Gadgetory

we've been waiting for the Lenovo ThinkPad Hilux for a long time after its debut at CES where the detachable laptop tablet hybrid was easily one of the best things we saw all week we waited for the device six months later it's finally here but it's not quite what we've been waiting for basically the Hilux is tablet but it's a tablet with a dedicated keyboard dock which has a big battery and a fan in it the battery makes it last much longer and the fan means the Hilux can overclock its processor and run even faster when it's docked the Hilux is many things but it is not well designed it's full of asymmetry and awkward angles it's really the furthest thing from a gorgeous unibody device like the sony vaio pro or the MacBook Air the hinge is ugly and exposed as if it's missing its housing there are screws and buttons and rubber feet and stickers everywhere none of which lends the impression that this is at all a well-made sleek attractive laptop there's an awkward odd flap on the back that sort of covers all of that but it looks weird and out of place by itself it's big too the tablet itself weighs 1.8 pounds and the dock adds two more it's eight tenths of an inch thick - and even though the matte black carbon fiber body feels rigid the seams aren't connected well enough on the plus side the helix does get the benefit of Lenovo's expertise with keyboards and track pads the curved concave keys feel great and the trackpad is smooth and responsive even if it does have a few of the same quirks as most Windows laptops there's even a TrackPoint nub if you're so inclined though the buttons for track point users have now been integrated into the trackpad the display on the helix is good and bad the 11.6 inch screen is 1080p which is great but having that many pixels on such a small display can actually make it really hard to see and click some text or icons or webpages it's hard with the mouse and even harder with your finger there's an integrated digital pen which helps a lot and I found myself using it a lot more than I thought not for drawing really but just for getting around the operating system and doing some of the small on-screen things that are hard to do with such small targets but it's not enough and Microsoft really needs to improve how Windows handles high-res screens movies look great in 1080p as do games so you really can't play many games thanks to the integrated Intel graphics here actually the biggest problem with the graphics here is that they're already outdated the helix runs a mostly clean version of Windows 8 on an Ivy Bridge processor last year's model which really doesn't make sense when Intel's new hazard chips are already out performance on the helix is really good especially when it's connected to the dock and able to use that fan but Haswell promises better performance better graphics and especially a better battery and the thing is better battery life might be killer here because it's already pretty great we got more than eight hours of battery life with the two parts connected and more than five hours for the tablet alone for something this powerful with this many features that's pretty great here's the thing though it's not performance that's the problem with the helix it's design lenovo did indeed make a powerful Windows 8 tablet which not a lot of companies have done and it coupled it with a good keyboard and a good trackpad but in doing all that Lenovo seems to have forgotten design entirely I'd much rather have something like the yoga which is heavier but much better-looking and more cohesive or even the ThinkPad x1 carbon which is just a thin beautiful powerful laptop design isn't everything but your 1600 and $79 should buy a lot more care and attention to detail and even if you think this is the right form factor for Windows 8 I don't personally but even if you do this isn't the right way to do it