course it must be said that the mass lacks tablet apps, but should you find apps for many areas that can be easily used on tablets and is also happy.
Of course, the S2110A also comes with some pre-loaded apps. But they are almost all not really worth mentioning. Cute is the only Printer-share app that you have a directly implemented possibility to print documents from the tablet from the WLAN.

Performance

With the just mentioned widgets performance falls markedly in the basement, so this one should basically throw from the home screen. Then the tablet runs smoothly and mostly fast. Thinking I had to take breaks and it certainly makes no fun to use the tablet. However, I have a few days to use find again and again that something becomes saturated in the system (perhaps the cache?), Making the tablet is again less performant. A reboot helps as then, in order to regain the previously usual performance.
Games on the other hand were in my test very smoothly and efficiently. I have a tablet times with Dead trigger and Shadowgun: Dead Zone set to the Prüftand and could play consistently liquid. Want to see the games quite well. Although I personally have 10 "tablets because of the on-screen operation is not suitable to hold 100% to play, I had fun playing it.

Camera and media

Would anyone actually use seriously the camera feature with a Tablet? At least I am still shy about to do that, but I still made a few test shots. The result is quite sobering. Photos are blurred, colorless, dull and sometimes even blurred seriously. A few shots I once involved for you, makes you a proper look at the photos.

Keyboard Dock

The keyboard dock makes initially a thoroughly positive impression. It is processed, class acts Trivalent (which to a large extent on the weight of the dock is) - nothing rattles or shakes. The buttons themselves also hold good, the pressure point is relatively soft. If you like this is, of course, pure matter of taste - I personally prefer keyboards at this small scale a soft pressure point. Accordingly fun makes the hardware as such when used. Positive me the hinge is noticed that is very stable and includes the complete tablet when it is used. The netbook design therefore makes a pretty safe impression.
The firmware of the IdeaTabs is such a thing for himself and for the correct operation, there are several things to consider. Especially the activated on-screen keyboard should note. Namely one has activated the normal Android keyboard (which is usually the case), you can use the hardware keyboard is not correct, because then you can not set partout colons, semicolons, and @ characters. Y and Z are also then reversed. Here, there is simply a faulty firmware. However, the Tablet also installed by default GO Keyboard. Activating this keyboard, the hardware keyboard works.

The usability of the keyboard docks feels basically an okay. The surface is for me personally a bit too rough, but even that is a matter of taste. Too bad, however, are two things: First, dominated the trackpad no multitouch gestures. I find myself constantly in the process as I try to scroll with two fingers, but this just is not possible. Secondly, the right click button is only a quasi-key alibi, since it only in Lenovo launcher has a direct function calls where the customization options. I would expect, for example, that a right-click global triggers the respective long press menu to the browser eg display the context menu. Instead, there is simply the link then invoked as normal, as a left-click. The whole thing can be programmed not to something possibly retrofit.
In practice this meant for me is that I almost never use the trackpad. It would have to be very handy, because then the hand does not have to constantly lift, if you want to navigate on your tablet, but so? No, it was nothing for me.
If you make sure that the Android keyboard is not active, you can have a lot of fun writing. The trackpad would be a great addition, degenerating in this version but unfortunately only annoying gimmick that you prefer to completely deactivated so that the cursor will not move when writing completely by accident.

Other

The tablet itself has in my test for two days, with active use. Say, in effect: All the time Gmail, feed readers, Twitter, Google Drive. With keyboard dock can be assumed that the total running time is approximately doubled, which I am absolutely satisfied.
The IdeaTab can only be charged via the micro-USB port on the keyboard dock. If you put the cable into the port on the tablet, nothing happens. The charging process itself takes considerable time to complete. Coarse you can schedule no less than 12 (!) Hours, if you want to charge both batteries.
The hot keys of the keyboard dock work in a few cases not optimal: The Key to (de) activate the trackpad is the command to not always, and the button for the browser opens strictly the Android browser, instead of the set as the default browser .
The tablet as such, I think because of the 16:9 format abundant unwieldy because it is too wide for my taste, to be held comfortably can. This is an extremely subjective impression and is therefore strongly on the respective flavor dependent.
The lock button locks the keyboard, the tablet though, it can not wake up again, which can be annoying, because then you have to raise your arm every time.

Conclusion

Before I discovered the trick with GO Keyboard, I would prefer to demonize the device completely. Effective writing was possible under any circumstances. The workaround but much improved and so you can actually somewhat effective work on the tablet. You can feel the potential that lies generally in such a combination.
Nevertheless: The only average tablet and also the poorly implemented prevent touchpad for me that I would recommend the IdeaTab S2110A on. As I said, the potential is there, but the weaknesses are generally just too severe. Transfomer pads are here just overall a better alternative. There, the keyboards are something less than ideal, but the rest will go smoothly and as you would expect.
In detail, you have to face, especially the question of why the keyboard dock is unusable if the regular Android keyboard is active. Yes, you can simply bypass eventually, but who will come by themselves to the fact just to activate another software keyboard? It took me well over four weeks until I figured out the trick with the tip of a friend. In the time my keyboard was really going crazy.
"Simple" tablet users are more likely to have this idea not to be frustrated and shoot down the tablet. Here is Lenovo sloppy in adapting and can easily spend heavily backfire, as many will think not just about this one corner. Why should they? One would have actually think that software and hardware keyboard are two separate elements and is not related to such an extent.