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Lenovo Yoga Tablet 2 Pro Review!

2014-12-11
hey what is going on guys long hair from andrew authority and when it comes to pro tablet it's a relatively niche market there aren't exactly a whole lot to pick from but if you happen to be one of the few that are on the lookout for one this particular tablet might be one to consider the name is kind of a mouthful but let's go ahead and take a look at the Lenovo yoga tablet 2 pro the first thing I noticed when I got the yoga tablet 2 Pro is that it's big I don't mean big in a bad way it's big in a really awesome way but you sort of expect it to be big since its carrying the pro name so if a big tablet is what you want then a big tablet is what you're going to get it is pretty thin though - the cylinder at the bottom and while the size can be a little awkward at times it feels great in the hands despite being made mostly of plastic this definitely isn't a one handed tablet nor is it the most portable so don't try carrying it around with one hand or traveling with it without a book bag the physical hardware is what really makes this tablet interesting this is a yoga tablet after all and it wouldn't be a yoga without the built-in kickstand this is one of the few parts of the tablet that is made of metal and the weight of it really keeps the tablet in place when it's propped up there's also a button to release the kickstand that you didn't get on previous yoga tablets making it a lot easier to open and hidden underneath that kickstand is a microSD slot for up to 64 gigs of additional storage with the kickstand comes a few different positions that you can prop the tablet and you might already be familiar with them if you've used a yoga tablet in the past there's these stand positions that props it up at a relatively steep angle which is the best position for watching videos and movies but I did find it really hard to hit the power button in this mode without making the tablet slide all over the place so a tap to wake feature would have really come in handy here then there's the tilt position or what I like to call the all-purpose position it's a much smaller angle so you can pretty much do anything here like type play games watch videos browse the web and whatever else you normally do on a tap with the revamped kickstand lenovo has introduced a new position called hang and as you can see the kickstand now has a hole in it and I'm not exactly sure where or what you would hang it on I personally did not have anything in my house to take advantage of it and the example that Lenovo likes to give is a coat rack so I guess if you have a coat rack you can hang it on that or you have one of those hanging pot things in your kitchen I don't know what it's called you can hang it there too for like recipes and stuff but personally I think it's more gimmicky than anything else and it's probably one of the least useful positions on this tablet but it's there if you want to use it and if you don't want to use it you don't have to use it if Lenovo yoga tablets weren't unique enough there is now a pico projector that lives on the right side of the tablet 2 Pro to further take advantage of the kickstand right above the projector is the projectors power button and towards the back is a physical slider to adjust the focus the projector is powerful enough to project up to a 50 inch image before the quality starts deteriorating so this isn't going to replace your home theater or anything but it can be pretty useful for presentations or sharing movies videos and photos with your friends without having everyone huddle around the screen if you're going to consume a lot of media on this tablet especially with that projector you're going to want great sounding audio to go along with it and the tablet 2 Pro certainly has that on the front you're going to find 21.5 watt speakers flanking the left and the right sides of the kickstand and a 5 watt JBL subwoofer on the back they're quite loud with great highs and mids and possibly some of the best speakers you can get on a tablet right now obviously having them on the front doesn't hurt either and it just makes consuming media that much better the display is the main reason why the yoga tablet 2 pro is as large as it is you're looking at a 13.3 inch LCD with quad HD resolution and it's pretty amazing to look at it's bright and vivid colors are very saturated viewing angles are nice so it's a really high quality panel at 221 PPI you might assume it's not all that sharp especially if you compare it to smaller tablets with higher ppi s but don't think of it so much as a large tablet think of it more as a laptop without a keyboard and if you compare it to most laptop displays the PPI is actually quite high since it's a much larger display than most other tablets you're not going to be holding it quite as close to your face either so pixels aren't as noticeable as you might think regardless this is one of the most enjoyable displays that I've gotten to use on a tablet gaming on it is a lot of fun although depending on the game it could feel a little bit awkward but even then it's still pretty awesome the internals are a little bit different from most other Android devices but different isn't always a good thing instead of the usual Snapdragon processor the tablet tube pro is being powered by an Intel Atom processor with 2 gigs of RAM it is a quad core chip clocked at 1.8 6 gigahertz so it sounds good on paper but it doesn't perform nearly as well as you'd want it to it opens apps quickly and plays graphically demanding games just fine but it's the small things where you'll notice a lot of performance hiccups animations can appear very jittery scrolling through webpages is choppy and there's even a wake lag that happens fairly often when pressing the power button the projector is also a resource hog so all this is accentuated even more when the projector is turned on it's kind of hard to pinpoint why the tablet 2 Pro has such a hard time keeping up but all those pixels that are being pushed by that 2k display Lenovo's choice of processor and possibly the lack of software optimization could be to blame hopefully it's more software than hardware because it's kind of disturbing to see an Android device in 2014 lag from something as simple as swiping through home screens if you absolutely have to take a faux on your tablet lenovo did include a camera on the back it's an 8 megapixel sensor and like most tablet cameras it's probably nowhere near as good as the camera on your phone the interface is very simple straightforward and easy to use with just the most basic of functions like panorama and macro you get a big and spacious viewfinder to go along with it but it's just awkward and embarrassing to use in public the autofocus is also extremely slow taking about 2 to 3 seconds for it to grab onto something so you're not going to be able to rapidly fire off shots but you most likely won't be too impressed by the photos you do take photos look dark and dull colors are washed out details are soft and full of noise and it's even less reliable in nighttime or low-light situations it's not a camera that you're going to feel very confident about but if you're in a pinch and this happens to be the only camera you have on you then it will do the job just fine but I wouldn't expect much more than that if you've watched my previous tablet reviews in the past you'll know that I primarily only use them for gaming and watching youtube videos so I guess you could say that I'm a heavy user when it comes to tablets so it's a 9600 milliamp hour battery which sounds about right for a tablet this size and I will get a day out of it with about 5 hours of screen on time so it's not the best battery life that I've experienced on a tablet I've used tablets in the past I've lasted a lot longer but these tablets were generally smaller with much lower resolution displays so considering the size of the display and the quad HD resolution I would say the battery life is adequate and if you're a much lighter user you only you don't really game or anything like that I would expect to charge it every two to three days also if you plan on using the projector a lot for something like movies one and a half to two movies is the most you will get out of it I think lenovo really nailed it with the majority of the hardware but the software doesn't do that great of a job at taking advantage of it it's running on Android 4.4 KitKat with lenovo's own custom skin that looks and feels similar to an OS made by a fruit company it's flat and colorful with a lot of transparencies and there's also no aperture or so you'll have to use folders if you want to keep your home screens looking clean the biggest problem with Nova's skin is not its appearance it's the lack of optimization for the 13.3 inch display and what they screen the size of a small laptop you should be able to see more and do more you can obviously fit more widgets and shortcuts on your home screens but if it's going to carry the pro name it needs to be more than just an extra large tablet the notification shade for example is just blown up to fit the entire display and you're not getting anything extra out of it the recent apps menu is also disappointing because you're limited to seeing only three apps at a time and this doesn't matter whether you're in landscape or portrait I do however like the slide up panel from the bottom that gives you access to commonly used settings and a brightness slider but outside of that there's not much that Lenovo got right here there's a multi window feature that lets you put up to 4 apps on the screen at one time but right now you're limited to only a handful of apps and the majority of Lenovo's own apps aren't utilizing the display to its fullest potential in portrait mode the calculator app is just a blown up calculator and in landscape you do get a few more functions but not nearly as much as you might think for a display this large then there's Lenovo's gallery application there's just a ton of wasted space and without a split view the app looks like it was made more for a phone than a tablet the same can be said about the weather app you've got your current weather and five-day forecast but that's all you get I could see potential for other information being shown here like an extended forecast a temperature graph and other information like wind speed and humidity because if I can get that information from a weather app on my phone there's no reason why I shouldn't be able to get that on a tablet since this is all software related it's a relatively easy fix and I hope Lenovo gets more creative with their apps and their custom skin in general because these software it's what's going to make or break the user experience not the hardware the yoga tablet 2 Pro is available directly from Lenovo for $500 which is a pretty fair price for a tablet of this size it's Wi-Fi only at the moment but we should see an LTE model coming soon which will most likely cost an extra 50 to $100 but that is going to do it for the Lenovo yoga tablet 2 Pro there's no doubt that lenovo has built an Android tablet with fantastic hardware and they're continuing to push the boundaries when it comes to design now they just need the software to complement it and if they optimize their software better they will have a truly amazing and powerful tablet on their hands that's deserving of the pro name but as of right now it's just an oversized Android tablet as always guys thank you so much for watching this review if you did enjoy please give it a thumbs up down below and also subscribe to the channel which is also down below if you haven't already and don't forget to check out the content from the rest of the guys serie and Resort II some of them are linked over here on the side and check out the website as well for more in-depth coverage you already know what it is Android Authority comm because we are your source for all 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