FollowThe Lenovo Ideapad Yoga 13 is a 13-inch high-end design ultrabook that can be bent into a lot of positions, as its name “yoga” suggests. It can be folded from a laptop to a tablet in a single move.
The flexible Windows 8 laptop tablet of Lenovo which was announced at CES Las Vegas in January is called the company’s first “multi-mode” notebook. This Yoga is a laptop that suggests its performance, it can be folded into various positions for the convenience of its users.
Specifications
The 13-inch Lenovo ideapad Yoga 13 comes in high quality display of 1600 by 900 IPS, Intel Core I7 processor, Intel HD 4000 graphics, 256 GB SSD storage, 8 GB DDR3 memory, Bluetooth 4.0, 802.11 b/g/n WLAN, USB 2.0, USB 3, two-in-one headphone and microphone, battery life of eight hours, Windows 8 Professional and weighs 1.54 kg.
The Chinese firm’s Yoga 13’s design is something that is original and distinctive that might be enough reason to make consumers into having it as their first device with Windows 8.
Yoga Positions
Ideapad Yoga 13 can be formed in four various positions – clamshell laptop, stand, tablet and tent. The tablet and clamshell laptop positions are the commonly expected positions being the entirely flat tablet and typical laptop viewing respectively. Stand position is when the keyboard faces flat on a surface and the screen is tilted back for film watching. Tent position is quite the same with the stand mode but prop the device up on the ends, if media viewing is on an uneven surface.
Yoga has an accelerometer that resembles to the technology seen in many contemporary smartphones that makes automatic display rotations by degrees of 90, 180 or 270 possible whenever it is turned around. This mode can be toggled with a button on the Yoga’s side. Another button lets manual display rotation by 90 degree angle.
With the Ideapad Yoga, screen pushing, turning and transforming it from a laptop to a tablet is very satisfying as this has never been done with a laptop since – that is, without breaking it. It is odd as a tablet though because of its thickness at 17mm. However, the tablet seems to be a generous bonus than an actual tablet.
Tablet Mode
A good feature is the disablement of the keyboard when the screen reached over 180 degrees, so key press is not recognised (it is only in the laptop mode or position). Some users may regard the keyboard strange when they are in tablet mode but that they will be accustomed quickly. The volume control switch is a nice add-on. It is on the side that resembles that in iPad. Thus, when the tablet mode is on, the volume can be controlled without opening the device back to laptop mode.
Pros and Cons
The Idea Yoga 13 has a premium stylish look. It is covered with a soft textured material which lets a better grip as well as a luxurious and comfortable feel. Found in silvery grey and bright orange, it is stylish and good enough to complement other devices around it. The build quality is a default strong point which is much needed of its flexibility. Despite the lightweight and slim build, the screen and keyboard are strong and robust.
While Yoga is lightweight when in the laptop mode, it is slightly heavy for a tablet. However, there are less 13in existing tablets, that there is no way it is to be compared to the common 10in models today.
Sometimes the keyboard seems unresponsive, and that is very irritating. The space bar for example does not work sometimes as it seems stiff. The shift, backspace and enter keys are smaller than usual so that makes typing a worse experience. Thus, the Yoga might not be the best choice for major word processing works. There is also an absence of a backlight so typing could be easier even in low light conditions. It also does not offer shortcut keys for doing playback in media apps.
Conclusion
Lenovo’s Ideapad Yoga 13 is a great device having a laptop and tablet at the same time. It performs well and good so far, except that it has keyboard issues. Its keyboard issues make it not good for word processing tasks in the laptop mode. Either people have to wait for Lenovo to fix their keyboard, then this device could have been really great and usable. With tasks that do not require much keyboard use, then the Yoga 13 is a good purchase.
