iT Rumors

The Yoga’s interesting shape is perhaps the tablet’s one high point: By confining the battery to one part of the device, Lenovo made the Yoga easier to hold with one hand than traditional tablets. The tapered, lopsided design also helps to prop up the tablet slightly, making it better suited for typing when you lay it flat on a table.

The Yoga’s most standout feature, though, is its metal kickstand. Compared to the rest of the device, the kickstand feels solid and lets you know with a satisfying click when it’s fully extended and locked into place. Underneath the kickstand is a MicroSD card slot, but you’ll have to supply your own memory card (up to 64GB).

Unfortunately, using the kickstand is a huge pain. In order to open it, you have to twist the base of the tablet until you can get the stand far enough out for you to stick your finger underneath and snap it into place. The whole process is so backwards that Lenovo had to include a sticker on the tablet detailing how to properly extend the kickstand.

What’s worse, there’s a small slit on the back of the tablet—on the lip of the stand—that almost demands you stick your fingernails in there and try to pry the tablet open. The tablet hinge is so stiff, though, that attempting to open the kickstand with this method will leave you with broken or chipped nails.

The rest of the tablet is nothing to write home about: The plastic chassis feels cheap and undependable, like a short drop or particularly intense session of Fruit Ninja would cause it to fall apart in your hands. The plastic is very easy to scratch or dent, making you think twice about throwing the tablet into your bag. Compared to Google and Amazon’s tablet offerings, the Yoga feels like a toy, though I’d feel sorry for any kid that got this under the Christmas tree.

This isn’t the first tablet we’ve seen with a tapered design—Sony had a few a year or two back—but the Yoga looks like Lenovo’s design team ripped off Apple’s Magic Trackpad. The two look strikingly similar, they even feature a big power button in the same location, but Apple’s trackpad feels better built.

The Yoga’s 8-inch screen is a good size for gaming and reading books, but magazines, comics, and videos feel a tad cramped. Not that you’ll want to read much on the tablet anyways, as its 1280 by 800 resolution makes all content look fuzzy. 

Packing a quad-core MediaTek processor and 1GB of RAM, the Yoga’s performance is adequate—but just barely. The frame rate drops when playing graphic-intensive games, and the tablet struggles to smoothly play back HD video. I didn’t encounter any of these problems while watching YouTube videos or playing simple games like Solitaire, but it’s a bummer to have a quad-core equipped tablet this pokey.

Although the tablet ships running Android 4.2 Jelly Bean, the interface has been heavily customized with a colorful overlay that makes Samsung’s TouchWiz look reserved. There are three themes you can choose from that slightly alter the appearance of certain icons, but they all look largely the same and give off a weirdly childish vibe. The overlay is also weird in that is removes the standard app drawer and just throws all your apps across your home screen as you download them.

You can still organize apps into folders and use widgets, but it really seems like Lenovo was doing its best to copy iOS 6. All the stock app icons are square with rounded corners, the folders look similar to the ones in iOS 6, and freshly downloaded apps carry a red badge that says “NEW” and appears suspiciously similar to the ones in Apple’s mobile OS. 

Source : TechHive

Image : TechHive

One of the biggest surprises in the tech world this year came when Apple decided that it wouldn’t try to attract consumers in emerging markets by releasing a truly low-cost iPhone. Instead, the iPhone 5c that the company launched in September is mostly another high-end smartphone that’s slightly less expensive than the iPhone 5s off-contract because of its older hardware and cheaper plastic casing. Chinese manufacturer Lenovo, which has been the one company to actually thrive during the great PC sales collapse of 2013, now sees an opportunity to deliver to consumers in emerging markets and is planning to target consumers whom Apple has failed to reach with the iPhone 5c.

In an interview with Bloomberg, Lenovo CEO Yang Yuanqing said that the company’s goal is to serve markets where “the iPhone is probably not the best-selling product” because it’s seen as too expensive. This means that Lenovo will start expanding its reach beyond the Chinese market and into territories where the competition isn’t as fierce, such as Latin America, Africa and the Middle East.

Of course many smartphone vendors, including Huawei, BlackBerry and Samsung, have been trying to make waves in these emerging markets over the past few years. But Lenovo’s brand recognition and big marketing budget give it an edge to push its way into markets where it doesn’t have a big presence selling smartphones.Lenovo will get a particular boost in countries such as Brazil where it’s done a good job of selling PCs despite a declining overall market.

Via: Yahoo News

Lenovo has announced a pair of new Android tablets, the Yoga Tablet 8 and Yoga Tablet 10. They will be available in the US from October 30, and will start at US$249 and US$299, respectively.

According to Hollywood celebrity and Lenovo spokesperson Ashton Kutcher during his presentation, the new tablet has an 18-hour battery life and can be used to charge other devices through a micro-USB port. This last feature requires a micro-USB to micro-USB OTG cable, which is not included with the Yoga Tablet.

What's most interesting about the new Yoga Tablet is the kickstand at the back. This folds out so the tablet can stand with the screen facing forward for video consumption on a tabletop. Alternatively, it can go into a tilt mode, which means instead of being flat on a table, the back is raised so typing is more comfortable.

When the kickstand is folded in, the cylindrical bulge on the side makes it easier to hold the tablet with one hand.

Other specifications include a quad-core 1.2GHz MT8389 processor, 1GB RAM, 16GB internal storage and a microSD card slot that supports up to 64GB cards. Connectivity-wise, you get 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0 and optional 3G.

The above specifications are common between the 8- and 10-inch models. The only differences between them are the weight and screen size. They even have the same screen resolution of 1,280x800, which means you get a lower pixel density with the 10-inch model.

In Singapore, Lenovo will be offering only the 3G model, and not the more affordable Wi-Fi-only model. The 8- and 10-inch Yoga tablets will be priced at S$449 and S$549, respectively, and are slated to be launched by the end of November.

Source : CNET Asia

Let’s go back to when Android tablets were still trying to find their place in the market. You might remember when the Asus Eee Pad Transformer made its debut, giving you a laptop-like experience on an Android tablet. Be prepared to relive those memories again, but this time from a different company and at a much lower price point.

Previously leaked and now confirmed, what you see here is the Lenovo A10 Android laptop and it’ll presumably be marketed under the IdeaPad umbrella. From what I can gather, this is a straight-up laptop and the keyboard portion cannot be separated from the tablet portion, though I could be wrong.

As far as specs go, you get a 10.1-inch multitouch HD display, 1.6GHz quad-core Cortex-A9 processor, up to 2GB RAM, and up to 32GB storage. It’s almost like a Chromebook, except it’s running on Android 4.2. The render looks a lot more like Honeycomb, but I’m sure that’ll be updated before the A10 launches. It gets a full-size keyboard, plus a trackpad. Rounding out the specs are a VGA webcam and up to nine hours of battery while playing video. You can also flip it around to get “stand mode” for said video-watching.

It won’t win any performance awards, but it looks more than adequate for some media consumption on the go. The good news is that prices will start at around $249. The bad news is that Lenovo has no plans to bring the A10 to the North American market; instead, it’ll ship to Europe, Asia Pacific, Africa and the Middle East.

Source : The Verge

Last year's Windows 8 launch was accompanied by a slew of new Ultrabooks, tablets, and hybrid convertibles. Out of that bunch, one of the most interesting has been Lenovo's series of Yoga PCs. Like a yoga instructor, the Yoga PC bends, stretches, and flips into several different poses. If you've been eyeing that form factor but haven't yet pulled the trigger, then you might want to know that Lenovo just announced its first proper follow-up, the Yoga 2 Pro.

Nothing has changed in the new Yoga's form is the overall factor. We're still looking at the same four modes: tablet, laptop, tent, and stand (check out our Yoga 11S review for more on that). What has changed are the Yoga's guts. We're looking at upgraded components all around, making this year's version a much more powerful and attractive machine.

Want details, you say? Well, the biggest change in the Yoga 2 Pro is its display. It's still a 13.3-inch screen, but its resolution gets a huge upgrade to 3,200 x 1,800. That comes out to 276 pixels per inch (PPI), the highest density for a commercially-available screen of this size. By comparison, the13-inch Retina MacBook Pro has a density of 227 PPI, and the Chromebook Pixel packs in 239 PPI. Lenovo says that its display is four times brighter than the original model.

The new Yoga's display isn't the only area that saw an upgrade though. You can also buy a version with a new 4th-generation Intel Core Haswell processor, which should give its battery life a big boost (Lenovo claims up to six hours of full HD playback at 150 nits).

But there are subtle improvements to the form, too. The Yoga 2 Pro is lighter and thinner than its predecessor, measuring at 1.39 kg (3.06 lbs) and 15.5 mm (0.61") thick. It's rare to see a manufacturer upgrade a device's display and battery life, and still make the device thinner and lighter. All hail Intel's powerful and power-saving Haswell chips.

The hybrid also packs up to 8 GB of RAM, and it ships in solid-state drive options of 128 GB, 256 GB, and 512 GB. All models will run some version of Windows 8, with options of "up to" Windows 8.1 Pro.

The Yoga 2 Pro will be available starting in October with a price of €1,299 in Europe (that's about US$1,700). Yep, that crazy holiday season is already creeping up on us, and we imagine this will be just one of many new hybrid PCs we'll be seeing in the next few months.

Source : Gizmag

Lenovo is rolling out a new armada of ThinkPads as it aims to put the lineup on a diet and bridge consumer features with corporate must haves. Even the workhorse ThinkPad T-series is trying to cut down to ultrabook weights.

The No. 1 PC company's ThinkPad strategy plays well with its enterprise base and tries to capitalize on what analysts call a mini corporate PC refresh cycle. Indeed, Windows XP support ends in April 2014 and companies are evaluating Windows 8 vs. Windows 7 in new machines. Most enterprises will have a mix of both.

Speaking on a conference call, Matt Bereda, marketing director of Lenovo's Think Business Group, said the company is still focused on reliability and ease of deployment, but wants to add features that are unique. Lenovo has dabbled with enterprise multimode PCs with the ThinkPad Helix and Twist, but has largely stayed with a script that has worked for 20 years.

The latest batch of ThinkPads, which feature the latest Intel chips, includes the following:

T440s and T440: The T Series will now have touch enabled displays, solid state drives and can cut down to 3.5 pounds with the T440s in a 21mm think frame. The T-440 will weigh about 4 pounds. A T430 today can push 4.77 pounds, according to Lenovo's Web site. The main addition with the enterprise ThinkPads are hot swappable batteries. Lenovo has added "power bridge" technology that allows a user to change batteries without powering down.

The T440s is available at the end of October starting at $1,149. The T440 is available at the end of September with a starting price of $899.

X240: Lenovo's corporate ultraportable play weighs in at less than three pounds and is 20 mm thick. A touch screen is an option and the X240 doesn't require various dongles---a plus for the road warrior. The X240 is available at the end of October starting at $1,099.

ThinkPad S Series, which is designed for small businesses. The SS440 and S540 have touch displays and add thin bezels and what Lenovo calls a "floating design." U.S. availability is unclear.

For good measure, Lenovo also rolled out a 21:9 panoramic ThinkVision monitor. The 2560x1080 display with HD Webcam is designed to be used with collaboration applications and multitasking. The display starts at $799 with October availability.

source ZDNet