Lenovo Yoga Book Laptop Review: Almost an artist's dream. Review of the wonderful Lenovo Yoga Book. Tablet, laptop, and also notebook Yoga Book reviews

Welcome to the future of tablets and laptops - transformation in action. This is the Lenovo Yoga Book, a tablet that becomes the logical conclusion of the transformation of the Lenovo series of hybrids. Lenovo review Yoga Book more…

Pros:

• Insanely thin and light;
• Amazingly accurate Halo keyboard;
• Excellent display;
• Clever Create Pad;

Minuses:

• Woefully underpowered;
• Old MicroUSB port;

It's a device that, unlike previous 2-in-1 Yoga laptop-tablet hybrids, offers a remarkable keyboard and touchpad that are completely digital. Yes, this is the first tablet/laptop with a 100% digital touch keyboard. And yes, at first glance it seems strange - at first, but we will talk about this in more detail.

That's not all: it's also the first tablet (laptop?) to feature a Wacom keyboard and digitizer, complemented by an included stylus. But even now Lenovo does not stop there - these are also the first laptops (tablets?) with the ability to transmit characters depicted on paper in ink.

And finally, this is the first laptop or tablet that runs on both Android using exactly the same hardware.

An exceptional set of innovations for a 10.1-inch device, costing around $499 (RUB 32,500 - Android) or $549 (RUB 35,500 - Windows 10), of course, in basic configurations. So there has to be a catch, right?

Of course there are, but let's focus on what makes Yoga Book so amazing in the first place.

Design

The Lenovo Yoga Book tablet, at first glance, looks like any other hybrid in the Lenovo Yoga series. The impressive, gorgeous watchband-style loop mechanism that first debuted on the Yoga 3 returns, highlighting an insanely thin device wrapped in a sleek, luxurious magnesium alloy body like many Yoga devices before it.

The Android version of the Yoga Book we reviewed represents Lenovo's hopes as the manufacturer plans to sell more Android models. Lenovo Yoga Book Android comes in Champagne Gold, Gunmetal Gray and Carbon Black colors. The Windows 10 version comes exclusively in Carbon Black - although all of these options look incredibly premium.

[Editor's note: This review focuses on the Windows 10 version of the Yoga Book, but obvious differences with the Android versions are noted.]

Power button and volume key on right side The devices are framed in chrome, with speakers hidden behind grilles on either side of the keyboard deck. The speakers pump out decent volume and try to create bass despite their small size thanks to Dolby Atmos technology.

Another impressive feature of the Yoga Book is that while the tablet size is 10.1 inches, its resolution is 1920 x 1200 pixels. With 400 nits of brightness and the ability to display a range of 16.7 million colors, HD movies look great on the Yoga Book, and the IPS panel promises wide viewing angles for screen sharing.

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Tactile Touch Kit

For those of you wondering if you can use a fully digital, capacitive keyboard, forget about it right now. The Lenovo Yoga Book review includes both tablet models with a Halo keyboard, and we were truly surprised at how accurate typing was without any physical buttons or feedback.

Of course, the keyboard has a tactile connection, as well as sound signals, which signal that you are typing, just like on a smartphone. You can mute the sound or unmute it. But that's not enough to describe the typing accuracy of this backlit numeric keypad, hidden behind a Gorilla Glass panel with individually backlit keys.

In any case, the typing accuracy is higher than the digital counterparts on smartphones and tablets, only this keyboard does not take up half the screen. (Lenovo's proprietary hardware and software greatly assist with typing).

Even without software designed to auto-correct (in the Windows 10 version), we saw exceptionally few typing errors on the Yoga Book. Of course, it is unrealistic to expect the same number of words per minute as on an analog keyboard, but we are confident that every user can easily switch to a digital keyboard, just like us. Lenovo TouchPal automatic text correction software for the Android version should help with acclimatization.

Which brings us to the question: If all versions of Windows 10 are essentially one operating system, then why isn't the highly sought-after Windows 10 Mobile auto-fix software available on all versions of the OS?

Either way, we found navigating and typing on the Yoga Book tablets surprisingly easy after spending about an hour with the device. Of course, you'll find differences between the control options, such as the left and right mouse buttons in the Windows and Android versions, which reverse the click and drag functions, but the precision is the same between the two versions.

DigitizerWacom is great!

Not only is the Lenovo Yoga Book tablet the first hybrid to include a numeric keypad, but the latter also acts as a full-blown Wacom digitizer. As if that wasn't enough, the digitizer works just fine, very neat trick, Lenovo.

When you press and hold the capacitive button above the keyboard with a pen icon, the keyboard switches to digitizer mode, the buttons are no longer displayed, leaving only the illuminated pen icon. This means you can now use the number pad surface to draw or write with the included Real Pen.

Lenovo calls it Create Pad, a layer of electromagnetic resonance film under the keyboard that's based on Wacom Feel technology. This means the Real Pen doesn't need internal parts to work, while the Create Pad does and offers 2,048 levels of pressure sensitivity.

Create Pad offers the palm detection feature important to artists, along with varying levels of support depending on the version of Yoga Book. The Windows 10 version supports Create Pad in all applications that support stylus control, like Windows Ink, but when activated, the stylus opens OneNote.

On Android, however, Lenovo uses a free "layout" and operating system software, including home Lenovo app, Note Saver for taking notes and drawing.

Despite this, both versions of the Yoga Book tablet, as we mentioned above, offer a seriously cool trick: the numeric keypad allows you to “scratch” the pen on the paper and digitize the resulting image at the same time for public access, editing and Reserve copy. This is made possible by the included magnetic pad that attaches to the Create Pad, as well as real ink for the Real Pen.

This is where the electromagnetic resonance film layer comes into play. As soon as the Real Pen touches the pad - when connected to the surface of the Create Pad - everything written on the pad creates an electromagnetic response released when the pen makes contact with the paper, thanks to the magnetic back surface of the pad that interacts with the Create Pad. The Lenovo Yoga Book's review of this feature was amazing in its accuracy, you have to see it in action to believe it.

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With this feature, you can even fold the tablet back to use it as a traditional paper notepad with digital copying. Using your tablet this way turns off the screen, saving you valuable time battery life.

But aside from the obvious notes, this feature comes as a boon to digital artists who prefer to draw on paper with ink instead of the glass surface of a digitizer, while still getting the digital look of the image later. Of course, this will require working with the front panel and file compatibility.

All said, the Create Pad and Halo are amazing tools that distance Lenovo's tablet from most other 2-in-1 hybrids, especially since they allow us to see another launch of dual-purpose computing devices from Lenovo.

But before we get ahead of ourselves, let's take a look at how the new tablet stacks up against some of the leading tablets as a work device.

Notice how thin the Yoga Book is. It's one thing to call a 9.6mm when closed, and quite another to see and feel the device in your hands. But what if the hybrid becomes a little thinner, there will be no room left for an audio jack on the tablet base.

We're talking about a thickness close to iPhones, because the hybrid is only millimeters behind phones on each side.

In any case, each edition of Yoga Book is comparable in price to its main competitors, such as iPad Air 2, Windows tablets and Google Pixel C. Samsung, for example, is significantly more expensive, but it offers a 12-inch tablet versus Lenovo's 10-inch.

However, the Lenovo Yoga Book we reviewed offers a little more in individual areas than its competitors, and less in others. For example, the Yoga Book offers more RAM and storage, although its screen isn't as sharp and its processor isn't as powerful.

Again, you won't find Lenovo's unique features in other tablets, so it's difficult to even roughly compare devices from Apple and other rivals.

For what the tablet/tablet hybrid offers Lenovo laptop, in terms of initial features over competitors, we get excellent value for money. However, for all the unique features of the Lenovo Yoga Book, the review revealed a lack of performance - to the point that it affects the experience of using the device.

Performance

In our review of the Lenovo Yoga Book (primarily the Windows 10 model), we found the tablet more than ready for Full HD video playback, web browsing, and drawing—both digitally and as a smart solution to analog drawing to digital.

Unfortunately, any attempts to go beyond these functions, including the typical 10+ tab workload Google Chrome and launching an app to communicate with teammates quickly indicates a lack of productivity. And guys, you will feel it in everyday use.

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For a tablet that the manufacturer touts for its ability to keep its users productive, the Lenovo Yoga Book has little trouble running Windows 10, which is designed for work environments.

Here's how the Lenovo Yoga Book performed on benchmark tests:

• 3DMark Cloud Gate: 2098; Sky Diver: 830; Fire Strike: Not supported;
• Cinebench CPU: 117 points; GPU: 15 frames per second;
• GeekBench: 1008 (single core); 3365 (multi-core);
• PCMark 8 (Home Test): 1372 points;
• PCMark 8 (Battery Test): 8 hours and 32 minutes;

While we're not equipped to compare most metrics between operating systems, at least we have Geekbench to bridge the gap between Windows 10, iOS, and Android. However, the iPad Air 2 and Pixel C's multi-core processor benchmark scores beat the Yoga Book by over 1,000 points, which doesn't do Lenovo's tablet any favors.

It is obvious that the Lenovo Yoga Book hybrid tablet is significantly inferior in performance to relatively expensive competitors. But, again, given that the Yoga Book is far from the leading hybrid tablets, we can't harshly criticize it for its lack of performance.

What we can fault the Yoga Book for, however, is having an unnecessarily low performance ceiling, which takes its toll on the experience under the aforementioned workload. Since we are talking about a touch keyboard and a completely digital style of data entry, the tablet is forced to use the processor more to process incoming information than in the case of an analog keyboard.

Regardless of what indicators we see in tests, the performance drawdown becomes extremely noticeable when you, say, try to type email or even typing a URL into a web browser while under the aforementioned load. The keyboard lags noticeably in responding to commands, and switching between typing and touchpad navigation takes more than a few clicks due to the panel's slow response.

Frankly, this is not the experience we expected from a device that promises to support our productivity. Of course, the word “productivity” is subjective, but we believe that the tasks that determine the specifics of any productivity should be available for 35,000 rubles.

All said, if your workload is beyond what we've listed above, you shouldn't expect anything like this on the Lenovo Yoga Book tablets without being disappointed. Hopefully Lenovo will be able to resolve the performance issues with a few firmware patches. However, as long as you manage your expectations by determining what kind of performance you want to get out of the Lenovo hybrid, your time with it can be downright delightful.

Battery life

What will delight every Yoga Book user is its long battery life. Lenovo claims that the tablet can last up to 15 hours of battery life under everyday load, thanks to the colossal 8,500 mAh battery capacity. Of course, the manufacturer's predictions rarely - if ever - come true, but the Yoga Book's battery life is nonetheless impressive.

Battery tests in PCMark 8, which simulate several of the computing tasks we see within the " general use" returns the result at 8 hours and 32 minutes. That's a far cry from the claimed 15 hours, but still an impressive result for a Windows 10 tablet that most competitors fall short of.

The Lenovo Yoga Book review also included our traditional battery test, in which the tablet played a looped video (1080p) at 50% screen brightness and 50% volume. In this test, the Yoga Book lasted an excellent 7 hours and 43 minutes. This means that the new Lenovo hybrid tablet will easily cover almost any flight outside of Russia.

Almost no matter the task, you can count on the Yoga Book to last a full day of work (or play). Considering that our smartphones - and most laptops - can barely make it past a lunch break with heavy use, this is certainly strong point Yoga Book.

The downside is the somewhat long charging time – thanks to the MicroUSB port – lasting several hours. That's a shame, since USB Type-C offers more flexibility and charging speeds than that legacy connection standard. The consolation is that you won't have to charge the Yoga Book terribly often.

Summing up

The Lenovo Yoga Book is, frankly, one of those devices that gets a lot of flack considering how different it is from the competition. This tablet could become an entirely new subcategory of laptops and tablets—a device that bridges the gap between input forms in a way that other hybrids today can't.

However, this pioneer's performance machine profile sets certain expectations for what such machines are capable of. That's why we criticize the Yoga Book's performance and, at the same time, call it the netbook of the future. Perhaps it will become an ultra-netbook.

Lightweight, low-power netbooks arrived shortly before the ubiquitous tablets and quickly outstripped their cumbersome counterparts - literally and figuratively - de facto lightweight devices, becoming the ideal solution for Email, record short documents and light games on the go. But tablets have never been able to offer the screen real estate of netbooks while typing without .

Now that the Yoga Book appears to have taken the full range of form factors from other devices, offering netbook and tablet functionality in one beautiful device, we're hoping for a second try Lenovo company will be able to offer a little more performance.

We liked: As our hands-on review of the Lenovo Yoga Book showed, its versatility is unmatched among laptops and tablet computers combined. Full touch keyboards have long been a joke in our editorial office, ever since we've seen attempts like the ThinkPad X1 Carbon (2014). Now, thanks to the Halo keyboard, we're amazed at the typing accuracy, even without any automatic software correction on the Windows 10 model.

Plus, Wacom's built-in digitizer and stylus, complemented by a sharp screen and the ability to digitize and copy ink on paper, all for the price of an iPad, are simply great. Add in the fact that a hybrid tablet can handle (albeit only basic) computing tasks like a laptop, and the hybrid's price-to-performance ratio continues to rise.

We didn't like: There aren't many things we didn't like about the Yoga Book, but there are some negatives that detract from a potentially revolutionary device. On the one hand, it seems to us that the chip Intel Atom limits Yoga Book's potential. Perhaps next time the manufacturer will increase the screen to 12 inches and find room for more powerful chips Intel series Core M.

Secondly, given the lack of an analog hardware keyboard and the timing of the tablet's release, we expected the latest connectivity options in such an innovative device: USB Type-C. Instead, the manufacturer is stuck with a conventional port that is inferior in every way: MicroUSB. Along with the slow data transfer speeds, the slow charging time is also disappointing, so MicroUSB again hides the potential of the Yoga Book 2-in-1 tablet compared to the competition.

Final Thoughts

If it weren't for the weak processor and outdated MicroUSB option, we could call the new Lenovo Yoga Book on Android and Windows 10. But for users who are not alien to the art of art, it is all the same.

The Yoga Book becomes a bridge between tablets and laptops in a way we didn't expect to see anytime soon, or at all. The fact that the new Halo keyboard provides accurate input, even without auto-correction software, allows us to witness Lenovo once again dominate the software and hardware above its competitors, offering an innovative method of entering this decade.

Whether the Lenovo Yoga Book is worth buying right now is a terribly difficult question, as we'd like to see it succeed with future development, to the point of forming an entirely new sub-category of devices.

Verdict:

Lenovo has developed a brilliant, forward-thinking device that could very well create a sub-category of products on its own. Unfortunately, low-power components make the hybrid tablet inferior to competitors, so it's difficult for us to recommend the first generation of devices to you.

The Lenovo YOGA Book transformable laptop is a new word in the world of compact laptops, original, interesting and unusual. Lenovo YOGA 910 is the already familiar “yoga” in an updated body and with improved parameters...

Lenovo Specifications YOGA Book

• Display: 10.1”, IPS, 400 nits, Full HD (1920x1200)
• operating system: Android 6.0 or Windows 10
• Processor: Intel Atom x5-Z8550
• Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 400
• RAM: 4 GB (LPDDR3)
• Built-in memory: 64 GB
• Memory cards: yes, microSD
• SIM card: nanoSIM
• Sound: Dolby Atmos
• Interfaces: 2G/3G/LTE, Wi-Fi (802.11 a/b/g/n/ac), Bluetooth
• Navigation: GPS (A-GPS)
• Additionally: light sensors, vibration sensor, Hall sensor, accelerometer
• Cameras: 8 MP (autofocus), front - 2 MP
• Battery: 8500 mAh (up to 15 hours)
• Connectors: microUSB, HDMI, microSD, 3.5 mm audio
• Housing: magnesium and aluminum alloys
• Colors: Gunmetal Grey, Champagne Gold
• Dimensions: 256.6 x 170.8 x 9.6 mm
• Weight: 690 g

The company decided to make an ultra-compact (10.1"") and ultra-original (apparently) laptop. From the outside, the Lenovo YOGA Book seems like a familiar “yoga” from a familiar line - you can see a hinge system for opening the device and folding it for one of several scenarios, an aluminum body, and so on. But then you open your laptop and don’t find the keyboard. Instead, YOGA Book is installed Touchpad, responsive to pressure and marked with a familiar keyboard, but not a mechanical one. The panel has two operating modes, the first is a keyboard, the second is a tablet, which you interact with using a Wacom stylus. The stylus has interchangeable “rods” - a basic one for drawing on the tablet, and one with ink. The trick is that YOGA Book can be used to work with paper documents. You can take a notebook (ordinary paper), place it on top of the touchpad in your laptop and write on it or draw something using a stylus with an ink refill installed in it. And on the laptop screen you will see what you write on paper.

The convenience of the keyboard in the Lenovo YOGA Book is, of course, questionable, but this device certainly doesn’t lack for originality. I will not list all the technical parameters; you can look at the characteristics above. Two versions of the laptop are planned - based on Android 6.0 OS and on Windows 10. One of the nice little things is support for a SIM card. In Russia, Lenovo YOGA Book will cost 45,000 rubles and more.

The device is unusual and non-standard, I simply won’t undertake to evaluate it like any other laptop. I don’t know how interesting it will be for artists, designers and just people who are comfortable using a stylus, since I myself am not one of those people. In any case, we can confidently say that Lenovo at least showed something original, interesting and arousing discussion and controversy, and this is a lot, you will agree.

Lenovo Yoga 910 Specifications

• Display: IPS, 13.9"", FHD (1920x1080) / 13.9"", UHD (3840x2160)
• Operating system: Windows 10
• CPU: Intel Core i7 seventh generation
• Graphics: Intel
• RAM: up to 16 GB
• Built-in memory: up to 1 TB SSD PCIe
• Battery: up to 12 hours of battery life (FHD), up to 10 hours of battery life (UHD)
• Ports: 1xUSB 3.0 Always On, 1xUSB 2.0 Type-C (combined with charging connector), 1xUSB 3.0 Type-C with support Display Port), combined audio jack for microphone and headphones, SD/MMC/SDHC/SDXC card reader
• Thickness: 14.3 mm
• Weight: less than 1.4kg

With Lenovo YOGA 910 everything is simpler - this is a logical development of the nine hundredth series, which, in turn, is a kind of offshoot from YOGA X Pro. What is worth paying attention to are thin frames around the screen, a built-in fingerprint scanner, and a large touchpad.

The laptop looks good as usual, feels reliable and firmly assembled, despite its folding design. There is no information yet on prices and dates for the start of sales of YOGA 910 in Russia.

Despite a number of devices that are pleasing to the eye and pocket, Lenovo is not doing well this year. With the exception of devices from the Moto line, there is nothing to remember. Correction - there was nothing until IFA 2016, where the company presented its Yoga Book laptop - so beautiful in appearance that it takes your breath away.

In general, it’s very cool that it’s on the market computer technology There are more and more products for designers. You can at least remember Apple iPad Pro, and also space... So Lenovo has released its version of the device for artists - Lenovo Yoga Book with a Real Pen stylus, which can hardly even be called a laptop.

Something as thick as a tablet, ultra-thin and compact - 9.6 mm and 690 g. There are three color options in total - black Yoga (Carbon Black), which we tested, gray (Gunmetal Gray) and gold (Champagne Gold).

In fact, the device looks like two tablets connected together using hinges that are familiar to us from the line of Yoga laptops, allowing the device to be rotated 360 degrees and placed as we please. Thanks to this, we can use the device to its fullest extent: read our favorite books, watch movies or draw. Personally, it took me some time to find the most comfortable position for drawing, otherwise my hand would quickly get tired.

By the way, there is no keyboard as such in the laptop; instead, there is another touch panel, on which keyboard buttons are displayed if necessary. At first it seemed that the layout in the test sample was only English, but this is a Windows device, so the familiar Alt+Shift combination came to the rescue. I note that using it on a touch keyboard is quite strange.

The panels have a matte, but highly fingerprint-resisting coating, and are secured in the closed state with a magnetic lock. It is too good, so the device fails the “MacBook test”. When I wrote about this on my Facebook, representatives of the company came to my thread, including Lenovo Vice President for Eastern Europe Gleb Mishin, and began to prove that this device cannot be compared with the MacBook, so I’ll have to explain - under the test on Macbook" refers to the ability to open the device with one hand. In the case of the Lenovo Yoga Book, this is not possible, which, in my opinion, is a significant disadvantage. Otherwise, it is really impossible to compare it with Apple products.

A few words about connectors and ports. There is minimal pain here, since there are ports. And even if the USB is only in the microUSB format, anything else would not fit in these dimensions. Another question is that USB Type-C would be more appropriate for connecting peripherals, but look for one with microUSB. The same port is also used to charge the device. In addition, there is microHDMI for outputting images to external devices, which is very valuable, and a 3.5 mm jack for connecting headphones. There is also a slot for microSD memory cards.

The Lenovo Yoga Book's hardware is modest - the platform is mobile, it would be difficult to expect anything else: Intel Atom x5-Z8550 Cherry-Trail (4 cores), 1.44 GHz @ 2.4 GHz, 4 GB random access memory and 64 GB of permanent memory for data storage. There is not very much memory, if we remember about working with graphics, well, microSD cards will help you.

It all runs on an 8,500 mAh battery, one charge lasts for about 8 hours. There is no point in evaluating the device from the point of view of ordinary laptops, so I give the floor to our designer Svetlana Kirkova, who used the Yoga Book for its intended purpose.

Those who have already dealt with Wacom products (and these are mainly professional artists and designers) will appreciate the Real Pen stylus. The Yoga Book stylus can be used to draw on both the screen and the touchpad. You can disable the keyboard by one click on the special icon at the top of the panel, which switches it to drawing mode. Thus, you can use both hands at once - select tools or zoom objects on the screen with one, and move the stylus across the touchpad with the other. Interestingly, the stylus works on top of a regular sheet of paper. For example, you made a hand sketch in your notebook or sketchbook, just put it on the panel and copy it with your stylus. The converted digital drawing will appear on the screen. Using the panel in drawing mode is also convenient because you do not block the entire screen with your hand. The stylus is quite lightweight and works without recharging. It has a good response and fairly accurate pressure recognition. However, I noticed that in different applications it reacts differently to hand movement and the degree of pressure. But this is rather a minus for applications.

It’s a pity that the tablet doesn’t have any pre-installed graphics editor other than Paint. This would be very useful, because on a 10.1-inch screen, the toolbars of some programs look downright small. As for software, there should be no problems with this, since most applications and programs will easily install on Window 10 or Android, depending on which version of the laptop you choose. During testing, I used MyPaint and Krita, and the Yoga Book handled these applications quite comfortably. At the same time, more serious tools like Adobe Photoshop the platform is beyond its capabilities, which is sad.

In my opinion, the Lenovo Yoga Book is great for sketching and sketching. Making sketches or storyboards on it is quick and convenient. I would use it for the preparatory stage in working on a future design, since I still want to see the final result on the big screen. This laptop is perfect for those who travel frequently or are used to working on the go. Brilliant ideas usually come in the most unexpected places, and such a device will come in handy. In addition, it has no equal in terms of compactness. Weighing just under 700g, it has a place even in a handbag.

It is also surprising that after working for several hours in active use mode, the laptop did not heat up at all. This is a big plus.

Overall, the Lenovo Yoga Book is a great option for those who can't decide between buying a tablet or a laptop. In this case, it is possible to kill two birds with one stone. This transformable tablet will allow you to realize your wildest creative ideas. At the same time, you need to understand that while for a novice designer this is an almost ideal mobile tool, the touch keyboard is not suitable for typing at all: typing on the Yoga Book is no easier than on iPad screen. Well, on the store shelf, the new product looks absolutely killer, especially considering the price of 45-50 thousand rubles, so from an image point of view, this product for Lenovo can be considered extremely successful.

The laptop is a screen connected by strange but beautiful hinges with, so to speak, a keyboard-tablet. Among the distinctive features of the device, they promised a lot - an incredibly thin body, an innovative keyboard, a very convenient drawing, a large amount of battery life and everything everything everything.

At the official presentation there was an opportunity to chat a little with Yoga Book and draw your conclusions.

So, about the sizes. It is really thin, but when unfolded. One “leaf” of the laptop is about 4mm thick, which is really very little. When you pick up this baby in your hands, you are very afraid of breaking it. When folded straight or vice versa (tablet mode), the laptop, of course, turns into a fairly thick wafer, but there’s nothing you can do about it. With such a thickness, it was possible to place an 8500mAh battery inside, which should give 13 hours Windows operation version of the device and 15 - for the Android device.

By the way, one very important thing should be noted about the systems - after purchase the system cannot be changed. That is, if you bought a Yoga Book on Windows, you will not be able to install Android there. It won't work the other way around either. The developers explain this annoying fact with a locked BIOS. Against the backdrop of a scattering of Chinese tablets with dual loading, and a couple of “mature” tablets, this feature looks very strange and causes disapproving bewilderment.

But let's get back to the hardware. The two parts of the tablet are connected in a very strange way, extremely flimsy in appearance.

However, after the first attempt to carefully bend and straighten the laptop, the realization of one’s own wrongness comes. The connection is really very strong. It takes quite a bit of force to open and bend the laptop. After that, you just look at the connection, reminiscent of the straps of an old Soviet watch, and you are amazed at how beautiful it is.

Another major highlight is the Halo Keyboard and Real Pen. Halo Keyboard is, roughly speaking, a board on which, if necessary, the outlines of keys, touchpad and mouse buttons are displayed. And if you don’t need it, the keys go out, giving way to the tablet. It looks cool, but in practice it raises questions.

The typing experience is like a tablet. There is a small vibration response that can be switched off, but it doesn’t help much. Have you ever tried typing on an iPad? It’s about the same here. The developers promise that the keyboard will analyze the user’s typing style and adjust the vibration response depending on the typing speed, however real benefit This feature is doubtful. No, over time you get used to such a keyboard, at one time I typed decent-sized texts on an iPad for a long time, and at some point I almost got used to it. But this is still quite a compromise solution, justified only by being free from virtual keyboard screen space and the ability to type texts like on an “adult laptop”.

Now about the tablet's capabilities. You get a Real Pen with the device. This is a stylus with the ability to replace the plastic tablet tip with a regular rod and write on paper. For what? Many artists note that the feeling of the tablet is somehow not similar to the feeling of the contact of the tool with the paper, and they whine a little about this. With the Real Pen, you can put a piece of paper directly on the keyboard and draw on it, and the result of your art will appear in the graphics editor on the screen. I'm not an artist, but I think artists will appreciate it)

There are nuances. Firstly, you need to clearly control the drawing area - there is a possibility that, while drawing on a sheet, in the editor you will try to draw on the toolbar, for example)

Secondly, if you put the sheet on the tablet, don’t move it anywhere. The drawing is not tied to a sheet of paper, but to a physical point on the tablet. The paper here is just a soulless layer. So if you have moved a sheet, it will be difficult to return it exactly to its original place.

Regarding the internal filling, it is not a very powerful Intel Atom x5-Z8550, 4 gigabytes of RAM and 64GB of internal memory. To be honest - not much. The developers of the device focus it on two segments - business and creativity. In both cases, the device should replace a functional notebook capable of working with full-fledged computer documents and graphic editors. However, with such a tablet filling, the device has a lot of limitations - simple documents in Photoshop will still open, but drawing heavy multi-layer canvases with a large number of effects may not work. And the video cannot be edited. And you can’t sketch out a 3D layout.

In my opinion, the Yoga Book is a device for those who have extra money for a compact but not very powerful all-in-one device. If there is no extra money, then best choice There will be all sorts of Chinese with additional accessories in the form of a tablet and/or an external keyboard.

Will reliability and compactness beat cheapness and a bag with accessories? Let's see. All the joy will cost 42,990 rubles for the Android version and 45,990 for Windows.

Introduction

Chinese Lenovo, perhaps, managed to make its mark in all classes portable devices, and the Yoga series has become one of the manufacturer’s calling cards. The most different models This line has managed to win various awards and, of course, the love and recognition of consumers.

The new Lenovo Yoga Book, shown to the public in September this year at the IFA exhibition, is difficult to attribute to any specific class of devices. It’s hard to call a non-separable design consisting of two parts a hybrid tablet. A transformable laptop is also not a new product, because the hardware used is close in performance to that installed in flagship smartphones previous generation, and this thing does not have a full-fledged keyboard in the usual sense of the term.

A laptop-tablet, a tablet with a built-in graphics tablet, a laptop with a built-in graphics tablet - whatever you call it, the Lenovo Yoga Book does not become less amazing in the first hours and even days of use. For some, over time it will turn into a toy, but for others it may remain the main working tool for a long time. And to understand what’s what, let’s evaluate the new product from all possible “angles.”

Appearance

The device came to us in a protective film, without a box or delivery kit. The only accessory we found in our hands was a stylus for drawing.

The new product is made in the spirit of minimalism. There are three color versions in total - there is black “Yoga” (Carbon Black), which came to us for testing, gray (Gunmetal Gray) and gold (Champagne Gold). If we describe the design of this amazing device as briefly as possible, it will turn out something like this: Lenovo took two thin cases made of a metal alloy, installed a touch screen covered with protective glass in one, and placed all the main components, a battery and a touch panel with backlight.

All this is connected using a special full-width hinge, which is an exclusive feature of most Yoga models. The mechanism itself is quite complex and consists of a very large number of metal elements, beautifully intertwined.

It not only looks good, but also provides the ability to use the device in four possible configurations with a rigid fixation of the selected angle: as a laptop, as a regular tablet, as a tablet installed at a certain angle, and as a graphics tablet with a drawing screen. The latter possibility is provided, among other things, by a special surface on which a touch keyboard with a touchpad is located. But we will talk in more detail about input devices in the next section.

The mentioned thinness and lightness - 9.6 mm when folded and 690 grams - was achieved through the use of economical hardware and the absence of a keyboard. This is quite far from the parameters of modern 10-inch tablets, but since the Yoga Book is definitely not a classic tablet, it would be incorrect to draw parallels.

When folded, the two parts of the device are held together using built-in magnets. The body is matte, but all surfaces are still quickly covered with fingerprints and smears. And if nothing can be done with the working elements (touch screen and keyboard), then external elements in gray or gold color they should be a little less active in collecting dirt. As for the build quality, there were no special complaints - the device does not creak, does not crunch, is assembled tightly, without visible gaps and with evenly painted parts.

The only thing we can note is the uneven fit of the two parts of the device. It seems that the lid with the screen on our sample was slightly bent, which, in general, is not surprising given such a small thickness.

There are two microphones on the top edge of the screen block for better noise reduction. Two built-in speakers found a place on both sides of the working part of the device. Maximum volume(without wheezing) and the sound quality pleasantly surprised us.

Minimalism has affected everything in the number and type of installed ports. The body of the device could accommodate one micro USB version 3.0, used for charging and connecting peripheral devices, micro HDMI for outputting images to an external source, and a combined 3.5 mm jack for connecting headphones and a microphone.

A tray for microSD|SDHC|SDXC memory cards up to 128 GB is located between the two main ports. The Android version promises LTE support and the corresponding ability to install nanoSIM.

All controls are located on the opposite side: a power key with a built-in LED and a double volume key. Windows button The Yoga Book does not have a way to call up the Start menu, which is easily explained by the unified base of the device for several operating systems at once.

There is nothing on the bottom flat surface except a few sticky notes. The new product does not require forced cooling, and therefore we will not see any legs or drilled holes for the flow of cold air.

From the stickers it becomes obvious that this is an engineering sample produced at the end of May 2016. The working title of the new product is Yeti-Windows. Brief information on some of the built-in hardware of the device is provided.

Input Devices

The Lenovo Yoga Book has a hard time identifying the main input device. On the one hand, the company is positioning the new product as a hybrid tablet (especially if we are talking about the version with Android 6.0), that is, the main interface between the device and the user should be the screen. On the other hand, the additional working surface, which is a mixture of a backlit touch keyboard and a graphics tablet for drawing, cannot be detached.

The touch screen can take a long time to figure out. Everything here has long been clear: multi-touch (up to 10 simultaneous clicks) and hardened protective glass with a glossy surface. No problems when using - clearly and without errors.

Things are much more interesting with the Halo keyboard with tactile feedback. To put it simply, this is a semi-matte touch panel with markings for the keys and their backlight. If the backlight is turned off, then it all looks like one solid black canvas. Most often, however, with a dirty black cloth - this part gets dirty instantly, and is not very easy to wipe off.

Distance between touch buttons is about 2.5 mm, the size of the main keys is 15 × 15 mm, like most laptops. The layout is quite ordinary - it won’t take long to get used to. All special device control functions - changing brightness, volume, etc. - work by default without pressing the Fn modifier. For tactile feedback, the device uses one vibration motor, which does not allow creating a direct connection of the fingers with each key individually. There is no need to talk about the possibility fast printing(especially blindly). Typing on Yoga Book is work that requires time and sometimes nerves.

The company assures that in reality, typing text on the hero of the review is not a difficult task, because the self-learning systems of automatic error correction and word substitution, which have already become classics, act as assistants. But this doesn't seem to apply to the Windows version, or they just run very poorly on it.

The touchpad area is quite small - 67 × 35 mm plus two dedicated zones as the right and left mouse buttons. There is no tactile feedback when pressing them. Of the gestures, this area recognizes two-finger scrolling - and nothing more. We cannot call the touchpad convenient - the small area affects it. In addition, if you do not touch it for a long time, it may refuse to perform any actions - the cursor gets stuck in one position and is difficult to move. During testing, this feature often created a variety of problems. Therefore, we strongly recommend using a Bluetooth mouse with the Yoga Book, or using a touch screen.

When you press a special key, the touch surface instantly turns into a graphics tablet based on Wacom technology, which is based on the phenomenon of electromagnetic resonance. To quote the manufacturer: “ The tablet provides the pen with the energy necessary for operation using inductive resonance, so the pen does not require any wires or batteries.”. The surface records up to 2048 pressure levels. Working boundaries are marked on four sides with gray ticks. The pen itself is the most simplified version, without additional buttons. When using it on the screen Yoga Book does not register pressure, and therefore pressing on the pen is essentially equivalent to touching it with your finger.

The difference between the Yoga Book's work surface and real Wacom graphics tablets is the lack of support for finger control and multi-touch. But, most likely, the limitation is purely software, because at least the two-finger scrolling gesture in the touchpad area works without problems, and the surface registers presses on the touch keys when they are activated.

The Yoga Book has additional accessories (according to some sources, all of them come as standard): Real Pen, Paper Refill and Ink Tip. Translated into Russian: a real pen, special paper blocks and replaceable refills. Together they allow you to draw on paper and at the same time receive a copy of what you drew on the screen in special program. To do this, the paper is fixed using an additional plastic element on the Yoga Book work area, and the magic begins, which can be seen in many videos on YouTube. Unfortunately, we didn't have to try it.

As a webcam, the hero of the review uses a regular 2-megapixel module of average quality with a fixed focus. The second module is 8 megapixels, with autofocus, installed in the upper right corner of the working part of the new product. At first it seems that its location is rather strange, but as soon as you turn the screen 360 degrees, the user finds himself in the hands of a regular tablet with a conveniently placed rear camera.

Reference information and technical specifications

The device, introduced in September 2016, should officially go on sale on October 17 (in the United States) in two versions and several colors. The officially set price for the modification with Windows is $549 (~34,500 rubles) and $499 (~31,500 rubles) with Android 6.0 on board. Lenovo did not provide any filling options - only a choice of OS.

Lenovo Yoga Book-gallery 1

The basis is quad-core (two blocks of two cores each) Intel processor Atom x5-Z8550, which is essentially a system-on-chip (SoC) codenamed Cherry-Trail. The nominal CPU frequency is 1.44 GHz, and in TurboBoost mode under single-core load it can increase to 2.4 GHz with the proper cooling level.

The SoC is made according to 14nm standards, its maximum TDP is only 2 W, and the temperature range is 0-90 degrees. The minimum frequency at which the processor operates when idle or when setting the economy mode is 480 MHz. The size of the second level cache is 2 MB.

The graphics solution is built-in Intel HD Graphics 400 without its own dedicated memory. It consumes resources of shared LPDDR3 memory, and the maximum video core frequency does not exceed 600 MHz. If you believe the information found on the Internet, the kernel contains 12 execution units, but, according to all three utilities we use, there are 16 of them. Where is the truth and where is the lie is not so important. Everyone only cares about performance, and we will deal with it in the appropriate section.

Lenovo Yoga Book-gallery 2

The amount of RAM LPDDR3-1600 (800 MHz) in the case of the Yoga Book is 4 GB, although the system-on-chip used supports twice the amount of RAM. The data storage subsystem is made on the basis of a certain Samsung CJNB4R module with a capacity of 64 GB, of which in the case of our copy with a factory image of the Windows 10 OS and a small amount of pre-installed software, no more than 38 GB are available. This is quite a bit, but the situation is saved by support for microSD memory cards up to 128 GB.

Job wireless connections Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac and Bluetooth 4.0 LE in the review hero are provided by the Broadcom BCM4356 controller. There is no ability to use a 3G/4G connection, although the Android modification of the Lenovo Yoga Book claims very broad support for a wide variety of cellular communication standards.

The hero of the review is equipped with a non-removable 2-cell lithium-polymer battery with a capacity of 33 Wh. The manufacturer claims up to 13 hours of battery life (for the Android version - up to 15 hours), which is easy to achieve in reality with low load and screen brightness.

Apparently, any quality device can be used to charge the tablet. Charger with microUSB cable. We used the original “charger” from Samsung Galaxy S6 with an output current of 2.1 A. When turned off, the Lenovo Yoga Book charged from 2 to 100% in almost 5 hours! This is a very long time, so we hope that production samples come with a much more suitable charging unit. Separately, we note that when working on the device, it practically does not charge (more precisely, it promises to do it in 15-22 hours in case of low charge), which is also no good.