Lenovo Yoga Book Review - Can This Replace Your Laptop?

Video transcript provided below...

Hey guys, Dan here from CLE Tech and this is my review of the Lenovo Yoga Book.

So a few months back, Lenovo released the Yoga Book in both Android and Windows 10 models. Now the one that we have here is the Android version and if you're looking to buy an Android tablet, it might be worth checking out the Yoga Book for a nice 2-in-1 experience.

The Yoga Book’s design is really simple and clean...well sorta. The entire body is made up of this magnesium case that's most certainly a fingerprint magnet in this black colorway. Obviously the part that stands out the most is this watch band style hinge that allows the Yoga Book to open into 4 different modes. You have your traditional laptop and tablet mode and also the ability to use it as a stand or put it up like a tent which makes the Yoga Book perfect for consuming media.

What you’re looking at to consume that media, the display, is not bad. It's a vibrant 10.1" 1920x1200 LED panel which is, unfortunately, surrounded by a GIGANTIC bezel. It’s really the only part of the Yoga Book that doesn't look nice.

What does look nice is the glass keyboard, which Lenovo is calling the Halo Keyboard. So as you can see, there is no key travel whatsoever, because this is a touch sensitive panel with light up keys. The keys will instead vibrate to signify they have been pressed.

Now I don't really want to bash this part of the Yoga Book because the technology has potential but to me, this is one of the hardest keyboards to get used to. Which automatically makes it a bit frustrating and something I am not a fan of using. You do get better at typing over time but since there is no sense of key travel, it makes it extremely difficult to locate your fingers on the keyboard.

Below the keys, there is also a touchpad. The touchpad is not great either. It's really weird that it doesn't support two finger scrolling and I find it a bit laggy, but for the most part, it does it's job.

Finally, the coolest part about the keyboard, aside from it's sleek design, is the ability to turn it into a writing surface with a single button press. By long pressing the pen icon in the upper right corner, the keyboard shuts off and this glass panel becomes a perfect notepad for your included stylus. It is a bit strange that you can't write on the screen with the included stylus but it works super well on the panel and input lag is minimal. It's clear that this tablet is targeted towards students and business professionals who love to jot down notes.

Digital notes are always nice but sometimes, you just want some handwritten notes for easier access...Well how about both? Inside the box, Lenovo included some special pen tips and notebook paper which will allow you to swap out the stylus for a real pen tip. Then placing the paper over the tablet, will allow you to jot down whatever notes you need and the yoga book will record a digital version in real time. It's actually a really cool feature but it only works with this special paper and pen. So if you lose any of those extra tips or happen to run out of paper, well you are sort of out of luck.

Performance of the Yoga Book is actually pretty good and this is due to it's specifications. You can get the Yoga Book with an Intel Atom X5 processor, 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage. There is also an 8500mAh battery which can give you battery life of up to 15hrs.

So as I mentioned performance is pretty snappy and quick. This probably has something to do with it's software too, which is essentially a tablet version of stock Android 6.1 Marshmallow. So when in tablet mode, you do have a toolbar at the bottom that displays your navigation buttons and your recently opened apps, which sort of reminds me of a Windows PC or Chromebook. This is convenient when working within different apps and needing to switch from app to app frequently.

The rest of the software is very familiar and again, very vanilla Android. There are some included apps but these apps only help you take advantage of the added features that the Lenovo Yoga Book gives you.

So should you buy the Lenovo Yoga Book? Well, that depends on your use case, just like all major purchases. If you need a laptop with more power, then this is not going to be the one. Also, if you're looking to run Windows, you should definitely look into the Windows model. The Yoga Book is perfect for those who need a tablet/laptop hybrid and really take a lot of notes or love to design and create. The Yoga Book and it's AnyPen functionality works really well and is convenient for those design students or heavy note takers. Where it falls short is the keyboard. It takes a lot of time and plenty of typos to get used to. I would recommend the Yoga Book to those who fall in this category and you can pick one up right now for $455 for the Android model and $549 for the Windows model. Links are in the description below.

Let me know what you think of the Lenovo Yoga Book by leaving a comment and hit that like button if you liked this video. Subscribe to the channel so you don't miss more videos in the future, thanks for watching and I will see you in the next one!