Who's Planning to get a Lenovo Yoga Book?

[HeyCori]

I tweeted at Lenovo US to ask about retail availability. Walmart is the exclusive launch partner and I was able to preoder there for a Oct 19th pickup. An option if you want it sooner although you might have to pay tax (not sure if tax is charged on Lenovo's site).

I never would have guessed that Walmart was an exclusive launch partner. I just pre-ordered through lenovo.com but I got a shipping estimate over five weeks or more from launch. I pretty much loathe Walmart but there's a slim chance I would have pre-ordered through them if it meant avoiding a month long wait.

 

[Character Zero]

Walmart charged my CC. I am doing store pickup, maybe it will ship early.

 

[Scienceguy Labs]

My wife just surprised me with one of these. I gotta say that it is the coolest looking and feeling thing that I've played around with in a long time. I'll have to use it a few days to get a better idea of just how useful the keyboard/writing surface will be. The design and build are simply outstanding, though.

 

[Scienceguy Labs]

Gotta say that I love this tablet. Screen is beautiful. Build quality is really good. Volume rocker and power button feel good with good pushback. I've been taking notes in OneNote for the past few days to see how the included pen works. Very reminiscent of how the pen worked with the DV8P...the 2nd edition of the pen, that is. The keyboard....ahhhh, the keyboard. So, this one is very subjective. I actually enjoy it. I used it in a meeting to type out a few notes while we all talked, and it's great for that. I wouldn't really want to use it to crank out a 10 page Word doc, but that might come with time spent typing on it. Within just a few minutes of typing on it, I became familiar enough with the layout to make any mistakes. Gets tricky when using function keys and such. There is some odd key placement going on, but that's expected with such a small typing area. Battery life is outstanding for me. I'm using it at work (I teach). So, I am not on it all day, but I do pick it up throughout the day to check emails, jot down a note or two, and browse the news at lunch. In the evening, I'm reading and browsing the web. Battery life has not been a problem whatsoever. Overall, I'm very impressed, even if it is a niche product. I like it a lot.
Pros:
Screen
Weight and size
Pen function
Battery life
Extreme portability
Speaker quality

Cons:
Fingerprint magnet
The tablet is very dense (well-made). If it were to take a tumble on a hard surface, I'm sure the transfer of energy would wreak havoc on the screen.
Most likely prone to get scratches on outer surfaces.
Track pad area is tiny.

I'm waiting for skins and protective cases to hit the market. I'm hesitant to take it anywhere for fear that it might get damaged. The bottom surface is exposed and will contact other surfaces frequently increasing the chances of scratches and such. Need a good case asap.

I'm trying to talk my wife into getting one for herself.

 

[HeyCori]

Thanks for the impressions!

 

[Character Zero]

Got mine yesterday after a big runaround with walmart. Still getting used to it but its a pretty cool little laptop/tablet. The keyboard does take some time getting used to. The learning curve for me is the size of some buttons like Enter and Backspace. U thought I would hate the trackpad but its not bad. Can't find any options for the trackpad though. I am basically a hunt and peck typer anyway so it kinda fits my style.

 

[HeyCori]

So I had a choice to make, wait till Nov 16 when Lenovo shipped my Yoga Book or buy it from Walmart. Needless to say I'm typing this from my new Yoga Book (using it in my lap even). It's been pretty good so far. Typing does take getting used to but it's not the end of the world. I don't mind the vibration noise, though I can see how other people would be annoyed. I agree that the trackpad is too small but I haven't run into any problems using it. And man do I wish autocorrect worked better. Still, I'm excited to test out the device over the coming months.

 

[Character Zero]

I got used to the t4rackoad pretty quick. I was there was some way to customize the trackpad tapping.

 

[HeyCori]

I should add that using the onscreen keyboard is slightly better, though I often resort to the AnyPen option. Cursive is just so nice to use when making a quick post.

 

[HeyCori]

I got used to the t4rackoad pretty quick. I was there was some way to customize the trackpad tapping.

I try not to look at the keyboard while typing but I'm just way more accurate when looking down. I'm also much faster too. To each his own but I would advise other people to do the same.

 

[HeyCori]

Tablet isn't set it down hot (at least not yet, lol) but it does run hotter than expected.

 

[HeyCori]

Another quick note about typing that's not often discussed. Because it's only a 10 inch device, the keyboard can feel quite cramped. If you've used tiny keyboards before, then you know how easy it is to miss keys. That said, I'm getting much better at typing on this. I'm making fewer mistakes while keeping my eyes on the screen. If only Edge had better autocorrect when using the Halo keyboard.

 

[valth]

I got my yoga book yesterday.
The device feels really good. Very well made. The thing with the keyboard is personal, some people will like it, for some people it's going to be irrelevant and others will hate it.

the most important thing that everyone has to remember is that this is a TABLET not a LAPTOP.
so being that said, the performance it's ok, it could be better (like using an m3 processor instead of an atom) but it's ok.

 

[HeyCori]

I got my yoga book yesterday.
The device feels really good. Very well made. The thing with the keyboard is personal, some people will like it, for some people it's going to be irrelevant and others will hate it.

the most important thing that everyone has to remember is that this is a TABLET not a LAPTOP.
so being that said, the performance it's ok, it could be better (like using an m3 processor instead of an atom) but it's ok.

I love that it functions more as a tablet than a laptop. I'm not a fan of convertibles because the keyboard is exposed after flipping the screen over. Thankfully, that's not a problem with the Yoga Book. My fingers aren't constantly jamming into keys when it's in tablet mode. I can just use it like a regular tablet. It's a very underrated aspect of this device.

 

[smnc]

So, I'm loving the design, and I'm debating getting one for my teenage daughter to replace her current Acer Switch 10 FHD, but I have a few concerns.
Storage - 64GB is really light. I have 128GB on my Portege Z20b-t and I'm wishing I'd sprung for the 256GB
No Wacom digitizer on the screen - I love the Wacom tablet with paper support, but it would have been nice to have it fully supported on the screen to (although Anypen is an reasonable compromise, I guess).
Ports - I get that the thinness prevents a full-size USB-A, but at least a single USB-C seems reasonable.

I guess I'll wait until they show up in local stores and do hands on to decide...

 

[smnc]

I love that it functions more as a tablet than a laptop. I'm not a fan of convertibles because the keyboard is exposed after flipping the screen over. Thankfully, that's not a problem with the Yoga Book. My fingers aren't constantly jamming into keys when it's in tablet mode. I can just use it like a regular tablet. It's a very underrated aspect of this device.

I feel the same way about 360? convertibles. I've always stuck to the "rip and flip" or twist style convertibles. I'm currently rocking a Toshiba Portege Z20t-b.

 

[HeyCori]

Think I'm going to try something wild. I have a fairly decent desktop that I have zero problems with. However, I think it could be fun to see what life would be like if the Yoga Book was my only computer. I don't foresee it being that hard. I have plenty of bluetooth keyboards/mice, and a micro HDMI cord for when more serious work needs to be done. Plus, it would be nice to break from constantly shuffling between a multitude of devices. Eventually I'll have to do something on my desktop that Yoga Book can't do. Perhaps I should measure how long before I break, lol.

Edit:

Picture added

 

[HeyCori]

I was going to post an update about how my experiment is going but I did a write up on Daniel's Yoga Book article and it's just easier to copy and paste what I wrote there.

......

It took some getting used to, but it's really not that bad. You'd definitely want to install either uBlock Origin or Ghostery (I'm seeing faster page loads with Ghostery). But for modest use, I'm getting by just fine. It comes pre-loaded with the Office Mobile apps, and all those are fast to open. You could install full Office. I've done it before on an Atom 3745 with no problems, but there's hardly any reason to since the mobile versions work great.

I have Photoshop Elements 11 installed as well as Audacity. Elements loads and runs surprisingly well. You'll definitely get bogged down if you're using large images with many layers, or processor heavy affects, but basic editing is still snappy. The biggest problem is Edge. To be clear, it's NOT terrible. I can use 5-6 tabs without issue. But there are also times when I'm using two tabs and Edge starts to struggle (which probably speaks more about Edge than anything else). However, Edge is still the most efficient browser to use on Atom tablets.

Overall, using the Yoga Book as both a tablet and desktop PC is going remarkably well. Atom CPUs (Cherry Trail) are so low on the totem poll that most people focus on what they can't do, however, they are still capable of a lot.

......

Edit 1/3/17

Finally broke down and returned to my desktop, partially out of necessity as I just bought Fallout 4 and clearly can't play it on my Yoga Book. I also needed my trusty, old DVD drive more than I thought I would, lol.

Overall, it was a very positive experience. Using it as a tablet was, of course, fine. Hooking it up to a second monitor was a mixed bag. It does struggle a little to power 2 monitors, or often times just 1 external monitor. But it was a compromise that didn't burden me in day-to-day use. Certain things just took a few seconds longer or didn't look as smooth as when I just used it as a tablet (for example, resizing a window).

Edge, while generally fine, was the biggest hurdle. Sometimes tabs would crash and switching between tabs was noticeably slower (especially if another tab was currently loading). And even though my mouse has a backwards/forwards, it can't beat gesture support in Vivaldi.

Still, even in using an external monitor, apps still worked fine. I didn't have much problem using Photoshop Elements, though Audacity was slower than expected. (and I didn't use Audacity for anything other than to test it out).

In a pinch, I could handle using my Yoga Book as my "desktop." But an actual desktop is still a far superior option.

 

[donkiluminate]

Man, I love the idea of this and ditching my full size laptop but I have a hard time getting past the storage, ports, and processor. I think I could live with the processor but definitely the storage and ports are an issue for me.

 

[HeyCori]

Man, I love the idea of this and ditching my full size laptop but I have a hard time getting past the storage, ports, and processor. I think I could live with the processor but definitely the storage and ports are an issue for me.

For additional ports you would need a Micro USB OTG cable. I have several from a previous tablet. You can buy them individually or buy a OTG hub. For memory I have a 128GB SD card (the max supported). You can install apps on there as well. Since I mostly use it as my tablet, I typically don't need the OTG cable or SD card in day-to-day use.