Photo by Alex Washburn/Wired
Slates, sliders, convertibles…. The jury’s out on exactly what type of Windows 8 tablets the market is going to embrace (if any). Lenovo figured this out early, and it’s releasing Windows 8 portables in no fewer than four different form factors.
The most promising of these is arguably the IdeaPad Yoga. At first blush, this laptop looks like any old 13-inch ultrabook (and its core specs follow suit – 1.7GHz Core i5, 4GB RAM, 128GB SSD, and a scant 18mm of thickness). But bend the Yoga’s screen back and it goes completely flat. Now keep going. The screen goes past 180 degrees to 270, then 360, until the back of the screen is resting against the underside of the laptop. Now flip it over and you’ve got a slate tablet in your hands. It’s a neat trick and one you can have added fun with by “breaking” the laptop over your knee in a mock show of frustration while in the presence of your fellow gadget fiends.
While the Yoga offers no surprises on its benchmarks — integrated graphics mean Angry Birds is about as fancy as you’ll want to get — it does feel surprisingly spry, fast, and agile in regular use. The keyboard works well (though a row of keys to the right of the normal end of the keyboard make some buttons, like backspace, difficult to find without a bit of a hunt), and the touchpad is a knockout. The 13.3-inch 1600 x 900 pixel touchscreen is reasonably bright and responsive, though sharp-eyed readers will note that, unlike most of the Windows 8 tablets coming out, the Yoga does not quite have a 1920 x 1080 HD screen. I’m still on the fence about how serious a flaw this is. On one hand, it’s a bummer not to have full 1080p resolution, but on the other hand it’s difficult enough to navigate the Windows desktop as it is on a 1600 x 900 screen. Higher resolution would make those icons even smaller and tougher to tap accurately. In the end, most of the time the resolution difference didn’t impact me at all.
What is more problematic is the sheer size of the Yoga. At 3.4 pounds, the Yoga 13 is well over twice the heft of an iPad and it feels truly gargantuan when in slate mode, making you feel a bit like Moses coming down from Mount Sinai when you wield it with the appropriate gravitas. It is really pushing the limits of comfort and usability for a slate. (Note that a 2.8-pound 11-inch Yoga is also available.)
Photo by Alex Washburn/Wired
Of course, a design this new means there are some natural growing pains to deal with. The biggest of these can be found in the hinge system. The double-hinge design makes the 360-degree fold possible, but when you use the Yoga as a standard laptop, the hinge just isn’t tight enough. If you like to touch the screen directly instead of using the touchpad periodically (like most Windows 8 users do), the bounce and jitter that erupts from even light taps and swipes is enough to make you seasick.
Connectivity options are sparse. The two USB ports — one 2.0 and one 3.0 — feel a bit stingy. HDMI and an SD card slot are your only other options. (That other rectangular port is for the A/C adapter, so don’t try wedging a thumb drive into it.)
Overall this is a thoughtful and very usable hybrid, with an abundance of both little touches, like a motion-control system that works via the webcam, and big ones, like the keyboard automatically disabling when the Yoga’s in slate mode. While I’m not sure that anyone really wants a tablet that’s quite this big, at the very least it’s a solid contender for the laptop user who just wants the occasional touchscreen experience available.
WIRED Lenovo motion control system lets you manage audio and video, hands free. Stays fairly cool, even under load. Solid battery life (4.5 hours) versus the competition. Special sleeve covers the underside keyboard when in slate mode so you aren’t feeling the buttons …
TIRED … but it’s sold separately for $40. Fan tends to run constantly. SSD bizarrely partitioned into 7 chunks, leaving just 44GB of usable space on C drive. New rectangular power port easily mistaken for USB. Hinge needs tightening.
Photo by Alex Washburn/Wired
Photo by Alex Washburn/Wired