Lenovo one of the many manufacturers present in Berlin to show-off its latest product developments and innovations, has truly cracked the pot open with the Yoga Book. Yes, tablets are boring and dying silently, we all know that. Therefore, Lenovo has innovated a monotonous tablet and made it into a thin 2-in-1 notebook that is part tablet, part sketch part.
Entering the crowded Surface and iPad market, Lenovo’s Yoga Book, how do I define it, is a little bit different than the rest of the offerings. It is a light, thin and beautifully crafted 2-in-1 tablet designed to fulfill both productivity and entertainment purposes on-the-go. The engineering team worked on the development of the Yoga Book with the aim of no compromise and adding more features to the previous iteration.
The Yoga Book is crafted through a judicious use of materials, Mg-Al alloy and innovative designs, alongwith the shiny ‘watchband hinge’ that has been sourced from the convertible Yoga series. With the thickness of 9.6mm, the tablet looks elegant and simplistic on the outside but what’s inside will surprise you even more.
Designed with the idea of mobile productivity, the Lenovo Yoga Book sports a 10.1-inch IPS FHD touchscreen, and the thinnest front-facing full HD camera, which is ideal for work on-the-go. The tablet has packed in a vast array of components, including Gorilla glass, LCD panel, LGF backlighting, EMR film and various processors within just 4mm. The rest of space has been accommodated by the keyboard, what!? But, it possible is right!
The most innovative and standout feature of the Yoga Book tablet is the ‘halo keyboard’ or the ‘Create Pad’. This is a touch-sensitive surface that doubles as a zero-tactile backlit keyboard and a sketchpad that accepts input from a stylus. There are no physical keyboard keys, but they show up as solid white outlines on the surface when needed. Much like a keyboard app, this also learns and adapts to your typing habits with its built-in prediction and learning software.
In addition to this, the stylus has also been designed to double as a real pen when the tip is swapped with a an ink cartridge. This has been done to add an impressive new feature, which allows you to take notes on paper that are copied to Yoga Book in real time. The tablet hinge allows you to rotate the screen 360 degrees, therefore, you can take notes on paper(placed on keyboard panel) while it’s folded up with the screen off on the back. With 2,048 pressure levels and 100-degree angle detection, the stylus mimics your actions and records them.
But, another surprising thing about this release is the two variants that it will made available in October. The first runs on a heavily skinned version of Android Marshmallow and costs you about $550, while the other is a standard Windows 10 version and will cost you $610. Both the version have similar specifications including a stylus and LTE connectivity options(also in Miix 510 and Yoga 910). They are powered with an Intel Atom X5 processor, 4 gigs of RAM and 6GB of on-board storage, which can be expanded using a MicroSD card.
Both the variants are powered with a humongous 8,500 mAh battery, which the company promises will last about 15 hours on the Android variant, while 13 hours on the Windows one. The Yoga Book is a great addition to the arsenal of tablet-style notebook for Lenovo, but there would be only a handful of people who’d want to try something new. Though the features are compelling, but this could ultimately turn out to be a niche product for on-to-go designers, artists and writers.
