Just days after announcing that UMPCPortal would be closing down I’m sitting here with a 690 gram 10 inch convertible with LTE. It’s 9mm thick and will go down as one of those brave products that pushed the UMPC boundaries. Bill Gates will happy to see this. Or will he?
As Microsoft push pen capability, Lenovo are levering this to give the mobile productivity market another go with the Lenovo Yoga Book 10. It’s available in Windows and Android versions. It’s exciting and annoying.
Naturally I’m trying to write this post on it but after this paragraph I will be connecting my keyboard. The capacitive keyboard is terrible; slower than an on-screen keyboard in classic laptop mode and useless in any other usage scenario. The haptic feedback lags like it’s 2006 and there’s audio feedback that is worse than that. Yuck!
As a tablet it’s too heavy. The hinge gets in the way when you hold it. Yuck!
Oh but wait. There’s a new usage scenario forming here and it’s something unique. Very unique. If Lenovo work on this product it could be something special.
Summary: Lay a piece of paper on the keyboard, write on it with a real pen and watch it copy your notes in real-time.
Windows problem
Why Lenovo bothered to bring out a version of this with Windows I’ll never know. The ultra mobile market is niche, at best, and if you want productivity on the go there’s a lot more value in an iPad Pro 8.9. Apps are missing. The software isn’t tailored for the hardware. It’s runs on an Intel Atom X5 which is slower than some of the Atom CPUs that were out in 2014. The Lenovo Thinkpad 8 I also have here is faster, and it was available in 2014. The eMMC based storage is slow. Recent smartphones have way faster storage. This is a product that doesn’t use any of the advances in mainboard technology from the last 2 years. It needs a Core M / Core i5 ULV processor.
Why, Lenovo, Why?
The Yoga Book 10 has a trick. It’s a confusing one, but might attract some One Note fans because you can draw, with a real pen, on real paper, and One Note will track and record everything. Accurately. It’s cool. It’s efficient, if that’s the sort of think you’re into.
There’s an Android version too and although the keyboard just gets in the way, it’s probably a more coherent version of the product.
The Lenovo Yoga Book is well-engineered with a great screen and good 9 + hours battery life but it’s built on a generic OS with a generic, and old, SoC. I enjoyed it, and moved on.
Full review of the Lenovo Yoga Book via Notebookcheck.
Chippy, are you really closing down this site?
I’d be interested in buying this site off of you. Continue your legacy!
I had not heard of the site closing down until this post by Chippy!
HI Chippy GPD Win is a fantastic UMPC / Gaming console Hybrid that replaced my Gigabyte M704 and Viliv n5. You should make a review for all UMPC lovers that was following you so many years.