Hi, I bought a K1 at office depot last week for $300. I was a little worried after reading all the negative posts, but I haven't had nearly as many problems as some of the other people here. It rebooted twice when I first started using it, but only once since then. The lock screen does freeze occasionally, but wakes up after a couple of tries. I think if the screen would stay on a little longer it would work fine. I haven't bothered to update the OS, I don't have a netflix account; I won't bother updating unless something doesn't work.

 

The good:

The screen is really nice. I compared it to the Transformer, Iconia and Thrive while I was at OD. There wasn't any web access at the store so I loaded similar apps on each tablet and turned the brightness all the way up. I really think the K1 was the clearest and sharpest of them all. The viewing angle might have been a little better on the transformer although a well lit store isn't the best place to compare that.

 

It was $100 cheaper than the others, with twice the internal storage. It's only $50 more than a Nook tablet. If you order it from Lenovo right now you get the keyboard dock with it for $350. The price is just unbeatable right now!

 

You get Documents to Go. That means you can view, create and edit Word, Excel and Powerpoint documents. I like Quickoffice better, but DTG is pretty good. There is quite a bit of pre-loaded software. Some people call it bloat, but most of it is removable so I think it's a plus.

 

The battery life is decent. I get at least a day out of it with a fair amount of use.

 

The speakers actually sound OK. I thought they would be fairly useless.

 

The GPS works for me. It takes longer to lock on than my phone when it's behaving, but my phone rarely behaves when it comes to GPS: I usually have to wipe data and reboot to get it to work. So the K1 wins that competition so far.

 

Amazon Prime and Youtube videos play smoothly. When playing Hi-Def vids there can be a little lag but it's not disturbing. It might work better on a wireless n router.

 

The bad:

Proprietary connector. It doesn't charge over USB, so you have to carry the charger around with you. The USB connector cable plugs into the same port as the charger so you can't charge it while it's connected to your computer. Also, the plug is at the bottom in landscape so it's kind of in the way. For most applications you can just turn it over and that problem is solved.

 

The USB connector cable is only for transferring files from your computer, you can't connect it to a thumb drive or keyboard.

 

The K1 community is kind of small. There isn't much community support if you need help doing something. Lenovo's online support for this device seems kind of lacking, too. I can't comment on customer service as I have not used it, but I doubt it's as bad as the forum posts make it out to be.

 

All in all I'm pretty impressed with the K1. If I had paid $500 for it I wouldn't be so thrilled, so I can understand some of the comments here.

 

$299.99 for a 32 gig dual core tablet is a really good deal. I had planned on waiting for the Transformer Prime, but I think I'll be quite happy with this.

 

-Lenbert

 

I don't know why all my linebreaks dissappeared when I posted this.  I had to go to my laptop to put them back in.  Say what you want about Android, positioning the cursor and cut & paste still need a lot of work.

 

Anyway, go buy a K1. I doubt you'll find a better deal.

I agree too. Mine has performed perfectly with no crashes and had worked well on Email, Skype, GPS, Games and my favorite Netflix. Last nigh I looked at some web video and was also impressed. I just did the 6-7 updates out of the box. GPS and all works perfectly. The GPS actually worked from my bedroom. Locked in 2-3 minutes and WIFI disabled. I bought a Xoom for my daughter for xmas. The screen cannot hold a candle to the Lenovo. It has tons of edge bleed ruining the whole experience.

I am very happy. Got my Son an Asus TF101, I cannot wait to compare the three side by side on xmas day.

So far, the Lenovo wins.

I am also a happy owner, and I just upgraded to Android 3.2.1 build ---1025US other than having to restart it about 3 or 4 times it has worked just fine.... 

I'll add my satisfied experience, as well. I had to manually update to build 111109_US, but that went well and everything still works. Granted, it's my first tablet, but I love it so far.

happy owner here too, especially after doing the 111109_US update. Great screen, great battery life, gps works great with Co-Pllot. I read it's a non ips screen, but to me the viewing angles are just as good as the Asus Tranformer which does use ips. I'm confident it'll get even better with future updates. It's almost as if they rushed out a great product before the firmware was quite ready.

 

bakeman

Another happy K1 user from Canada.

 

Wi-Fi works well, even with signals so weak that my iPhone 3GS can't find them. GPS works okay indoors, at least as well as the iPhone. Auto-dimming works perfectly.

 

I had an earlier issue with a 16GB microSD card that would unmount itself, but I'm pretty sure I didn't mount it properly the first time. Seems fine now.

 

Some minor annoyances:

 

- Some pictures on the Web show it with a textured black back. Mine has a white back, and it's a little slick to keep a hold of.

- If I put it to sleep, using either the power button or the Lock icon, it will occasionally wake itself up for no apparent reason. Checking for e-mail or updates maybe? Is there a way to prevent this?

 

Hi again,

 

I guess I jnxed myself.  Shortly after posting my K1 started the rebooting thing.  Since OD lowered the price of the Acer to $350, I decided to give that a try and exchanged the K1 for an Iconia Tab.  I really did like the K1 and I really hated to pay more for half the storage.  If I can find a used one online cheap enough I'd be happy to have it as an entertainment device but I don't want to deal with it rebooting when I put it to sleep in the middle of something important.  If there were any real rooted ROM options I would have kept it, figuring someone would solve the problem eventually.  Oh well, I wish all you K1 owners the best and hope you continue to be happy with your tablet; it just didn't work out for me, though.

 

-Lenbert

Too bad Lenbert.  I do love mine.  Simply no lockups at all and 100% reliability. My daughter is watching a netflix as I type, I have gotten use to the aps and layout and installed alot of toys (starmap etc).

 

It does have an IPS screen as well. I still have found no flaws.  I kind of wish I bought my Daughter the Lenovo for Xmas rather than the Motorola Xoom.  

 

I still can find nothing wrong with this tablet.  100% satisfied.

In general happy with the Lenovo K1 as well. When I first got it, it went through several updates as well, so you will see the Android robot screen instead of the usual startup. Once it gets to the latest, then you're fine.

 

I suspect folks who are having problem may be have wireless router or internet connection issues -- either slow or faulty connections. The update downloads are not small, about 250+MB in size, so it may take a while. Let it run it's course and you'll be fine.

I have no complaints since upgrading from 1025 to 1109 except for the power port being a minor PITA.