Lenovo ideaPad Yoga

Lenovo's IdeaPad Yoga is one of the more intriguing products to be announced this year.

The Yoga is a hybrid device and named because of its flexible nature. Rather than following the example of Asus' Transformer Prime - a tablet which plugs into a keyboard dock to make it a laptop, the IdeaPad Yoga is a laptop with a touchscreen which folds into a tablet.

Lenovo has designed the device to be used in four different usage modes or positions called notebook, tablet, tent and stand. The first is a traditional laptop with a keyboard, trackpad and screen. You can then fold the screen all the way over to turn it into a tablet. The third mode involves positioning the device in a triangular tent-like fashion on a flat surface. Lastly you can have the keyboard facing the supporting surface and angle the screen as desired.

The innovation and creativity for the IdeaPad Yoga is superb. The way it folds into different shapes certainly means it will adapt to different situations well. For example, the keyboard and trackpad are automatically disabled when using the Yoga in certain modes.

It is quite big and heavy at 16.9mm and 1.47kg to use a handheld tablet for any length of time but that's the nature of a hybrid device like this.

The IdeaPad Yoga has a 13.3-inch touchscreen with a resolution of 1600 x 900 and runs on Microsoft's Windows 8 operating system. Windows 8 is simply the perfect match for the Yoga and its hybrid nature utilising the touchscreen, keyboard and trackpad.

One downside to the Yoga is the hefty price tag which Lenovo recently announced as £1,200.

The IdeaPad Yoga is designed with Windows 8 in mind, and should ship right around the launch of Microsoft's new OS, likely in the second half of this year. There are no official specs yet, but it will use Intel's next-generation (Ivy Bridge) processors.

The aluminum construction and general shape and size are similar, though Lenovo has replaced the wrist rest with textured plastic that has a "leather-like" feel to it. The display has obviously changed as well, as the Yoga sports a capacitive touchscreen with 10-point multitouch. It's also loaded with 
the sensors you'd expect in a tablet, like GPS, gyroscope, and accelerometer.

 Despite the cool concept, I have my doubts. with the keyboard on the back. How long will the keys last when people just jam the thing into their bag in tablet mode every day? Do people value a laptop that can turn into a tablet enough to live with a tablet that is comparatively thick and heavy.

lenovo seems to have something big coming before the end of this year.