lenovo helix 2 lcd panel pricelist

For business travelers, every ounce counts. So why bother packing a tablet and notebook when you can just bring along one device? That"s the line of thinking Lenovo is using with its new 11.6-inch ThinkPad Helix, a Windows 8 laptop-tablet hybrid that promises the best of both worlds. And with an Intel Core i5 processor, 4GB of RAM and a 128GB SSD, the Helix has the kind of power business users are looking for. But at $1,649, is the convenience of this two-in-one device too costly?

Click to EnlargeThe 11.6-inch ThinkPad Helix is the first Windows 8 hybrid that uses a detachable tablet design. Despite the convertible nature of the design, the Helix retains much of the same styling cues found on Lenovo"s other ThinkPads. The tablet"s back is covered in a black soft-touch material that carries over to the keyboard"s wrist rest and underside.

At the top left of the tablet"s rear panel is a ThinkPad emblem with a red light up dot over the "I" that serves as a system status indicator. To the right of that is a 5-megapixel camera. Just below the ThinkPad logo is a small NFC logo indicating where users should place other NFC compatible devices to pair them with the Helix.

By itself, the tablet weighs a svelte 1.8 pounds and measures 11.7 x 7.4 x 0.46 inches. That"s a few ounces shy of Samsung"s 2-pound ATIV Smart PC Pro 700T, and just a hair smaller.

Click to EnlargeIt seems that with every detachable tablet comes a new way of connecting it to its base, and the Helix is no different. When pushed, a small red tab at the bottom left corner of the base lets you remove the tablet from the keyboard dock. This reveals a rather complex-looking setup: A plastic flap protects the docking mechanism, which includes two large metal tabs, two docking connectors, and a small fan array which pulls air through the tablet. By comparison, the Samsung 700T has a much simpler connector.

Our biggest complaint about the ThinkPad Helix" design is that the display can"t be angled back very far in clamshell mode. However, the Helix"s dock is made in such a way that users can connect the tablet so that the screen is facing the keyboard, or the other way around. This way, you can use the Helix in what Lenovo calls "Stand" mode (good for presentations), or just fold it flush with the keyboard for "Tablet+" mode.

Like the Samsung 700T, the Helix"s base has a built-in battery that adds to its overall weight. Combined, the ThinkPad Helix weighs 3.8 pounds and measures 11.7 x 8.9 x 0.8 inches, which is heavier and larger than the HP Elitebook Revolve 810 (3 pounds, 11.2 x 8.4 x 0.8 inches), as well as the Samsung 700T, which weighs 3.6 pounds with its keyboard dock.

Click to EnlargeAt 11.6 inches, the Helix" 1920 x 1080 IPS VibrantView Gorilla Glass display offered stunning visuals. While watching a 1080p trailer for the sci-fi flick "Elysium," the space colony that serves as the titular setting for the film looked beautiful. An aerial shot of the colony awash with trees provided a spectacular amount of detail. Colors were equally impressive, with the browns and greys of post-apocalyptic Earth clashing nicely with the greens and blues of Elysium. The display"s viewing angles were excellent, allowing us to see images on the screen while sitting to the far left or far right of the system.

At 374 lux, the Helix" IPS display is also extremely bright, making it easy to view even in sunlight. That"s much better than the ultraportable notebook category average of 231 lux, as well as the tablet average of 358 lux. The HP Elitebook Revolve"s 1366 x 768 display measured 376 lux, while the Samsung ATIV Smart PC Pro 700T (which has a 1080p screen) registered 329 lux.

Two stereo speakers on the Helix" bottom edge provided enough audio power to fill a small room. Audio quality on the high end of the spectrum was crisp and clear, though bass hits were nearly imperceptible. While listening to Kanye West"s "On Sight," the rapper"s sonorous voice came through with punch, but beats were difficult to make out.

Click to EnlargeThanks to its detachable display, the Helix can be used as either a traditional notebook or tablet. With support for 10-finger gestures, the Helix" display proved accurate and responsive during our testing. Windows 8"s tile interface, which was made specifically for touch screen devices, was easy to navigate. However, the sharp display on the Helix made items difficult to target in desktop mode.

We were impressed with the Helix" ability recognize our handwriting using the included Wacom stylus. For the most part, whether writing in cursive or printing sentences, the tablet picked up exactly what we wrote without issue.

Click to EnlargeLenovo equipped the Helix with a nearly full-size ThinkPad Precision Keyboard that offered exceptional feedback. On the Ten Thumbs Typing Test, we hit an average typing speed of 70 words per minute with a 2 percent error rate. That"s just about our average for a notebook of this size. We also appreciated Lenovo"s decision to offer a Function Lock feature, which lets you toggle between reversing the function keys.

Click to EnlargeLike the rest of its ThinkPad line, the Helix" keyboard has the familiar red TrackPoint between the G, H and B keys that continues to be the best in the industry. However, to maximize space, the three buttons that normally lie between the spacebar and touchpad have now been integrated into the top of the touchpad itself. Fortunately, these buttons worked well.

Measuring 3.9 x 2.7 inches, the touchpad is about 20 percent larger than previous versions, which made it all the more easier to use. Multitouch gestures such as pinch-to-zoom and rotate were spot on, and click feedback was satisfyingly responsive. Windows 8 gestures, such as swiping in to bring up the Charms menu and switching between apps, were equally responsive.

The dual fans in the Helix" dock were only somewhat effective at keeping the device cool. After streaming a 15-minute Hulu video, the notebook"s touchpad reached just 77 degrees Fahrenheit and the keyboard reached 78.5 degrees. Both of these measurements are well below our comfortability threshold.

The tablet itself, however, was a different story. We measured 102 degrees in the middle of the back. The hottest point was near the ThinkPad logo on the tablet"s backside, which reached a somewhat disturbing 106 degrees.

Click to EnlargeLenovo chose to go relatively light on the ports with the Helix. The tablet portion of the device includes a single USB 2.0 port, mini DisplayPort, proprietary power connector and SIM card slot. All the ports are on the tablet"s bottom edge, making them inaccessible when the tablet is connected to the keyboard dock.

The Helix has a 2-megapixel front-facing camera and a 5-megapixel rear-facing shooter. In a well-lit room, the front camera captured images that were very detailed and captured colors accurately. However, there was a persistent graininess that became more pronounced in darker conditions.

Click to EnlargeEquipped with a 1.8-GHz dual-core Intel Core i5-3337U processor, 4GB of RAM and a 128GB SSD, the Lenovo ThinkPad Helix offers more than enough performance for your business needs. Apps opened and closed quickly, and we didn"t notice any lag when running multiple programs simultaneously.

On the PCMark 7 benchmark, which measures a system"s overall performance, the Helix scored 4,447, besting the 3,718 ultraportable category average. The Helix" performance was about even with the Samsung ATIV Smart PC Pro 700T"s (4,442), despite that system having a less powerful 1.7-GHz dual-core Intel Core i5-3317U processor and the same amount of RAM as the Helix. The HP Elitebook Revolve 810 and its 1.9-GHz dual-core Intel Core i5-3437U processor topped the bunch with a score of 4,554.

With a boot time of 10 seconds, the ThinkPad Helix" 128GB SSD proved speedy, but it was just a few ticks slower than the Elitebook Revolve 810"s 8-second boot time. The Samsung ATIC Smart PC Pro 700T came to life in 13 seconds.

Our Helix completed the LAPTOP File Transfer Test, which involves copying 4.97GB of mixed media files, in 30 seconds. That"s a wicked fast rate of 170 MBps, equal to the ATIV Smart PC Pro 700T, well ahead of the category average of 98 MBps and just ahead of the HP Elitebook Revolve 810"s 159 MBps.

The Helix performed equally well on the LAPTOP OpenOffice Spreadsheet test, matching 20,000 names to their addresses in 5 minutes and 23 seconds. That"s way ahead of the 6:10 ultraportable category average, and slightly ahead of the Samsung ATIV Smart PC Pro 700T"s time of 5:50. The HP Elitebook Revolve 810, however, came in at 5:17.

Click to EnlargePacking Intel HD Graphics 4000 integrated graphics, the ThinkPad Helix can easily handle casual games such as "Fruit Ninja" and "Plants vs. Zombies," but not demanding desktop games. On the 3DMark11 benchmark, the Helix scored a pitiful 494. That"s well below the category average of 714, as well as the ATIV Smart PC Pro 700T"s score of 566. The HP Elitebook Revolve 810 didn"t do much better, scording 586.

Those numbers translated into extremely low real-world performance. While playing "World of Warcraft" with the graphics set to auto and the resolution at 1366 x 768, the Helix provided a barely playable 28 frames per second. Boost the resolution to 1920 x 1080 and frame rates crash to 18 fps.

Click to EnlargeLike some notebook-tablet hybrids, the ThinkPad Helix includes batteries in both its tablet portion and keyboard dock. Together, the tablet"s 3-cell lithium polymer battery and the keyboard dock"s 4-cell lithium polymer battery ran for 8 hours and 10 minutes on the LAPTOP Battery Test (continuous web browsing over Wi-Fi). That"s better than the HP Elitebook Revolve 810"s time of 5:27, as well as the ultraportable notebook category average of 6:04.

The Helix" tablet portion lasted just 5 hours and 48 minutes. That"s well off of the Samsung ATIV Smart PC Pro 700T"s time of 6:38, as well as the tablet category average of 7:01. However, the ATIV lacks a battery in its keyboard dock, so the Helix offers longer overall endurance.

QuickLaunch is Lenovo"s solution to the lack of a Start button in Windows 8"s desktop environment. Located in the bottom left corner, users can click or tap the QuickLaunch icon to instantly open any program you add to the list.

Click to EnlargeLenovo Companion serves as a one-stop shop for all things Lenovo including productivity apps, games and accessories. Lenovo Settings provides quick access to Mobile Hotspot, Power, Location Awareness, Camera and Audio, among others.

Solution Center helps users back up their system, enable virus protection, perform system checkups and more. Lenovo PC Experience provides access to the Helix" system and hardware settings, user guide, system updates and more.

Our $1,649 review unit came with a dual-core Intel Core i5-3337U processor, 4GB of RAM, a 128GB SSD and a 1080p display. If you want more power, you can opt for a 2.0-GHz dual-core Intel Core i7-3667U processor, 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD for $1,999.

Click to EnlargeWith a gorgeous display, above-average performance and long battery life, the Lenovo ThinkPad Helix is a solid choice Windows 8 notebook-tablet hybrid for business users. This being Lenovo, the Helix also has one of the best keyboards we"ve used in a tablet hybrid. We just wish the tablet portion of this convertible ran cooler and that Lenovo included a memory card slot.

Priced at a fairly steep $1,649, the Helix costs about $500 more than the Samsung ATIV Smart PC Pro 700T, which lasts longer on a charge in tablet mode, and has a more robust suite of stylus-optimized apps. But the Helix offers much longer battery life. Overall, the Helix should win over well-heeled executives who want the portability of a tablet, but the performance--and keyboard--of a traditional ThinkPad notebook.Lenovo Thinkpad Helix: Price Comparison

The Samsung Galaxy Book 12 is a quality, productive 12-inch Windows tablet option which comes in at about 1.2 KG with the keyboard. We haven"t fully tested this but remain in close contact with Notebookcheck for information. Their tests have been very positive.

We like the fact that there"s a 48Wh battery in this, and it weighs just 725 gramms. This is one of the lightest 12.3-inch tablets you can buy with that sort of battery capacity.

The Fujitsu Tablet Stylistic R726 with a 12.5 inch anti-glare display transforms into a full performance and full productivity notebook by attaching the slim magnetic keyboard. It has a magnesium-aluminium case which gives it durabiltiy for business professionals on the move. It can be used with a digital pen to take notes or signatures on the tablet. Enterprise-grade connectivity like 4G/LTE and security features like encrypted drives and NFC-based authentication allow you to do your job wherever you want; all in confidence that your data is secure.

The fabulous looking HP Spectre x2 is another Surface-like tablet (but cheaper) with a cpu choice of Core m3, m5 and m7 processors. It will be competing with, among others, the recently launched Surface Pro 4 - the x2 can be configured with either 4GB or 8GB of RAM, and a solid-state drive with 128GB, 256GB or 512GB of SSD storage albeit the Full HD display is less than the Surface Pro 4"s 2,763 x 1,824. There is a firm looking metal kick stand. Reports suggest the sound is very good partly due to the Bang & Olufsen 4 speakers and their positioning.

The Surface Pro 4 has launched with a bigger screen in the same sizing as the Surface Pro 3. Entry level $899 model will be a Core M based device with Intel HD 515 graphics but a Core i7 version with Intel Iris graphics will be available. A new mechanical Touch-Type keyboard will also work with the Surface Pro 3. Resolution is 2736 x 1824

So following on from their 8 and 9.7 inch dual boot devices Teclast have introduced a large tablet - the X2 Pro - which has a full HD 11.6 inch screen which is also able to boot Windows 10 or Android 4.4 (5.1 expected) and has a generous 4GB RAM and 64GB or 128GB storage options.

Fujitsu"s first Core M device is the Arrows Tab Q665 Windows tablet targeted at the enterprise market - solid in construction (also waterproof and dustproof to IP58 standard) and security. You can get it with a choice of Core M-5Y10C or M-5Y31 CPUs, 128 or 256GB SSD and 4 or 8GB RAM. As usual with enterprise divices from Fujitsu it will be expensive if it comes to Europe - upwards of 1200 euros but it does have top notch components.

Now a 10.1 inch Windows 8.1 tablet from Dell using an Atom processor this one is light, has 2 screen options as well as an optional mobile keyboard with battery.

10.1" Windows 8.1 (32 bit) tablet PC with attachable keyboard, Intel Atom Z3735 processor 4 core, Li-Polymer 6000 mAh battery. Office 365 for one year, includes 1TB Drive One cloud storage. Weight with dock 1.35kg.

When Lenovo first showed us the ThinkPad Helix in January 2013 at CES, they described a two stage CPU that ran at low power in tablet mode and full power when docked. The dock adds cooling via those two fans, helping the tablet to run at higher speeds without overheating. That sounded like an Intel Y series CPU that has two voltages, but as it turns out, the Helix ships with typical Ultrabook U series CPUs. We wonder if Lenovo worked on a Y series version but abandoned it in favor of faster U series CPUs for their high end Windows tablet. That would certainly explain the delay, if they had to go back to the drawing board. At any rate, the good news is that the tablet runs nearly as fast solo as it does when docked. The bad news is that the dock fans tend to be loud and overzealous, often running for the first 30 minutes after a cold boot at medium speed for no apparent reason (the CPU temps are quite cool). The back of the tablet can get hot in the upper right corner when used solo, but ours never got burning hot.

The tablet itself has a few ports: 1 USB 2.0 port (why not 3.0, Lenovo?), a 3.5mm combo audio jack, charging port, mini DisplayPort and a dock connector. The tablet can be inserted into the dock facing forward for use as a laptop or reversed for presentation mode with the display facing away from you as you sit in front of the keyboard. The dock has two connectors so you can insert the tablet facing either front or back. We wonder why Lenovo didn"t go with a single centered bi-directional connector rather than two offset connectors on the dock, but we assume their very talented engineers had their reasons. The tablet"s USB, charging port and mini DisplayPort connector are on the bottom edge, so they"re not accessible when docked. We"re not bothered by that since the dock has two USB 3.0 ports, another mini DisplayPort and a charging port that charges both dock and tablet. All dock ports are on the back edge. The 3.5mm audio jack and tablet volume and power button are accessible when docked. You can use the keyboard to control volume, so the tablet volume controls are there as a convenience when the tablet"s not docked.

As ever, it"s hard to fault Lenovo"s excellent keyboards. For a thin machine the keys have ample travel and tactile feedback, and the smile-shaped keys make it easy to stay on target. Though this is a small Ultrabook at 11.6", I had no trouble typing at my usual quick rate, and the only thing I missed was keyboard backlighting when writing at night in a dim room. The Fn key row controls multimedia, brightness and more, and you"ll need to press the Fn key if you"re using a program that makes use of Fn keys.

Lenovo knows how to make a bright display, and the glossy full HD IPS touch screen has 400 nits of brightness, which is handy for combating sunlight and bright office lights. It"s a colorful and sharp display, but as always with Windows, the desktop icons and text will look tiny unless you enable scaling, which reduces sharpness a bit. At 125% scaling, we found things readable without introducing too much fuzz. Color gamut is good but not top notch like the Sony Vaio Pro 13 or MacBook Pro with Retina Display. Graphic artists will enjoy reasonable color accuracy but we noted that reds appeared slightly orange, which is a typical failing of midrange IPS displays. The Lenovo Think Pad Helix covers 73% of sRGB and 55% of Adobe RGB. Contrast is very good at 912:1, and black levels are good but not stunningly low.

The Wacom pen and digitizer are a must have for those who need greater precision and palm rejection. The tablet"s pressure sensitivity is invaluable for artists who need brush strokes that mimic natural media. The tablet offers solid pen and pressure sensitivity support for modern apps that use the Windows API (Art Rage, One Note 2013 and other sketch programs). For legacy WinTab support in Adobe Photoshop, Corel Painter and Paint Tool SAI you"ll need to download Wacom"s Windows 8 drivers from their website. We noted that the Wacom Windows 8 drivers increased pen offset and sometimes the pen only showed activity in the upper left corner, but a reboot fixed that. Will Wacom improve their drivers? We hope so. In the meantime. Art Rage, OneNote 2013, Windows Journal and Manga Studio work well with the default Windows drivers.

The ThinkPad Helix is available with third generation Intel Core i5 and i7 CPUs and Intel HD 4000 graphics. It hurts that fourth generation Intel Haswell CPUs are hitting the market now, but that bears relatively little on performance from an Ultrabook and tablet standpoint since Haswell"s improvements in those arenas pertain more to battery life than improved performance. The good news is that the Helix performs as well as any Ultrabook on the market as of this writing whether in tablet or Ultrabook mode. There"s a 300 point spread in PCMark 7 for tablet vs. docked mode, but that"s not a huge divide and that means the tablet is beefy enough with the Core i5 to handle art, note taking and vertical market apps when undocked. Adobe Photoshop CS6 runs quickly, as does Corel Painter, MS Office 2013 and full HD video streaming. This is a much more powerful tablet than the Intel Atom competitors on the market, including Lenovo"s own ThinkPad Tablet 2. There"s no waiting for programs to launch, Windows Updates to download or moderately complex Excel spreadsheets to run matches. In terms of computing performance, the i5 model is roughly comparable to the Microsoft Surface Pro, and the i7 exceeds it by about 5 to 7%. The Helix has a RAM advantage since it"s available with 8 gigs of RAM instead of Surface Pro"s 4 gigs, for those who use RAM intensive applications like virtual machines. As of this writing, you can only get 8 gigs of RAM if you opt for the Core i7 model.

The tablet is available with 4 or 8 gigs of DDR3L 1333MHz RAM and SSD drives in various capacities. The CPU, RAM and SSD are in the tablet section, and it"s not easy to take apart, so I"d treat it as a sealed unit and order it with the RAM and SSD you want rather than planning do it yourself upgrades later. How do you take it apart? You"ll have to study Lenovo"s service manual for the Helix and then remove the LCD by prying many plastic tabs on the top, left and right sides. Once inside, you"ll have access to the battery, mSATA drive slot and wireless card(s). RAM is soldered to the motherboard and is not upgradable.

The tablet has a 3 cell, 42Wh Lithium Ion polymer battery and the dock has a 4 cell, 28Wh battery. Lenovo claims up to 6 hours use time for the tablet and up to 10 hours for the combo. In our tests, the tablet averaged 5 hours with WiFi on, brightness at a very ample 50% in a mix of MS Office, web, email, social networking and 45 minutes of streaming HD video via Amazon Prime. The tablet and dock together averaged from 7 to 9 hours depending on how much streaming HD video and video editing were thrown into the mix. When working in MS Office and doing email, we reached the 9 hour mark and when we threw 1.75 hours of HD video streaming intot the mix, we managed 7 hours. Digital drawing and note taking require relatively modest power, and we had no trouble getting 5 hours for note taking and 4.5 hours for drawing with the pen in Art Rage and Photoshop CS6.

The dock"s secondary battery appears in the Windows desktop taskbar separate from the tablet battery, so you can monitor the tablet and dock battery levels individually. The Helix uses the dock battery first before draining the tablet"s battery. That"s just the way we like it so we can count on maximum tablet battery power when we grab it on the go.

The Lenovo ThinkPad Helix is a versatile, powerful and well built transformer tablet-Ultrabook. It has the computing performance to handle Adobe Photoshop, software development, RAW photo editing and more and the Wacom digitizer with pen sets it apart from touch-only tablets. We adore the excellent keyboard and solid touchpad, as well as the secondary battery in the dock. We wish it had a backlit keyboard, but that"s not a deal breaker. However, the lack of Intel Haswell CPUs is a nail in the coffin since it would bring better battery life and cooler temperatures. And for the premium price, we expect the latest tech inside. The high price tag is discouraging, and given the $1,679 to $2,200 price range, we can only recommend it to those who need and can afford the Lenovo ThinkPad Helix"s unique compliment of features. But if Lenovo drops the price a few hundred dollars, the Helix would be on our short list.

There are three ThinkPad Helix variants listed on Lenovo"s site. The "low-end" variant comes with a dual-core, four-thread Intel Core M-5Y10c, which has a maximum clock frequency of 2GHz. The other two pricier models have a faster Core M-5Y71, with a base frequency of 1.2GHz, but in Turbo Mode, this goes up to 2.9GHz, a high clock speed for a tablet.

8GB of memory comes as standard in all models, as does a 1920 x 1080 display, which Lenovo touts as capable of 400-nit brightness. As I was sent a high-end model with a Core M-5Y71, it came with an Intel HD5300 integrated graphics chip, which isn"t quite the performer the HD5500 is (that"s what you get with Intel Core i5 processors as seen on, for example, the ThinkPad Yoga 12).

There are multiple batteries, one in the dock, one in the tablet itself, with two power connectors to charge either separately. They behave as you might expect. The primary battery is in the tablet itself. When connected, the dock charges the tablet, and if it is left disconnected from a power source, it"s the dock"s battery that powers the Helix – and obviously when you remove the tablet, then it"s using its own battery.

The Helix also comes with an Active stylus on the low-end models, with a Digitizer Pen in the high-end model, offering 256 levels of pressure sensitivity, although this can be purchased separately on Lenovo"s site.

The Helix is not quite the most powerful tablet around, as it"s pipped to the finish line by a few other models, including the aforementioned Lenovo ThinkPad Yoga 12, but it"s still a great performer. As with most high-end x86 tablets, expect just about any software you might use on a laptop to run perfectly well on the Helix.

I also used a Spyder4 Colorimeter to test the display against Lenovo"s claims. The result of the uncalibrated brightness test came out slightly lower than the quoted 400 nits, with a result of 361, but this is still good. sRGB coverage of 78% and Adobe coverage of 58% aren"t up there with standalone colour-accurate PC monitors or high-end laptops such as HP"s DreamColor display, but these results are still more than reasonable.Lenovo ThinkPad Helix (2015): Price Comparison

CES is mostly just one hellacious blur. Here’s a gadget, and another gadget, and a hooker, and a gadget, and hey do you want to know about my Kickstarter? At CES 2013, laptops were particularly hard to keep track of; everywhere you looked, a manufacturer had some novel way for you to spend $1,000 on a Windows 8 ultrabook.

Through all the chaos, the Lenovo ThinkPad Helix somehow stood out. The detachable tablet / laptop hybrid had it all: full-powered Windows 8 with an impressive spec sheet, two batteries that together promised huge longevity, and the possibility of using one device capably as tablet, laptop, and more. It even had a fan in its dock that would let you automatically overclock its processor — the Helix sounded like a power-user’s dream. It was due in February, and I wasn’t the only one excited about it.

Now it’s June, and the Helix is finally here. It still offers everything it promised, and I’ve been waiting a long time to get my hands on it. But the market’s changed: there’s a new breed of Intel processors, a crowded market of detachable devices that haven’t exactly taken the world by storm, and an as-yet unsettled debate over what a Windows 8 PC should look like.

Late or not, the Helix might still have a chance. The $1,679.99 Helix prices itself out of the low-end market, but can it be the premium Windows laptop we’ve been waiting for?

The Helix looks like someone took apart a laptop, handed someone else all the pieces, and said “make a laptop.” The resulting construction is mostly right — all the key parts are in the right place, unlike whoever did this experiment at Acer — but the Helix feels to me like someone put a couple of screws in the wrong place, glued a few things a little too tightly, and maybe lost a couple of pieces along the way.

For starters, the Helix is chunky. A 1.8-pound tablet that docks into a two-pound dock with a keyboard and trackpad, it’s heavy without being eye-raisingly so, but it doesn’t wear its weight well. When it’s docked it’s really top-heavy — that means it’s hard to open with one hand, and it’s easy to tip over or rock on its hinge if you tap the screen too hard. It’s also thicker than I’d imagined an 11.6-inch ultrabook might be, at half an inch for the tablet and 0.8 inches for the whole kit — Lenovo clearly picked the kitchen sink approach rather than the sleek one.

Both Helix halves are matte black with red accents, made of the same vaguely rubbery carbon fiber as the ThinkPad Carbon X1. They connect via the single most insane, convoluted, complex hinge I’ve ever seen. It connects in six places, a mix of steadying holes and connecting ports. You have to line the tablet up just so, and use two supports to guide it down onto the dock. Don’t try to move the hinge without the tablet in it, either — it takes near-superhuman strength, and feels like you’re about to snap the part off the dock.

The rest of the tablet’s bottom is full of ports that become completely inaccessible when you dock the device. There are two USB ports on the back of the dock, along with a MiniDisplay port; there’s a USB 2.0 port and another MiniDisplay on the tablet itself, plus SD and SIM card slots.

The hinge does at least give the Helix some Yoga-like flexibility. You can put the tablet in the dock in either direction, so you can have the screen facing away from you in a sort of presentation mode. You can also lie it down flat with the screen facing outward, though at that point you’re really just turning your tablet into a heavier tablet. Add all that to the fact that you can just press an awkwardly extruding button on the left side and detach the tablet from the base, and the Helix is probably the most versatile Lenovo ultrabook yet.

From the X1 Carbonto the Yoga 13, Lenovo clearly knows how to build simple, minimal, classy laptops, and yet from the same company comes this mess of exposed screws, awkwardly located rubber feet, and a seam on the base I could pretty easily pry apart. The whole laptop is a mish-mash of odd angles and asymmetrical designs, which feels particularly odd coming from Lenovo. There’s no excuse for this, and no reason for it — building a sturdy, docking hinge can’t be hard enough that everything else goes by the wayside. Lenovo didn’t even get the hinge completely right, either: I constantly tried to push the screen back further, because its normal angle forces you to slouch a bit to see it head-on.

It’s an ambitious design, and obviously a difficult one to do well. But Lenovo didn’t do it well. And that’s not the only place the Helix doesn’t hold up, either.

The 11.6-inch screen on the Helix is a beautiful, 1080p IPS panel that gives whites the slightest gray tint but otherwise looks fantastic. Viewing angles are great, colors are accurate, touch response is excellent, and everything is tack-sharp. But it runs into some of the same issues as the Sony VAIO Pro, where pixel density actually becomes a problem — cramming this many pixels into such a small space makes almost everything too small, from webpages to app icons. Anything from the Windows Store looks fine, but everything else scales wrong.

The bundled digitizer pen, which slots into the top left corner of the tablet, seems to be a tacit admission on Lenovo’s part that the high resolution is a problem. And it does help: it has the same hovering preview features as the Surface Pro, and makes finding tiny touch targets much easier. But it’s otherwise a pretty basic pen, and it’s not a good enough solution anyway.

All you need to know about the Helix’s keyboard is that it’s a ThinkPad. From the slightly curved, concave keys to the red TrackPoint nub in the middle, it’s every bit as good as always — springy, rich with function keys, and even roomier than I’d expect from an 11.6-inch device. The only sacrifice to size is the crowded arrow keys, but I can get over that. Lenovo makes the best Windows keyboards, and that hasn’t changed here, even if I can’t believe it’s not backlit.

The trackpad, too, is at the top of its class. It’s smooth and glassy, and impressively responsive – though two-finger scrolling can be a little jumpy at times. Lenovo’s tweaked its ThinkPad formula a bit: instead of having two buttons at the top for TrackPoint users to click with, the trackpad is now much bigger, and all its corners are clickable. It’s better-looking, and more usable besides; I don’t mind the TrackPoint so much here, because at least it’s easy to ignore.

Of course, the normal Windows trackpad problems still apply. The Helix’s cursor has a weird habit of freezing, and some gestures can be unresponsive — Lenovo makes good trackpads, but here, as with the resolution, Microsoft needs to help.

On day one, the Helix is already outdated. Even as Intel’s new Haswell chips ship with promises of better performance and incredible battery life, the Helix ships with a 1.8GHz Core i5 Ivy Bridge processor, along with 4GB of RAM and between 128GB and 256GB of solid-state storage. It also comes with a fairly clean version of Windows 8, marred only by Lenovo’s series of business-minded apps and a whole lot of Intel and Norton popups.

Performance is solid, and the Helix powers everything from the Windows 8 interface to relatively heavy apps with ease. It’s easily among the most capable Windows tablets I’ve used, rivaled only by the Surface Pro; it’s even better when it’s docked, because the built-in fan in the dock allows the Helix to overclock its processor and run even faster. I didn’t notice the bump most of the time, but definitely felt the difference between running a heavy app like Adobe Illustrator in tablet vs. laptop modes.

But Haswell promises another bump, particularly with graphics — that’s important future-proofing, and might also mean the Helix, which is currently completely incapable of playing any kind of graphically intensive games, could do a little better. Haswell chips are clearly the future, and though I’m sure there’s a Helix coming with Intel’s new chip inside, right now the device feels old from the minute it comes out of the box.

When it does get a Haswell upgrade, battery life is going to be ridiculous. Even now, the Helix scored eight hours and eight minutes on the Verge Battery Test, which cycles through a series of websites and images with brightness set to 65 percent — that’s a rare number for an Ivy Bridge machine. It’s also with both parts connected; the tablet alone lasted five hours and five minutes, which is a really low result compared to the iPad but is sadly par for the Windows 8 tablet course. If Lenovo can figure out how to double the Helix’s battery life the way Apple doubled the MacBook Air’s, it’s going to be insane.

On one hand, there’s really nothing like the Helix. It works well as a tablet and a laptop, has solid battery life, and offers a mix of power and versatility I haven’t really seen from a device this size. It’s like the Surface Pro with a better, sturdier keyboard and better battery life — maybe that’s enough for some people. But it’s not for me. $1,679.99 can buy you a lot of laptop from almost any manufacturer, and it’s too high a price to pay for too little attention to detail here. I want a device that is sleek and beautiful, equally laptop and tablet, not a jumble of parts designed to awkwardly mash the two devices together.

The worst part? Lenovo clearly knows how to make a nice laptop, and even a good laptop this versatile. If you want a tablet that is also a laptop, the IdeaPad Yoga 13 and 11 have great keyboards and trackpads, and they pair them with a design that doesn’t look hacked together in a garage. As a laptop, the ThinkPad Carbon X1 is thinner, lighter, and better in almost every respect.

When it was first introduced at CES 2013, Lenovo described the Helix laptop-tablet hybrid as a "flip-and-rip" system, which sounded like the usually staid company was trying to add a little sizzle to the normally conservative ThinkPad lineup.

The flipping and ripping comes into play when you activate the small hinge-based latch for removing the display from the rest of the body. In this case, the screen pops off much like any other hybrid"s, but then can reattach after being rotated 180 degrees, leaving the screen facing out from the back of the system. That makes for a good presentation mode, which I sometimes call a "kiosk" setup. Of course, you can also use the Helix screen by itself as a Windows 8 slate, or fold the unit shut with the screen facing out for a thicker tablet mode backed up by the extra battery power of the keyboard dock.

Another potential stumbling block: the Helix (like the Yoga 11S) is currently stuck with Intel"s previous-generation processors, rather than the new fourth-generation Core i-series, called Haswell. The difference is important for a device such as this, because the battery life numbers we"re seeing from the first few Intel Haswell laptops make the new chips more than worth waiting for, especially if you"re going to be using a hybrid in its extra-portable tablet mode. The Helix ran for an acceptably long time when both the base and screen batteries were used together, but for pure tablet use, it"s tempting to wait for an updated version.

Because this system is from Lenovo"s professional-grade ThinkPad line, as opposed to the consumer-targeted IdeaPad line, you can expect to pay a bit of a premium compared with other machines with similar specs. For a ThinkPad"s rigid construction, best-in-class keyboard, and IT-friendly security features, that"s perfectly reasonable, in theory. But, the Helix starts (starts!) at a frankly surprising $1,679 -- and for that, you get only a last-gen Intel Core i5 CPU, 4GB of RAM, and a 128GB solid-state drive (but, points for the 1,920x1,080-pixel-resolution display). Upgraded versions (all include a digitizer stylus) add faster processors, more RAM, larger SSDs, and mobile broadband, but those can cost somewhere north of $2,000.

Networking 802.11 b/g/n wireless, Bluetooth 4.0 802.11b/g/n wireless, Bluetooth 4.0 802.11a/c wireless, Bluetooth 4.0 802.11 b/g/n wireless, Bluetooth 4.0

Though I have misgivings about the price and older components, Lenovo has created the best detachable-screen latching system I"ve seen. It"s still overly fiddly, with multiple hook-and-eye-style connections, but it feels more robust and solid than other detachable hybrid hinges, and the release mechanism is a large push-in button on the left edge of the hinge, rather than a chintzy-feeling button right below it (as found on the

There"s even a short horizontal panel that covers the entire hinge mechanism from the rear of the system, both to protect it from the elements and to give the entire package a cleaner look. I"ve taken to calling it the Helix Modesty Skirt.

Removing the screen from the base, flipping it around, and reattaching it has a couple of obvious uses. One is to create a kiosk-style display, with the screen pointing toward your audience without a keyboard or touch pad in the way. I"ve used Lenovo"s own Yoga 13 like this many times, and if you share a lot of onscreen content, it can be a useful feature, especially if you can still drive the system from behind, as you still have access to the keyboard and touch pad.

From that kiosk mode, you can fold the system shut, so it"s in its closed clamshell mode but with the display pointing out. That gives you what Lenovo calls a tablet-plus mode, which essentially means you"ve got a large secondary battery bolted to the back. That makes for a thick and heavy tablet, but if you need a half-dozen hours or more of Windows 8 touch-screen productivity, you can get it.

The rest of the physical design is up to Lenovo"s usual impeccable ThinkPad standards. The matte-black chassis feels like it could take a bullet, and the standard, island-style ThinkPad keyboard, with keys slightly curved at the bottom, is impossible to top.

Keyboards on 11-inch laptops are especially tough to design well, but using the Helix, I never felt unduly cramped while typing. Shift, Enter, Tab, and other important keys are well-sized, and functions including volume, microphone, and brightness controls are mapped to the primary functions of the F-key row at the top of the keyboard. But, keep in mind the power button is actually on the top edge of the screen itself, so you can use it while in tablet mode.

The large, buttonless clickpad is also generous in size and feels tighter than its counterpart on Lenovo"s X1 Carbon ultrabook. There"s a red trackpoint nestled between the G, H, and B keys. I"m on the record as saying that method of pointer navigation is not what most laptop users are looking for these days, but at least it"s only minimally in the way.

The 11.6-inch display has a very high native resolution of 1,920x1,080 pixels, which is great to see in such a compact laptop/tablet. In the Windows 8 interface, icons and text scale automatically to a comfortable level, although in the traditional Windows view, things can look very small indeed. The screen itself is bright and glare-free, and, very importantly for a tablet, it"s an IPS display that looks fine even from extreme side angles.

The ports and connections on the Helix, such as they are, sit on on the bottom edge of the tablet. That means they"ll be covered up when the tablet is connected to its dock in laptop mode, except for the audio jack.

Fortunately, the keyboard base replicates and even improves on these, by offering its own Mini DisplayPort output, plus two USB 3.0 ports, which is better than the single USB 2.0 on the tablet itself. There"s no SD card accessibility at all, so be aware if that"s something you"ll need. Bluetooth is also missing, and Ethernet is available only via an included USB dongle.

Available configurations go from expensive to very expensive, starting at almost $1,700 (although there"s currently one of Lenovo"s confusing promo code deals on the Lenovo Web site, bringing the base model down to $1,539.12). Moving the CPU from a Core i5 to a Core i7, adding mobile broadband (there"s an easily accessible SIM card slot on the tablet), and bumping the RAM from 4GB to 8GB can drive the price closer to $2,000.

All of the Helix models include the sort of enterprise software and hardware IT departments often require (this is a ThinkPad, after all). Those include Intel"s vPro platform, a TPM chip, and BIOS encryption. Casual consumers or small businesses typically don"t have to worry about this, but it"s there, and it"s at least part of the reason you"re paying a premium for the Helix.

Our Core i5 version of the Helix performed well in benchmark tests, especially considering that many previous 11-inch laptops and hybrids have been stuck with slower Intel Atom processors. Even among the current 11-inch Core i5 crop, including Apple"s 11-inch MacBook Air and Sony"s 11-inch Vaio Pro 11, it held its own, showing once again that there"s little performance difference to be found between this year"s" fourth-gen Haswell Intel Core i-series CPUs and last year"s third-gen ones. (The Helix, surprising considering its price, is currently stuck with the older CPUs.)

However, one area where having a newer fourth-gen Haswell CPU offers a big gain is in battery life. Lenovo smartly makes up for the lack of a new Haswell chip by combining two batteries, one on the tablet screen and one in the base. Combined, the full laptop ran for 7 hours and 37 minutes in our video playback battery drain test using both batteries, while the tablet screen alone ran for 4 hours, 37 minutes. That"s good for a Core i-series PC before the June release of the first Intel Haswell-generation processors, but laptops with those new CPUs have been turning in very impressive battery life numbers, and it makes me wonder what sort of improvement we"d see in an up-to-date Helix, especially if you want to leave the keyboard base at home.

There"s a lot to like about the Lenovo ThinkPad Helix. The engineers at Lenovo have come up with the best detachable docking hybrid system I"ve seen (although there may be no solution to the fact that these docking hinges are just inherently clunky). It feels sturdier and more reliable than many other hybrids, and the double battery system offers flexibility for longer workdays.

That said, the laptop and tablet landscape has changed radically since we first saw this system previewed in January. Six months later, 11-inch tablets and hybrids are everywhere, and at some very reasonable prices. With only the previous generation of Intel CPUs available for now, it"s hard to justify spending between $1,600 and $2,000 unless you really need the IT-friendly security features Lenovo is known for.

A 32-bit operating system can only support up to 4GB of RAM. 64-bit allows more than 4GB, giving increased performance. It also allows you to run 64-bit apps.

Slow-motion is an artistic video effect that makes time seem to go slower. It is achieved by recording a video at a higher frame-rate than the standard playback rate of 24fps or 30fps. Depending on camera capabilities, frame rates for slow-motion videos vary between 60fps and 960fps.

aptx Adaptive is an audio codec for Bluetooth devices that is developed by Qualcomm. It has a variable bit rate (between 279kbps and 420kbps), which means it can adjust the bit rate for different scenarios, such as listening to HD audio or reducing interference from other devices.

“Business buyers take note: Lenovo’s Helix is an expertly designed do-it-all device with an excellent keyboard and ample battery life. But we do wish it had Haswell and weighed a bit less.”

Since the official launch of Windows 8 last fall, we’ve seen more convertible PCs in more form factors than we’d care to count. But for comfortable use as a laptop, and a relatively lightweight tablet when you don’t need the keyboard, the traditional clamshell with a removable screen (like HP’s Envy x2) is still hard to beat.

…through some complex but well-executed engineering, Lenovo delivers perhaps the best do-it-all Windows 8 device we’ve seen yet.Lenovo’s ThinkPad Helix takes that design and – through some complex but well-executed engineering –delivers perhaps the best do-it-all Windows 8 device we’ve seen yet. The Helix functions well as a traditional laptop with long battery life, thanks to its ThinkPad keyboard, dual batteries, and a 1080p IPS panel. And with its Core i5 CPU and SSD housed behind the detachable screen, it’s also a powerful tablet, complete with a digitizer and storable pen.

The price, however, is hard to ignore. A starting price of $1,680 is a lot to ask for an 11-inch device with a 1080p screen, a Core i5 processor, and a 128GB solid-state drive these days – no matter how good the keyboard or battery life is. And stepping up to a 180GB SSD and a Core i7 CPU with Windows 8 Pro pushes the price to more than $2,000. Unless your employer is willing to pick up the tab, you’ll want to make sure the digitizer and detachable screen are important enough to your workflow.

We were huge fans of Lenovo’s Yoga, another convertible PC out on the market. Is the Helix another win for Lenovo, or does it suffer the same fate as the company’s Horizon: a great idea, but just too expensive to justify buying. Let’s find out.

The first thing we noticed when we started using the ThinkPad Helix, aside from its rather formidable heft (for an 11-inch Ultrabook), was that it looks and feels like a ThinkPad – from its matte-black exterior to its rugged build to its excellent input devices.

If you’re familiar with recent ThinkPads, the Helix shouldn’t disappoint from a laptop perspective. With the top and bottom rows mostly receiving the shrunken-key treatment, the keyboard feels only slightly cramped. Key feel and travel are excellent for a device that’s 0.8-inches thick – especially since half that is taken up by the tablet. But while Lenovo advertises the keyboard as spill-resistant, there’s no backlight, which feels like an annoying omission in an Ultrabook this pricey.

Of course, Lenovo hasn’t ditched its trademark red TrackPoint pointing stick. It’s still there between the G, H, and B keys. What’s missing, however, is the dedicated second group of mouse buttons below the space bar. Once you get used to it, though, the clickable touchpad serves that purpose well enough.

While the input devices on the Helix are excellent, the port selection and placement suffers a bit due to the device’s versatile design. First (and worst) off, there is no SD card slot or VGA port to be found on the Helix, although both can be added via adapters using on-board USB and DisplayPort connectors.

All the ports, though, sit at the back of the device. There you’ll find two USB 3.0 ports, a rectangular power connector, and the DisplayPort. That’s it as far as wired connectivity goes in laptop mode. If you detach the screen to use the Helix as a tablet, you’ll find one USB 2.0 port, a DisplayPort, a SIM card slot for mobile broadband (on some models), a proprietary dock connector, and anchor holes that keep the screen rigidly attached to the keyboard in laptop mode.

While the Helix is nice enough as a laptop, it’s the versatile, complex hinge that sets the device apart from pretty much anything else on the market. In addition to detaching the screen for use as a tablet, the hinge also lets you connect the screen in two ways. You can either attach the tablet in the traditional, front-facing laptop orientation, or attach it facing out for use in presentations.

While the Helix is nice enough as a laptop, it’s the versatile, complex hinge that sets the device apart from pretty much anything else on the market.

The hinge also adds some extra cooling when the tablet is docked with the keyboard. A pair of small fans blow air up into the tablet. However, in our tests, they didn’t exactly keep the device cool to the touch when doing serious CPU or GPU tasks. With the tablet docked with the keyboard and the fans doing the best they could, temperatures near the top of the back of the tablet reached as high as 124.7 degrees when maxing out the processor or the integrated graphics.

With a 1.8GHz Core i5-3337U processor, 8GB of RAM, and 128GB solid-state drive all housed behind the 1080p screen, the Helix is well equipped for most mainstream computing tasks, thanks to its familiar U-series CPU found in many other Ultrabooks. It’ll handle things like Photoshop or basic video editing just fine. But all those components – plus a Gorilla Glass screen, a digitizing layer, and the accompanying pen – means the Helix feels a bit heavy in the hand as a tablet, weighing 1.73 pounds.

There’s little to complain about when it comes to the screen. It’s an IPS panel, so viewing angles aren’t an issue. And while the panel was only able to reproduce 73 percent of the sRGB scale in our testing (which isn’t terrible, but isn’t great, either), it is one of the brighter panels we’ve seen in a long time.

The Helix’s battery life has the odd distinction of being both very impressive, and the best reason to wait for a CPU refresh. While Intel launched its 4th Generation Core (Haswell) chips in early June, the company has yet to offer up the business-focused versions that make their way into ThinkPads and other business and enterprise PCs.

So we can’t find fault with Lenovo for sticking with 3rd Generation Core processors for now. Indeed, the company has done a great job with what’s available. When we tested the Helix in laptop mode, draining both the tablet and keyboard batteries, it lasted 4 hours and 48 minutes in our extremely demanding Battery Eater test. That’s about an hour-and-a-half longer than Samsung’s Ativ Book 5 lasted on the same test. The tablet alone, without the extra keyboard battery, managed to hold out for 2 hours and 18 minutes on this test. The latter score isn’t exactly impressive, but it’s certainly respectable.

Overall, the Helix’s battery life is great. Unless you push the CPU or GPU hard, it should easily get you through a day’s worth of work without needing a recharge. But what gives us pause is the battery life increases that we’ve seen from systems equipped with the newer Haswell processors (like Apple’s latest MacBook Air).

Intel made some bold claims about its latest chips delivering up to a 50 percent or more battery boost. And from the limited real-world examples we’ve seen so far, those numbers seem plausible. So if you like the idea of a Helix that can hold out for 12 hours or more without needing a charge, you may want to wait until Intel launches Haswell for business users and Lenovo incorporates the chips into Helix models. The newer CPUs will also deliver improved graphics performance as well.

With the Helix, Lenovo delivers perhaps the best-designed and versatile Windows 8 convertible we’ve seen yet. Thanks to an excellent keyboard and a well-executed touchpad, it works great as a laptop. It’s a bit hefty as a tablet, but the 1080p IPS screen looks good. With the included stylus, many people will appreciate pen input. And the Ultrabook-class components mean the system won’t balk when you throw demanding tasks at it the way current-generation Atom-based machines (like HP’s Envy x2) often do.

If you don’t mind its 3.5-pound heft, and you’re looking for a versatile convertible that seems as ruggedly built as any other ThinkPad, the Helix should make an excellent companion in the office or on the road.

But if you like the idea of a Helix that can last a day-and-a-half (or more) without needing a recharge, you may want to wait until Lenovo refreshes the device with Intel’s latest chips. The new CPUs won’t technically make the Helix any lighter, but they may let you leave the charger at home, even on an overnight business trip.

Lenovo ThinkPad Helix refers to two generations of 2-in-1 convertible tablets that can be used as both a conventional ultrabook and a tablet computer. The first-generation Helix was announced at the 2013 International CES and was released on 21 May 2013. A second-generation Helix came out in 2014.

In March 2013, Lenovo said that the ThinkPad Helix would launch in April in the United States. Launch dates in other countries will vary. The Helix was announced at the 2013 International CES. Lenovo touts the device as a “high performance Ultrabook with a detachable Windows 8 tablet.” The starting price for the base model Helix is expected to be $1,499.

The ThinkPad Helix II was released in October 2014. It is an Ultrabook-class convertible laptop based on the Intel Core M processor. The Helix II uses a vapor chamber with no moving parts instead of fans for cooling, achieving a significant noise reduction. It is both thinner and lighter than its predecessor at .38 inches thick and weighing 1.8 pounds.

The Helix serves as a conventional notebook computer but uses a "rip and flip" design that allows the user to detach the display and then replace it facing in a different direction. Also, as all essential processing hardware is contained in the display assembly and it has multitouch capability, the monitor can be used as a standalone tablet computer. The Helix features include Gorilla Glass, stylus-based input, and Intel vPro hardware-based security features, and is designed to appeal to business users.Wacom and fits into a dedicated slot in the tablet portion of the device.

The Helix has an 11.6-inch 1080p IPS display that has ten-point capacitive multi-touch capability. At 400 nits the Helix"s display is the brightest available among ThinkPad models. Connectors for mini-HDMI and mini-Display Port support graphics output. A five-megapixel rear camera and a two-megapixel front-facing camera are mounted on the display.

The Helix is equipped with WiFi, NFC, and a cellular modem with support for 3G and 4G LTE SIM cards as an option. A LAN port is offered for wired networking capability. The entire device weighs almost four pounds and the tablet portion weighs less than two pounds.

In a review published in Forbes Jason Evangelho wrote, "The first laptop I owned was a ThinkPad T20, and the next one may very likely be the ThinkPad Helix which Lenovo unveiled at CES 2013. In a sea of touch-inspired Windows 8 hardware, it’s the first ultrabook convertible with a form factor that gets everything right. The first batch of Windows 8 ultrabooks get high marks for their inspired designs, but aren’t quite flexible enough to truly be BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) solutions. Lenovo’s own IdeaPad Yoga came close, but the sensation of feeling the keyboard underneath your fingers when transformed into tablet mode was slightly jarring. Dell‘s XPS 12 solved that problem with its clever rotating hinge design, but I wanted the ability to remove the tablet display entirely from both of those products."

In a review published in CNET Vincent Chang wrote, "It gets worse once you add the dock, with the weight of the Helix increasing to 1.67kg with the accessory. That"s not exactly light for an 11.6-inch device when you can find slimmer 13.3-inch Ultrabooks, such as the Acer Aspire S7. Of course, the Helix is a hybrid device that can be used in more ways than one--you aren"t saddled with the keyboard like a laptop." Chang concluded, "With a starting price of US$1,499, the ThinkPad Helix is pretty expensive, even for Ultrabook convertibles. However, its business slant means that companies, which can afford the premium price for the extra security and enterprise features, are most likely the ones to purchase the Helix."

In another review published by CNET editors wrote, "There"s a lot to like about the Lenovo ThinkPad Helix. The engineers at Lenovo have come up with the best detachable docking hybrid system I"ve seen (although there may be no solution to the fact that these docking hinges are just inherently clunky). It feels sturdier and more reliable than many other hybrids, and the double battery system offers flexibility for longer work days."

In an early review for TechRadar Alex Roth wrote, "The Thinkpad Helix is exactly the kind of product Lenovo is known for: sturdy, versatile and designed for productivity to the point where it might [be] too niche for the average consumer. A lot of convertible tablet/ultrabooks look like just that, a tablet jammed into a keyboard stand. Not the Helix, all put together, it looks very much like one piece of equipment. As just a tablet, it"s a great size and weight, making it easy to hold."

Whitwam, Ryan (28 November 2014). "Lenovo cools the Thinkpad Helix with a tiny vapor chamber, no fans necessary". Geek. Archived from the original on 4 December 2014. Retrieved 5 December 2014.

Chang, Vincent (21 January 2013). "Lenovo ThinkPad Helix (Core-i Processor, 8GB RAM)". CNET Asia. CBS Interactive. Archived from the original on 21 July 2013. Retrieved 9 September 2014.

Ackerman, Dan (3 July 2013). "Lenovo ThinkPad Helix review: A business hybrid with an executive price". CNET. CBS Interactive. p. 2. Retrieved 9 September 2014.

Roth, Alex (19 January 2013). "Hands on: Lenovo Thinkpad Helix review". TechRadar. Future plc. Archived from the original on 19 January 2013. Retrieved 9 September 2014.