Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet goes up for pre-order at $649

Earlier today, we reported that HP’s ElitePad 900 had gone up for pre-order at $649. Well, Lenovo’s ThinkPad Tablet 2 is now on sale for the very same price and is expected to ship in Janaury 2013, although it was originally supposed to hit shelves in November.

 

Lenovo’s Windows 8 tablet boasts a 10.1-inch screen with a resolution of 1366 x 768. As noted above, the tablet is up for pre-order with estimated shipping sometime in January for $649.

So how does Lenovo’s ThinkPad stack up against HP’s tablet? Well, for one, your $649 gets you 64 GB of storage, whereas HP is charging an additional $50 for the same amount of storage.

The downside for the ThinkPad 2? The active digitizer costs an extra $30, whereas the HP tablet is already loaded with an active digitizer. If you opt for the active digitizer, you can use any digital pen to control the tablet and write directly on the screen.

For $729, Lenovo offers a version of the tablet that includes the digitizer, the pen, and Windows 8 Pro for the operating system. Of course, you can always get a Bluetooth keyboard for an additional $120 directly from Lenovo.

The above-mentioned Windows 8 tablets are targeted more at corporate users rather than mainstream consumers, as the Intel chip will allow them to run most, if not all, Windows 7 and 8 software.