Gadgetory

Lenovo engineers think they have the killer solution for making a hot multimode hybrid the yoga book features the flipping hinge popularized by yoga laptops but no mechanical keys this touch surface doubles as your text input and a sketch pad does the extra flexibility offset some of the compromises of this setup well here's our full review getting specs out of the way first the yoga book has a 10 inch 1920 by 1200 resolution display powered by an Intel Atom chipset 4 gigabytes of RAM is backed up by 64 gigabytes of storage and a micro SD card slot hiding behind a pin tool door Lenovo rates the 8500 milliamp hour battery for around 15 hours of use this Hybrid comes in Windows and Android versions and were reviewing the Android variant which came with marshmallow installed out of the box looking at design this thing is undeniably cool when I was a kid I thought the glass end comm keyboard in Tron was one of the coolest things I'd ever seen yoga books keys and trackpad almost perfectly recall that vibe it's like looking at Star Trek The Next Generation it is cool the whole kit is satisfyingly thin and light sensors and battery but we don't have to owe any space to mechanical keys the whole bottom section is thinner than most phones it's so light it can be tricky to open and I've not been able to gracefully lift the lid with one hand this aesthetic is simple clean and professional a portrait mounted Lenovo logo looks a bit funny when used as a laptop arguably the most common orientation for this hybrid but otherwise it's tough finding fault with this style this clockwork hinge is subtle and sexy providing a smooth action for adjusting the screen angle and wraps all the way around for Lenovo's different modes flip it for a straight tablet or prop up the screen intent or stand modes there's a bit of a rattle coming from this part of the hinge here but nothing too distracting considering these pieces and connections HD resolution is reasonable for this screen size especially as it'll mostly be used laptop style at arm's length and while this panel is decently bright and it can be used outdoors in shade it's not quite bright enough to overpower direct Sun with this cloth teaglass one of the only hardware criticisms we can throw at the display the whole affair is so lightweight there's a lot of screen wobble when touching and swiping we don't spend a lot of time on tablet cameras and these are functional enough for video calling and in a pinch when you have no other photo option there are two cameras though they are designed for tablet mode the rear camera on the keyboard above the backspace somewhat useless when typing unless you really want to show off your nostrils taking a quick tour around the software Lenovo is delivering a more stock experience these days and we're happy to see a proper app drawer happily not a lot of bloat with just a handful of Lenovo apps and a new user guide pre-installed most of lenovo's additions are focused on multitasking this dock at the bottom almost replacing the alt tab style app switching found in nougat and providing an easy way to close running apps by dragging them away Lenovo's apps can be used in split-screen but there's not a lot of support for third-party programs like Google Docs or Microsoft Office there's still a bit of wasted space converting Android to a larger screen size with these little tweaks from Lenovo help in delivering a more laptop like work experience moving to performance from when we first played with the yoga book we're really happy to see how much smoother Android slides around on this finished Hardware this might be the best optimized version of an Android portable using an Intel chipset we've ever used benchmarks aren't far off from the top Qualcomm performers and this hardware has no issues swapping back and forth between media and productivity apps looking at some gaming the yoga book tackles Marvel future fight better than any other Android device we've reviewed recently very nice to see is this game is poorly optimized for Qualcomm chipsets getting to the heart of this device though the yoga book is trying to introduce a new input method the entire bottom section is one large touch sensor when used as a keyboard vibrations help deliver some tactile feedback there's obviously no key feel this being a completely smooth surface so touch typing largely becomes an exercise in muscle memory the yoga's software piggybacks on androids text correction which helps a lot in minimizing the amount of editing needed a nice benefit over the Windows version of the yoga look where Windows 10 doesn't seem to support text correction for Hardware keyboards though writing the script for this review on the yoga took quite a bit longer than using a traditional keyboard but it wasn't as painful to transition as I was expecting a few small issues though one this is a touch sensor so there is no resting your hands on the keys this panel is very unforgiving accidental touches I have no idea how I managed to but halfway through typing this I somehow switched to the layout to French a couple accidental keystrokes in the middle of trying to type quickly also the autocorrect can sometimes interrupt your flow if the tablet is offering you text suggestions and you move on to another part of a document and continue typing sometimes the keyboard would populate one of the suggestions in that new section of the document a quick look at the touchpad it's entirely functional but a bit blingy I was far more likely to just reach up and touch the screen then try to use the mouse cursor to navigate and the benefit of using a large touch panel here is the ability to pull double duty as a canvas for stylus input the yoga stylus works on both the screen and the touch panel and lenovo includes a screen tip and replacement pen tips for users in addition to an actual paper notepad designed to stick to the bottom panel via magnet I'm not much of an artist and I have terrible handwriting but this is a handy way to take notes or doodle for using mobile hardware the entire affair is surprisingly responsive and we're happy to see that it's largely a plug-and-play solution no pairing over Bluetooth or customizing input settings one last note about this touch panel magnets are nifty for keeping the paper pad in place but they're also strong enough to stick the yoga book to a metal cafe table just a little word of warning moving over to audio we're impressed with these speakers for such a slim product these little vents easily compete with most tablets we've heard and even best some ultra-thin laptops I've reviewed in the past while the speakers are better than average the headphone playback was a bit disappointing the yoga book was outperformed by our little fee ok1 DAC and beaten by a number of phones we've got this Dolby software on board to adjust playback for music and movies and this kind of EQ tweaking can be fun but overall we wouldn't rank this headphone jack high for multimedia playback and lastly looking at battery life the yoga book performed well in our media test streaming one hour of age video over Wi-Fi 190 Lux drained 13% of the battery not bad at all considering screen size and how slim this whole kit is recharge times were also acceptable if a bit underwhelming 30 minutes using the included charger delivered a 21 percent battery top off a decent chunk of runtime after a short stint plugged in and happily the unit remained cool to the touch so let's wrap this up where's that leave us with the Lenovo yoga book experiments are exciting lenovo has a pretty solid track record for driving innovative designs the functionality of Windows 8 was first shown off on Lenovo experiments like the twist in the yoga bringing more premium pieces like this clockwork hinge is a great aesthetic for an Android hybrid it's also interesting seeing how it only takes a few touches to get Android closer to the functionality of a more traditional computer operating system a little more support for multitasking apps and many consumers would be hard-pressed to see the differences between a Windows ultra portable and an Android laptop ultimately this experiment lives in dies by this futuristic touchpad we can't claim it's our favorite solution for typing as after a couple weeks I'm still faster on a Bluetooth keyboard but pen input is well implemented for notes and sketches there's just something fun about lenovo combining mobile technology with paper and pen and we can definitely imagine situations where this functionality will come in handy looking at the competition a base-model ipad pro with an apple pencil and smart keyboard is around three hundred and fifty dollars more we think lenovo has achieved a happy balance between price form and function as always thank so much for watching be sure to subscribe to this channel for more reviews like these and help us out with some sharing on your favorite social networks for PocketNow i'm juan carlos Wagnalls i'm gadget guy on Twitter and Instagram and I will catch you all on the next review