Yesterday Lenovo announced their IdeaTab S2, the first consumer device we’ve seen with Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon S4 processor. Some readers were disappointed by the fact that the Snapdragon S4 is only dual-core, but this is Qualcomm’s first processor to feature their new 28nm Krait core, which far outperforms the Cortex-A9 core found in other quad-core SoCs like Tegra 3.
We got to spend a few minutes with the IdeaTab S2, and I was impressed with the overall design of the device. It is very similar to the ASUS Transformer Prime with its keyboard dock, but the IdeaTab S2 dock has a larger battery. The Transformer Prime boasts 18 hours of battery life with the dock, and Lenovo was able to top that with 20 total hours of battery life. (10 for tablet + 10 for dock).
Taking a closer look at the IdeaTab S2 keyboard dock, we found it features two full-size USB ports and one micro-USB port. The touchpad had two buttons and the keyboard had several Android-specific hotkeys.
Lenovo said the IdeaPad S2 should be available in early Q2.
Check out the video below for a quick idea of what to expect. Hopefully we can spend some more time with the device later this week and see how the performance stacks up against Tegra 3.
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