A Meditation On The Portable PC – The Register Reviews Lenovo’s IdeaPad Yoga 13 Windows 8 Convertible Ultrabook

The Register’s Bob Dormon says that strictly speaking, reviewing Lenovo’s IdeaPad Yoga shouldn’t really be all about Windows 8, and that the touchscreen Ultrabook that bends over backwards to become a fully fledged tablet is a well crafted piece of hardware with engineering merits of its own. The thing is, however, that without Windows 8 as an enabler of the Yoga’s touch features, it and a gaggle of other touch and type convertible laptops wouldn’t need to exist either.

Dorman says he’s gotten past his initial “toe-curling hatred of Microsoft’s new OS,”and that using the Yoga IdeaPad 13, which made it easier to understand the “Modern Interface” mindset helped. He observes that Windows 8 without a touchscreen is tedious, but using it on purpose-built hardware isn’t all that bad, and that Lenovo has done an elegant job of incorporating convertible PC attributes with the Yoga, with which you can still have a tablet, but also a real PC laptop with a decent – albeit undersized keyboard, although unfortunately not the spill resistant sort found on the company’s ThinkPad laptops and is not backlit, and a 10 x 7cm trackpad that utilises a Synaptics ClickPad control panel that enables a variety of gestures from pinch-to-zoom to two finger right clicking and scrolling. Consequently, rather than being obliged to use the horrible body-English of reaching over the keyboard to manipulate a vertically-oriented touchscreen, you can do the requisite touch stuff with the trackpad.

Dorman also notes that convertible laptops inevitably come with the consequence of grubby, greasy, smeary screens – 1600 x 900 resolution in this instance.

He also observes that Lenovo has followed Apple in dumping an Ethernet port along with the internal optical drive, and tried out Ubuntu Linux on the Yoga.

Lenovo Yoga 13 Convertible Offers Four Form Factor Variations

Lenovo’s Yoga 13 combines the productivity of an Ultrabook with the touch experience of a tablet, taking full advantage of Windows 8’s touch functionality. The screen flips a full 360 degrees into four modes that make it easy to create, share, or consume content.

10-Finger Multitouch Touchscreen Technology

Lenovo Motion Control uses the webcam as an input device, allowing you to easily flip pages, rewind/forward music, change the volume, and gesture other simple commands.

Long Battery Life And Standby Time

Cycle through Yoga’s four modes with Lenovo Transition, a technology that automatically switches system settings and locks the keyboard in place

Other Yoga Features
• Integrated 720p HD webcam
• USB 3.0 SuperSpeed, USB 2.0, and 3-in-1 card reader
• InstantResume to wake from sleep mode in one second
• HD graphics support with HDMI output to connect to a TV or monitor
• Lenovo Cloud storage to access your files from all your devices
• OneKey Rescue for fast recovery and protection

With four modes, you get four ways to use Windows 8 apps:

Laptop Mode – get down to work with Microsoft Office. Or stay organized with Evernote.

Tablet Mode – read on, or browse the Web with the touch of a finger

Tent Mode – set up in the kitchen to reference recipes with iCookBook.

Stand Mode – entertainment to go.

Ideapad Yoga 13 starts at $1,049.00, with upmarket models selling for $1,329.00 and$1,499.00

For more information, visit:
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