Lenovo 2-in-1 Yoga Book First Impressions: Innovative and Portable 2-in-1 Windows Hybrid Machine

Lenovo 2-in-1 Yoga Book packs in decent specifications and comes with an innovative virtual keyboard with a Stylus.

By Rohit

| Updated: Tuesday, December 13, 2016, 19:02 [IST]

Lenovo is quite popular for its Yoga sereis of 2-in-1 machines that serves the purpose of a tablet as well as a full-fledged PC. The company has today announced the launch of Yoga Book in the Indian market, which was first showcased in IFA 2016 and really stands out from the competition with a design like no other.

Lenovo 2-in-1 Yoga Book First Impressions

Instead of a regular clamshell design, this 2-in-1 features a 360 degree virtual keyboard that also doubles up as a surface for note-taking and drawing purposes.

The 2-in-1 is priced at Rs. 49,990 and will be available exclusively on Flipkart by today itself. The company also plans to introduce the Android variant of Yoga Book but did not mention any specified launch date during the today's event.

Let's find out how this hybrid machine stands up in real world usage.

Build & Design

There's no denying the fact that Lenovo Yoga Book is crafted to draw attention. The hybrid machine is ultra portable, weighs just 690 grams and is the thinnest tablet-PC in the words of Lenovo. It is made out of magnesium-aluminum alloy and feels quite sturdy. You can use it as a

It's quite clear that Lenovo's focus is on portability and with Yoga Book, the company is targeting users who are looking for a tablet alternative that can also work as a full-fledged PC whenever required. You can use the Yoga Book as a tablet by flipping the hinge that switches off the keyboard, as a laptop and also as multimedia device to watch videos by placing it on a flat surface in tent mode.

10.1-inch Full HD Touch Enabled Display

I really liked the display on Yoga Book. The 10.1-inch screen offers a resolution of 1200x1920, which translates to a pixel density of 224ppi. The display is bright and offers vivid colours. Moreover it's also touch enabled.

Sadly the display is surrounded by large bezels, making the display appear smaller than the 10.1-inch footprint.

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The Virtual Halo Keyboard for Writing and Innovative Stylus for Drawing

The coolest tech feature about the Yoga Book is its virtual keyboard, which Lenovo calls a ‘Halo' Keyboard. As the name suggests, the physical keys are replaced by virtual keys, which has a standard layout- 9.5 inches wide, but is slightly smaller than a typical desktop keyboard. The QWERTY keyboard also gets a virtual mouse touch pad at the bottom, just like a regular laptop.

To give you a feel of physical keys, the Yoga Book gives feedback in the form of vibrations when you tap the virtual keys. I tried typing with this innovative keyboard and it does take some getting used to as the haptic feedback is not like the physical keyboard and even the keys have minimal travel.

This can be frustrating for users who devote themselves to long typing sessions. We will reserve our final verdict until we review the hybrid machine in the coming weeks.

Besides, the stylus, which Lenovo calls a ‘Real Pen' is another highlight feature of the Yoga Book. It is both an ordinary pen with real ink cartridges that can be used to write on a pen and also serves a magnetic pen in a way that whatever you write on the magnetic book (comes in the package), translates to on-screen text and illustrations.

It's a feature that will come quite handy for creative minds who love to draw on the go. The pen when used with rubber tip is best for painting, and with the ink mode on, you can use it for taking notes.

Ports, Speakers, & Buttons

Talking about ports and buttons, the Yoga Book has a microSD card slot, which can be used to expand the 64GB inbuilt storage capacity 128 GB. A speaker unit is placed on each side of the keyboard/drawing area, which is powered by Dolby Atmos audio.

There's a 3.5mm headset port on the right side along with a power button and volume rockers. The left side has microUSB charging port, microSD card slot and an HDMI port. Sadly there's no fingerprint sensor on this hybrid machine.

Hardware and Software

Lenovo Yoga Book is powered by a quad-core Intel Atom X5-Z8550 processor clocked at 1.44 GHz. There is 4GB of RAM to handle multitasking. While this is not the best specification around, it is fairly powerful to offer everyday performance.

We will stress test the hybrid machine to come out with a final yes or no. The tablet-PC is backed by a 8,500 mAh battery unit with Quick Charge support. Besides, the Yoga Book also has an 8MP rear camera and a 2MP front camera.

The hybrid machine runs on Windows 10 Pro version. The operating system offers the required Windows app support and ecosystem.

Verdict

Looking at the specifications and features, it's quite clear that Lenovo Yoga Book is designed for users willing to invest in a mobile Windows machine that can be used as on-the-go multimedia and a productivity device.

The virtual keyboard and the real pen are definitely the highlight features of the tablet-PC but at the same time combined with the ultra portable form factor can restrict the machine's usability as a full-fledged Windows PC.

While it delivers on everyday performance or not is a thing to be evaluated in our detailed review. So stay tuned for more on Lenovo Yoga Book.

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