Lenovo Says Customers Don’t Want Slates

Posted by | 02/23/2010 | 26 Comments

It is the supposed Year of the Tablet and an era where Apple has put all eyes on Slates. No matter. Amidst the release of updates to its ThinkPad line including the X201T Tablet PC, Lenovo is saying that its customer research is telling it that they don’t want slates. CNet is reporting the following quotes from Mika Majapuro, senior worldwide product marketing manager at Lenovo:

“We of course build plastic mock-ups that we show (to customers)…we had a slate form factor. The feedback was that for (our) customers it will not work because of the need to have (a physical) keyboard.”

And Lenovo apparently didn’t just listen to its business customers:

“These were 14-year-old kids, who, I thought, would be most willing to try a virtual keyboard but they said no, we want the physical (built-in) keyboard.”

Keep in mind this is PR speak and that Lenovo has a huge investment in the ThinkPad Tablet line. My hunch is that they are playing wait and see, along with just about everybody else who is serious about the form factor. That said, perhaps we’re seeing the beginning of a some sort of distinction when it comes to Tablet PCs and Slates, although it is going to take more than just PR speak to draw those lines clearly in these early days.

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Category: Hardware

About the Author (Author Profile)

Warner Crocker is a professional theatre director, producer and playwright and also a Tablet PC enthusiast. He is also a Microsoft MVP for Tablet PCs. Send email to Warner.
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  • http://www.tabletpc.com.au Brett Gilbertson

    Slates all day and every day for me. I held onto the TC1100 for a long time before I realised that I didn’t really use the keyboard much at all… The dock is essential as I always use a keyboard there, but not much when mobile.

    Handwriting recognition is running between 35-40 wpm for me on Win 7… iPhone Virtual Keyboard < 20 wpm. Sure handwriting is not as fast as typing, but it's not far off and it's a heck of a lot easier in many places.

    Switched to Motion slates and haven't looked back. First LE1700, now J3400 and C5 gen II. I also have a fujistu T4310, Gigabyte M1028, Viliv X70 and S5, but the C5 is what I always go for. Compact, easy to hold and best screen ever – 180 degree viewing and reflective / transflective display for sunlight reading.

    Was sitting out on the patio reading this article on the C5 in fact! Lovin' it!

  • http://stanstabletblog.blogspot.com/ klucon2

    I would want to have a slate as well + Lenovos Bluetooth keyboard(which they are hopefully working on). I think that would make a pretty good setup. You have your lightweight slate and if you ever need to do some typing, just take out your keyboard an type.

  • MurphysLaww

    yes, we do. We just want it elegantly done like the HP TC series.

    If HP doesn’t bring it back, it will basically be giving the education market back to Apple and will likely rank as one of the biggest marketing blunders in technology marketing.

    The device as initially sold was one of the greatest designs of the modern computer era.

    If there had been e-texts available and OneNote/gobinder had been sorted, and the economies of scale allowed pricing in the $5-600 range it would have been ubiquitous in the education sector.

    once again, HP, IF YOU DON’T RE-PRODUCE THIS, YOU HAVE NO BUSINESS SELLING COMPUTERS, WILL HAVE NO ONE TO BLAME BUT YOURSELF FOR FAILING, AND HAVE NO MARKETING SENSE. GO BACK TO SELLING PRINTERS!

  • EG

    I’ve had both and I now see little point to a slate. You’d think they would be lighter, but Fujitsu knocked that reason pretty much out of the water. With a slate, you need to have a keyboard…for those times when the OS bombs and you want to paste back an image of your drive. You need to have a hard shell case or the screen will eventually be damaged (that’s how I lost one slate). You need to carry a stand with a slate so it will stay at the angle you want to view it. Ha, guess what. The keyboard on my Fujitsu fills every one of those functions for the same weight point as the slate it replaced. Spin the screen around and it functions exactly like a slate (or a slate on a stand).
    So what is the point of a slate again?

  • Nameless

    I lean toward convertibles for a general-purpose Tablet PC that also doubles as my primary notebook, since I have to have the keyboard in that case. When the keyboard jack on my TC1100 broke, it frustrated me whenever I had to input text in something that wasn’t OneNote (where I just write it in rather than futzing about with XP’s Tablet Input Panel).

    But if we’re talking more of a supplementary system, then I’d love a slate-or, better yet, a Microsoft Courier booklet-so long as the screens are high quality with excellent viewing angles, there is Wacom pen functionality, it’s light, and has long battery life. This 14″ Gateway convertible is lacking in viewing angles (average-quality TN screen, I’m guessing), portability (over 6 pounds!), and battery life (I get around two hours on a single 8-cell with about 90% of the original capacity remaining), making it more of a notebook with a built-in Wacom Cintiq. And since I had to sell the TC1100 to afford the new machine…

  • Fleon

    Well, I could care less about a slate. I do however want Lenovo to go back and take a look at the studies showing the benefit of a 4:3 tablet over a 16:9 one.

    Still no 4:3? Still not upgrading. Until my x61 dies, it looks like.

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