Review: Lenovo Ideatab A2109A – A Hands On Approach

Hello my fellow Android Fanatics.

Here we have a hands on approach to the IdeaTab A2109A by Lenovo.  This is the first tablet I’ve had the pleasure of testing out and I went into it initially with a great deal of skepticism due to the fact I’d only heard of Lenovo in passing.  Myself being an Android lover I kept my mind open and my mouth shut, and I am glad that I did.

 

 The A2109A is built around a NVIDIA Tegra 3 processor with each core capable of running at 1200MHz which enables super smooth operation, fast processing, image rendering, and buttery operations.  Out of the box Lenovo has put together a product and user experience that is great for first time users.  This thing was stupid easy to set up, someone not very tech savvy could easily get this tablet running in under 15 minutes ready to download all sorts of stuff from the Android Play Store or Lenovo’s App Shop.

 The form factor of this nice piece of machinery is, of course a tablet, with a 9″ exterior, just under 8″ of screen property with an aspect ration of 1280 x 720 pixels and at just over 11mm thick fits nicely in the hand.  It has multi-touch capability of up to 4 fingers at once. A white board LED display with a glare/glossy finish on the screen which makes a nice connection between you and the tablet during the course of using it.  The response when touched is swift and smooth.  I was shocked to hear that it retails for a smooth $339.00 USD from what this nice tablet is able to do.  Yes, it is a bit more than the highly touted Nexus 7, but it also has a couple more inches on the screen with great clarity and is very user friendly.  This device ships with Android 4.0.4 ICS out of the box, which is nice to see a move beyond Android 3.1, I liked ICS from the beginning personally, and when JB comes this direction I have a feeling Lenovo will elevate this tablet even closer to its higher end competitors.

I like to use the stock UI, preloaded launcher, and everything pretty vanilla straight out of the box for a while to see how the manufacturer had intended for the product to feel when it lands in the happily awaiting customer’s hands.  As I perused on through the tab, opening anything and everything I could find I was impressed with the fluidity of the UI, the butteryness of the launcher, the app drawer was where I got a little hung up (I’m an organization nut) because it was not in alphabetical order; now I know this isn’t a big deal as with Android everything can be modified, adjusted, changed, to an extent to where it fits every individual owner just right.  So I loaded up Apex Launcher…ah yes, order once again, LOL.  

One of my faves, widget support coming out of the app drawer, yes, muy nice.  One thing I do like about the home screen and how it can all be set up, Lenovo has incorporated a function they call “edit mode” where once in it, you can edit any and every icon and widget on the home screen; you can remove as many of the widgets as you like, icons as well, just click the little “X” in the upper corner of what you want to get rid of and BOOM, no more individual time consuming tedium when it comes to cleaning up the home screens, which there are 5 of out of the box, so that’s plenty of real estate to either fill up or clean the hell out.  

I’m a cleaner, so I took full advantage of the “edit mode” shown above and wiped everything thing out (this is obviously an early pic to illustrate my point, there is waaaay too much going on here).  

While thinking about the usability this product brings to the table, I found this device to be a nice product to play games on.  No, I’m not into the MMO stuff but simple physics and problem solving games.  My 3 year old has dramatically increased his hand eye coordination and problem solving on this tab by playing the “Cut the Rope” game that came pre-installed, I don’t know how the hell he figures it out but every level has been passed and he’s the only one who plays it.  All around this unit is great for anyone of any age, any skill level, any familiarity level with Android or mobile OS, hell, my boss who’s an Apple fanboy even enjoyed using this product when he came over one day, he might not switch from the iPath but he has definitely been tempted with this and the S3 I pushed him into using one day, so there is hope for him yet.  

This tab has the standard rear cam at 3 megapixels and a 1.3 megapixel front facing cam, 1080p recording capabilities and a video chat function, nice for Google+ hangouts or video chatting on gtalk.  I’ve used the gtalk video chat and while there was a bit of lag, about 1 sec or less, I think that was more or less the network it was on.  There was a lot of use going on that day (6 devices including 3 laptops) so a slothy connection was kind of expected.  

All in all I am super pleased with the experience I’ve had with this tablet.  There are a few things that I would like to see changed, no SD card support is a biggie for me, I have SD cards with thousands of photos and media that I would like to import without going through a PC, wifi 802.11a support, I’m a nut for security and while b/g/n is supported, with a device this new I would’ve thought “a” support would’ve been in there too.  I do really like the HDMI out right next to the charging port, that’s a sweet feature that I have yet to play, though I plan to.  From top to bottom, side to side, Lenovo has put together a product priced at the beginning of the Tablet demographic but with top tier hardware and a great user experience.  Please, get out there, try one out, and take two home, you won’t regret it.  

Get yours here at Lenovo.com, and right now, its on sale.