Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga Bends to Your Will

The name conjures relaxation, peace and harmony. The product certainly lives up to the bendy bits, so we’ll see what else this latest Lenovo ultrabook has to offer.

Brains and Beauty

You can poke it, bend it, even prop it up by itself — yet the Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga obliges. This 13.3-inch Ultrabook can transform from a not-too-slender tablet to a svelte laptop for you. Powered by the Ultrabook advocate’s Intel Core i7 brains, it will handle Windows 8 with 8GB of memory and a 256GB solid-state drive. By the time Yoga comes out, it might sport the latest Ivy Bridge processors from Intel for faster performance. The soft tactile finish helps you keep your grip as you maneouver the Yoga into position. The simple lines draw your attention to the 1600 x 900-pixel screen, where the 10-point multi-touch display beckons your fingers. You can enjoy stroking the edge-to edge glass screen or caressing the chiclet keypad for hours on end (more or less 8 hours on battery).

Sense and Flexibility

You can open the Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga wide – and then turn it on itself, much like an artist would when opening up his sketchbook. You can position the Yoga in a downward V (Tent mode, as Lenovo folks call it) to use it for touch screen gaming or social media surfing. You can turn the screen around in an L position (I hope Lenovo won’t call this the Exorcist mode) for movie viewing. The soft leather palm rests soothe your carpals, even as it protects the Yoga from scrapes on the kitchen table whenever you watch Gordon Ramsay as you cook.

Strength and Portability

The patented hinge can last over 25,000 repeated swings, so you won’t have to worry about being too rough. Carry the Yoga around and you might feel less strained than you would if you still had your old laptop – but don’t ditch the old girl just yet. At 1.4kg (3 pounds), this lightweight beauty will not be available until the middle of the year. Some will say 3 pounds seem heavy for a tablet, but the Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga is the complete package: it’s a tablet AND an ultrabook. The chiclet keyboard (no backlight) and large ClickPad provides easy data entry. The keypad area deactivates whenever you bend the Yoga monitor beyond 180 degrees, so accidental key presses won’t disrupt tablet-mode activities.

Price and Availability

The Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga will be released by mid-2012. This might be a bit later, depending on the upcoming Windows 8 release — Windows 7 and touchscreens don’t mix well. But that might have slipped your mind after you compared the Yoga with your old laptop – that’s understandable. The Yoga will cost US$ 1,199 (SGD 1,544), and at this price, you must certainly be raring to grab one today. There are many other ultrabooks vying for attention, but the Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga certainly wants to grab you and never wants to let go.But, then again, that might just be me.

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