Last Sunday morning, I was lying in bed in Rome, surfing the web and looking to see if Lenovo had started selling the new Yoga 2 in Ireland. I saw something that caught my attention – a new tablet with 18 hours battery life! Whoah!
I dug a little deeper and saw that Lenovo had just launched the Yoga Tablet 10 (up to 18 hours battery) and the Yoga Tablet 8 (up to 16 hours battery). Both had low horsepower 1.2 GHz MTK quad-core ARM processors running Android Jelly Bean 4.2. There’s 1 GB RAM and 16 GB internal storage with micro SD expansion. The display is a 1280 * 800 IPS – not retina but fine enough for me.
But this is not the usual tablet. Look at my photo – this thing is standing up by itself.
What Lenovo appear to have done is designed a tablet for the person who is travelling a lot and is tired of hunting for that power supply that is used by the cleaners in the airport.
The bulge at the bottom serves several purposes:
- It is a rotating hinge (with just the right amount of friction) for a mini-kickstand.
- This bulge contains the battery. Combined with just 1.2 GHz CPU, this is how the device gets long battery life.
- A low centre of gravity keeps the device stable when stood up.
- If feels like a nice grip when held in portrait mode for reading. There is an ergonomic slope to the grip for your fingers.
Don’t get me wrong; this is not a productivity device. Anyone who thinks this type of device is for running Office is a muppet. This is a consumption device. It’s for the sofa while watching TV, for watching video while travelling, for checking your email or posting on social networks. It does have Bluetooth 4.0 and supports a keyboard but you’ll not see me doing that! There is Miracast support, by the way.
I went for the 8 inch version because that, to me, is the perfect size of a companion tablet. I have a 16 GB Micro SD plugged into it at the moment with some videos and the picture looks very good.
Price:
- 8” is €229.99 or 269.99 for the 3G version.
- the 10” is €289.99 or €329.99 for the 3G version.
At that price, the device must feel cheap in your hands, right? WRONG! There is some textured plastic like material on the back, but it feels like a quality material rather than the “Samsung plastic”. But the majority of the device is aluminium, and the build feels very solid out of the box. We’ll see how the hinge holds up after 6 months!
Any negatives? Yes; the speakers are wimpy. My HTC One phone shames most devices when it comes to speakers but it stomps all over the sound coming out of the Yoga Tablet. That doesn’t bother me too much; I use Bose headphones when travelling.
I’m travelling quite a bit in the next two weeks (Dublin > Berlin > San Francisco > Seattle > Dublin) so I’ll be putting the Yoga Tablet to the test. You’ll probably see a few tweets about it during that time.
Note: I am still getting a Windows 8” tablet. Microsoft would murder me if I used an Android device at one of their events :) Right now, the 64GB Dell Venue Pro 8 with stylus is my leading candidate.
hey how are you getting on with the yoga 8, I see there now 179 euros I was thinking of getting one for casual browsing on couch, maybe some Netflix , youtube , showing kids cartoons while out, etc, but not gaming. just wondering has it held up well. wasn’t sure should I go for the 8 or 10 but for 179 the 8 seems like a bargain
It’s still my primary tablet for chilling. And it’s the first thing I pack when flying.
Hey Aidan
Was wondering exactly how I can access miracast on the yoga for use on my lg smart TV?
Works great from my HTC one but at a loss here!!any help/advice much appreciated
You need h/w and s/w support on the device. Don’t think the Yoga tablet has it. Mine doesn’t anyway.
Just got my Yoga tablet, assuming it supports Chromecast.
It appears that it doesn’t, so I’m a bit disappointed.
But can I remedy this with an Android app ???