Lenovo’s ThinkPad notebooks are the laptops Mac users would buy if they had to use Windows.
Beautiful hardware that’s well-built and looks good.
And the same goes for its tablets vs. the iPad.
Lenovo
The newLenovo Tab Extremeis a good example.
Lazy Apple
One of the perils of unchallenged success is that you get lazy.
The iPhone keeps adding great software features likeDynamic Island, and the camera gets noticeably better each year.
Daniel Romero / Unsplash
The iPad, on the other hand, has barely changed since it first appeared in 2010.
Might this have been different if the iPad had faced some serious competition?
The Competition
What is the competition for the iPad?
Lenovo
It comes from two directions.
One is the cheap junk tablet market.
The other end is Microsofts Surface lineup, which is amazingly diverse.
It runs fromhuge desk-based drafting tabletsto a range of neat convertible touch-screen laptops/tablets.
Unfortunately, Lenovos tablets run Android, but their hardware is at least close to the iPad.
And the new Lenovo Tab Extreme has some genuinely neat features that Apple should totally copy.
Extreme Ideas
Let’s start with the built-in basics.
Speaking of USB-C, Lenovo has two, double the number Apple has managed to put in the iPad.
Ditto the microSD card slot, useful for quick sneaker-net transfers and storage expansion alike.
And even Lenovo’s knockoff keyboard-with-trackpad is better than Apple’s.
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