Wednesday, September 21, 2016

Lenovo Miix3-1030

Some time ago I bought a Lenovo Miix3-1030 tablet/laptop 2-in-one. This post will describe the device. I already described upgrade and clean install to Windows 10 on the device at lenovo-miix-3-1030-and-clean-reinstall

Device technical data:

CPU: Z3735F. Same as used in most of the windows10-type tablets. Has several cores, pretty decent GPU. Yet you should't expect this to be as fast as desktop or any high-end-market mobile device.
Same is used in any Lenovo Yoga device, Asus Transformer and many many more.

OS: Windows 8 / 8.1 / 10
OS is 32-bit but there is no much reason to use 64-bit OS. You might gain access to some 64-bit instructions but... I barely believe you would use it.

RAM: 2GB. This CPU is constrained to 2GB of RAM.

HDD... there is no such. Only internal Flash which is 32GB on my device but 64GB device should also be available.

Ports and slots: microUSB type B, uSD card slot, attachable keyboard has 2 full-size USB,

This is a tablet with additional keyboard that can be attached.

Device pros:

Nice screen with 1920x1200 resolution.
Good battery life (but not the best - expect up to 8h on a single charge).
Good sleep mode (if correctly configured).
Supports UEFI.
Has 2 full-size USB ports.
Low power consumption.
Windows 10.

Device cons:

uSD card often turns off so it cannot be used as a secondary storage drive. Might be an driver issue though (although symptoms lead to power issues).
Screen angle cannot be adjusted. You have only 3 positions + closed.
Screen is not mounted to the keyboard and there is only some magnet (with the docking slot) keeping them together. So you cannot use USB pen-drive as a secondary storage... unless you ensure that you won't disconnect the device from keyboard.
Poor charging through its uUSB port without fast-charge. Device has max power consumption above what USB can do so you need a charger that would give 5.2 (or even more) volt and could sustain goot current (2A would be good). I will try fast-charge charger but I doubt it would work.
It is not fully UEFI compatible. See https://www.normalesup.org/~george/comp/linux_lenovo_miix3/
To enter bios or boot menu you need to press the vol+ vol- and power (I remember that one of them should work as well) so it is not very handy.
Keyboard layout could be better. Touchpad is a click-pad and is annoying - good that you can connect another keyboard and mouse using bluetooth and/or USB. And there is a touch screen.

When it can be useful:

For me it is a windows-powered x86 based portable and small computer with USB port, good support for unsupported-crappy-windowsonly-devices (like printers and scanners).
And it could be probably used as an external screen. And graphic card is not that bad so you might run some games there (but I would rather buy a different device for such purpose... at least with lower resolution if you wish to play games).