Lenovo has pushed past the traditional laptop market and introduced their latest tablet-laptop
hybrid - the Yoga Book.
Now, I’d already seen quite a few reviews of the Windows 10 version of this tablet,
but those seem to kinda miss the mark - the interesting part of this product, in my opinion,
was the idea that this could also be a laptop-tablet running Android.
So here’s my take on the Lenovo Yoga Book with the Android ecosystem.
I’m EposVox, here to make tech easier and more fun via free educational videos here
today with a review of a pretty cool little product.
The Lenovo Yoga Book is a 10.1” 2-in-1 tablet-laptop combo with Lenovo’s fantastic watchband
hinge.
This is the same style of hinge that was on the Lenovo Yoga 900 laptop I reviewed last
year.
It keeps the screen from bouncing too much or adjusting the angle on its own, but is
easy to open and shut.
And it just looks cool.
The screen is a very nice-looking 1920x1200 IPS display.
Pretty damn good for a tablet.
For a fully specc’d out unit, inside is an Intel Atom x5-Z8550 processor, up to 4GB
of RAM, and up to 64GB of internal storage.
Dolby Atmos speakers are also present, along with an 8500 mAh battery.
In my month or so of use, I only had to charge it twice and I rarely had it powered down.
I was impressed.
Opposing the screen is their new “Halo” keyboard.
No, not that kind of Halo.
This is a capacitive touch keyboard where there are no physical keys - just a large
solid surface with backlighting to outline where keys would be.
I wrote a couple video scripts on this.
It was a very different experience that took some getting used to, but by like half an
hour in I was typing pretty fast and comfortably.
That was… until the Google Docs app randomly stopped accepting letter inputs or the keyboard
would randomly switch to French.
More on that in a minute.
I certainly wouldn’t use this as a daily driver for typing and writing, but for quick
notes in a classroom or just casually responding to quick emails and social media posts - this
is totally viable.
This keyboard also houses an emulated trackpad, which works fairly well, though it is quite
small.
And if capacitive typing isn’t your thing, you can also hand-write with this!
By holding down the pencil button at the top of the keyboard and using the included stylus
pen, you can use real ink to write on real paper while having it save in the notes app
digitally, as well.
I was very, very impressed with how natural this felt and with the quality of the results
from doing so.
Writing was detected through even the thick notepad Lenovo provides - but you have to
use their pen, which I found uncomfortable to use.
A trade-off, I guess.
I’m excited to see where this technology goes in the future.
Finishing off the physical build of the Yoga Book, it comes in Champagne Gold, Gunmetal
Grey, and Carbon Black colors and looks and feels very similar to the Yoga 900.
A nice, cool metal feeling, and completely sturdy - no flex whatsoever.
Given that the folding aspect doesn’t allow for any rubber feet or gripping on the bottom,
however, it can slip quite easily on just about any surface and scratching would be
an issue to its look.
On one side you get a MicroUSB port, which is what you’d use to charge the tablet,
a MicroSD slot - which can be loaded up to 128GB - in the iPhone SIM slot style, not
sure I’m a fan, a micro HDMI output which can go up to 4K 30hz, and a speaker grill.
Microphones line the front bezel edge.
The other side features another speaker grill, headphone combo jack, volume rocker and lock
and power button.
The 2 megapixel 1080p front camera is located on the bezel above the screen, and the 8 megapixel
1080p rear camera is actually located on the keyboard, so that when it’s folded like
a tablet it’s actually on the rear.
Here’s a couple samples:
This is a video in selfie mode test with the Lenovo Yoga Book in my normal studio lighting
setup.
So what you normally see in the A-Roll of videos.
And this is what it looks like in a standard room with basic CFL lighting, as if I was
having a late-night Skype call or something.
Obviously this is an unflattering angle down here on my lap, but up a bit more it's not
too bad.
The color is a little bit weird and it's quite noisy, but it's passable for a Skype camera.
Now this is the rear camera.
Again, still fairly noisy under normal conditions, but under studio lighting everything gets
super over-exposed.
Looks like that's just the general limitation of the camera.
It also has a huge crop factor.
We don't really get much touch to focus action.
Just a basic camera.
This brings us to the software - what is using this device actually like?
Lenovo brags about their custom Android ROM, capable of windowed Android apps and better
productivity - and I’m hyped for the future iterations of this idea - but I’m not a
huge fan at the moment.
The typical bottom bar on Android has been modified to act as a taskbar of sorts - with
the back, home, task switcher, and app drawer buttons hugging the left, then open window
indicators for the rest.
On the far right is a button to switch to the real pen writing mode.
This is alright, and a good bridge between expected Android and desktop experiences.
The clock and notifications still occupy a small panel at the top, and integrates quite
well.
I’m satisfied with this.
The home screen is fluid and responsive, and easy enough to navigate.
What Lenovo has done to desktop-ify the Android operating system on the whole is fine - the
problem lies in using traditional Android apps.
Lenovo’s file manager, Google Chrome, Google Docs and so on all work wonderfully on this
device.
Maximized or in Windowed mode, I feel like I’m on a normal laptop using them.
It was a welcome surprise.
Other apps from the Play Store, however, not so much.
With most apps - games, Snapchat, Instagram, etc. - you have the choice of a pretty tiny,
vertical windowed mode or full-screen mode.
This wouldn’t be a problem, of course, except most of the apps I’ve tried only do Windowed
mode in the vertical orientation.
To make matters worse, they don’t scale properly.
The 16:10 aspect ratio of the screen means when displayed vertically, many apps stretch
out to fill the width of the screen and wind up looking super distorted.
And you’re just stuck with that.
So whenever I’m using the Yoga Book in laptop mode and Instagram opens maximized, the entire
experience turns sideways until I switch to something else.
This isn’t a problem for all apps - Google apps, YouTube, Facebook and Facebook messenger
do just fine staying in landscape orientation when maximized - but the elements are scaled
so largely that they’re still not easy to use.
Android as a desktop operating system just….
Isn’t there yet.
Again, I’m super stoked to see where this idea takes us - and I will be closely following
this project, along with Remix OS (another take on the Android for PC idea), and Google’s
Fuschia OS, which is rumored to be a combination of their Android and Chrome operating systems
for a more unified environment.
And overall, the custom ROM just felt like it really lacked polish.
HDMI output seems to be finnicky about whether it wanted to work with my capture device (not
a problem I’ve had with other devices), and customizing certain settings just felt…
off.
Not to mention the serious keyboard problems I had while writing scripts.
They were hard to capture since they were completely random as far as I could tell - but
while typing in Google Docs, sometimes it would just stop accepting letter inputs.
I could delete text, type numbers, and so on, but it just would not accept letters.
Other times, the keyboard kept randomly switching to French.
After the second time, I went in and manually disabled all other languages myself, and it
still managed to re-enable the French keyboard and start screwing with word acceptance.
Both of these issues seemed to be tied to the auto-fill and auto-correct tools built
into their Android keyboard - that’s the only way I can really figure out how to explain
it.
It was incredibly frustrating when the keyboard kept freaking out like 5 times during one
script, however.
So this is a really, really neat product concept.
I’ve loved hybrid laptops for as long as they’ve been a thing, and I will keep an
eye on future iterations of these ideas for years to come - but this is not a device I
would use as my daily driver for anything but a super lightweight casual travel device.
If I’m someone who regularly moves between an office and a home office, only needing
something basic to engage on social media and email at the occasional coffee shop stop
or something, absolutely.
But to replace my laptop with this?
Not so much.
Then again, the Windows 10 version seems to be a bit more polished.
I’ll include some links to reviews of that Yoga Book in the description below.
I hope you enjoyed this review.
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you next time.