The Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet, when originally launched, was marketed as an iPad-killer, the “business-level” Android tablet due to being made by a major PC manufacturer. I know a lot of people bought into this hype. It’s unfortunate that the marketing mumbo-jumbo sold so many, but not enough, as Lenovo quickly abandoned it’s Android efforts and the quickly launched successor, the ThinkPad Tablet 2, is an x86-based Windows 8 tablet.
The ThinkPad Tablet was a mess when I was first given one, spurned from two previous owners. The Lenovo-branding on top of Android made things clunky. The Lenovo app store was a silly attempt at curation that was shut down in favor of just the standard Google Play store. Not to mention the peripherals – it came with a digitizer pen, a case with a keyboard (so flimsy it started to come apart), and a power adapter that would lose it’s power plug bit at the drop of a hat. I’m guessing this was for international power plug standards, but all it accomplishes is cheapening the experience.
Of course, you could attempt to charge via USB on a computer. It’d just be a losing game of power usage versus charge if you didn’t turn off Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and the screen. So much so that I needed to buy a 20$ dock (2015 Update: This dock is kind of rare/expensive now!) just to beat the power draw and charge it in peace, but look at the size of that power brick. It’s the same size and plug as the one for dozens of Lenovo laptops! But it charges the thing ridiculously fast and is a recommended buy. The dock has USB and audio ports too to really help out.
So yeah, I was underwhelmed. At least with all this kit I could remove the Lenovo software, and painstaking update Android to a modern version (it came with Android 3.1 Honeycomb, and eventually got updates to 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich). But then all support stopped, and the tablet was made a memory, no more updates, just buy the new TPT 2.
So what to do then? Android 4.1 Jellybean was to bring about “Project Butter” to solve a lot of the lag issues on Android Tablets. In addition, it’d definitely be a requirement for apps to run under in due time. In the mobile world, app availability decides when a device is truly obsolete. Thankfully, a dedicated community to this exact device exists over at xda developers where the extremely useful CyanogenMod 10 was made usable (with Android 4.1 Jellybean, here’s hoping we see 10.1 with Android 4.2 2015 UPDATE: No dice, no further development).
It seemed a little scary, but it’s actually a fairly short process.
0) I updated the TPT to the last official Lenovo update, and had a 2GB SD card available for taking a backup. This process will wipe your tablet, and as always could potentially brick it, but at this stage of development that seems rare.
1) Root the TPT – Follow this guide at xda developers – It’s really quite simple. I mean, here’s a screenshot showing the script on my Lenovo X201 Windows 8 laptop (a fantastic business-class laptop, funnily enough)
And then as it begins to root the device…
And done!
2) Install recovery firmware to backup/update firmware – From xda developers – This was a little more complex until I realized that it should be run in the same folder as the rooting script from step 1, and that it isn’t a script, you need to type in the commands one at a time.
3) Install CyanogenMod v0.9 – From xda developers – The only trick to remember here is the .zip file you want needs to be transferred to the internal flash of the TPT – not extracted, and not on an external SD Card!
Wait a while and at the end, you should have a clean Android 4.1 tablet. Log in with your Google credentials, and watch your settings drop in, and redownload your apps. Now you have a faster, smoother tablet, but also one that’s running at least Jellybean 4.1, and hopefully will have a few years of use left in it via the third party community. Between the hope of Android 4.2, there’s alternative firmware that could be useful, such as Ubuntu’s push into the scene 2015 Update: No further improvements in the third party firmware world. And as the TPT falls into a historical bump in the road, out of support, warranty, and official use, these options will provide real value-add.
I also should note that Lenovo’s move to x86 Windows tablets is not in my opinion a bad move. I used the TPT successor to great success a few months ago in my first post on AirPlay and AirParrot and believe the Windows platform with Windows 8 is much more business friendly than Android can achieve. Their product photos also were quite well done, and were used in this post.
Is there any update to the latest Android version for the ThinkPad Tablet? (I think we’re at 4.4 right now; 5.0’s around the corner.)
Unfortunately, there is no news on development since 4.1.
Given the age of the device, I would consider it abandoned. Thankfully tablet prices have dropped, but that’s no use to owners of TPT1 (like the half dozen I have that are rooted).
That being said, I’m still seeing app updates from the Play Store so that’s a plus.
I also ended up installing Market Helper from http://codekiem.com/2013/02/13/market-helper/ to let me masquerade as other devices to avoid lockouts, like Dropbox’s Inbox mail app.
Buenas tardes quiero preguntar donde puedo conseguir la bebería de esta tablet ya que se quemo
Hi, does this nice story also works for my ThinkPad Tablet 2. So can i stall Android on it.
That’s an interesting question. The ThinkPad Tablet 2 is a 32-bit Intel x86 tablet with UEFI Secure Boot. It’s an annoying machine to reimage.
That being said, there are two resources I’d investigate. One is the Android on Intel Platforms page. The last version that has a “Generic UEFI Installer” (versus a 64-bit type) is at https://01.org/android-ia/downloads/android-4.2.2r1-ia3
However, there is also the Android-x86 project that’s a little more community-oriented. There may be something here, but I bet it will be tough to get running. http://www.android-x86.org/download
Regardless, this is Android on Intel, which is not the same as Android on tablets/phones. You probably will not like the software options.
I am having a really hard time finding the adb drivers to begin the rooting process (or I am looking in the wrong places). Is there another way to get the drivers? Lenovo’s support site isn’t responding.
Lenovo’s site was down on Feb 25, 2015 due to being hacked, that may have been the reason why. The ADB drivers as linked from XDA are at this link: http://support.lenovo.com/us/en/downloads/ds022366
Thanks for the quick reply!
Now I am stuck on step 5.4 from the santafemods tutorial. When I type “Is” in the command prompt, it says “/system/bin/sh: Is: not found”. I’m not totally sure if I got step 4.6 right because I was confused about the directory for the PATH. Any ideas?
http://santafemods.com/Forum/ThinkpadForums/Steps_ADB/A-TPT%20ADB%20setup%20info.pdf
Scratch that. I made it to your article’s step 2. I do not get the same lines as you. When I type the last “dd” command, I get a message saying “cannot open for read: No such file or directory”. What did you mean by “it should be run in the same folder as the rooting script from step 1”?
As I recall, I was unable to run the commands unless I was in the DebugfsRoot_Generic_v2.3 folder in Windows. So CD to the directory and give the commands a try.
If I remember right, I thought it was a script that ran the commands in order and did it all. But it wasn’t- I had to run the commands to push the recovery image, get a shell, change user, mount the filesystem, backup the install-recovery, and then copy the recovery image over one at a time.
This makes sense to me now, as the commands use adb.exe which is located in that folder.
Got it, thanks!
Sorry to keep bugging you on an old article. I’ve been suffering with ICS this long!
Hi
Your article is amazing.I am very close to finish…My question is that I donot have the option to “install update from internal sdcard”. Every time I got the “update from external storage” So I was not able to install the ROM. Wondering how you did it. Thanks a million.
Kyle
I also don’t see any way to install from the internal flash. Very useful article btw. I was given this tablet a year ago and it’s just been regrettably collecting dust since it’s soooo laggy with android 4.0.
Hmm, given how long it’s been, I don’t rightly recall. I may have a mistake in saying you have to use it Internally.
Perhaps what I meant to emphasize was not extracting the Zip file – I recall doing that and failing, but not doing that worked.
In fact, re-reading my own screenshot shows a lot of /sdcard stuff. Let’s assume you do want it on that!
Actually you were right. Finally got it working. The option is only available through the Clockwork mod which I hadn’t installed because I didn’t read through all of the instructions on the links. Anyway thanks again for the article. I can actually get some use out of this old tablet now.
Hello,
Can someone help me, send me the true original firmware for this tablet to my email: allam.hernandez1984@gmail.com