Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga hands on review

OK, so we might not have got the yoga reference at first – it’s been a long day – but we took a shine to Lenovo’s Ultrabook-come-tablet, the IdeaPad Yoga, straightaway.

Having long been fans of bendy, twisty and otherwise transforming hybrid gadgets, the IdeaPad Yoga seems to have solved the pesky keyboard problem once and for all.

And it’s not just a gimmick, this is one gadget you’ll want to bend into different guises. The 360 degree hinge on the IdeaPad Yoga can turn it from a regular laptop to a flat tablet or a handy viewing stand – without a badly designed peripheral in sight.

From what we saw, you get the best of both worlds. On the one hand it’s a 13.3in touchscreen Windows 8 tablet – and we won’t see many of those knocking around any time soon – but Lenovo has also gone and stuck a bright, 1600 x 900 IPS display in there. Rather than being a bit of a pain, then, its size makes it perfect for watching vids.

The Yoga’s sturdy 0.67″ thick build and reasonable weight of ‘less than 1.5kg’ (according to Lenovo) felt just fine to us for a laptop – although if you’re using the IdeaPad Yoga with the keyboard flat underneath the screen, you might want to find a nearby table or pair of legs to rest it on.

As a stand set-up, you can flip it upside down into a V shape or lay the keyboard flat and tilt the screen to how you want it – and if Intel’s right about touchscreen Ultrabooks, this is what we reckon they’ll look like.

Details like the faux leather finish – almost as nice as Moleskine notebooks – and the eight hour battery life are the icing on the Yoga’s very flexible cake. Plus there are already rumours of Ivy Bridge Intel Core processors showing up inside and a tantalising release date of “as soon as Windows 8 launches”.

Annoyingly, that probably means the end of 2012 – but in the meantime, try not to practise yoga on your current laptop.

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Dan Grabham Editor-in-Chief

About

Dan is Editor-in-chief of Stuff, working across the magazine and the Stuff.tv website.  Our Editor-in-Chief is a regular at tech shows such as CES in Las Vegas, IFA in Berlin and Mobile World Congress in Barcelona as well as at other launches and events. He has been a CES Innovation Awards judge. Dan is completely platform agnostic and very at home using and writing about Windows, macOS, Android and iOS/iPadOS plus lots and lots of gadgets including audio and smart home gear, laptops and smartphones. He's also been interviewed and quoted in a wide variety of places including The Sun, BBC World Service, BBC News Online, BBC Radio 5Live, BBC Radio 4, Sky News Radio and BBC Local Radio.

Areas of expertise

Computing, mobile, audio, smart home