Lenovo New Yoga Tablet with a Built-in Stand

Tuesday night, I attended a big Lenovo press event at the YouTube Space Los Angeles, home for YouTube creators.  It was a super cool venue to hold the press conference.  The room was packed with reporters and bloggers, eager to catch a glimpse of what the Lenovo’s advertised #betterway is in using a tablet.  Twitter was abuzz all week and the #betterway hashtag was on fire with chatter as the event came closer.  To make the event even more newsworthy, actor Ashton Kutcher was on hand to make the introduction.  Ashton has been a long time fan of technology and was more than excited to be on hand for the night’s activities.  In fact, he announced that he was a new employee of Lenovo, to help them develop relevant technology for people on the go.

Billed as their exciting product announcement yet, Lenovo introduced a new form factor to their Yoga family of tablets.  The Yoga Tablet is a tablet with a built-in stand.  The new 8-inch and 10-inch tablet models have a cylinder bar that goes across the side of the tablet.  Inside this bar, Lenovo has cleverly hidden the battery, which, by the way, has a 18 hour battery life,  a phenomenal amount of time for a tablet.  Like the Yoga Ultrabooks’ flexibility, the Yoga tablets have three positions they can be used in:

1.  Hold – comfortably hold the tablet in just one hand

2.  Tilt –  when the tablet is lying flat it naturally tilts up so you can see it better

3.  Stand – it’s a tablet with a built-in stand so you can use the tablet hands-free.  The stand can be adjusted anywhere from 110 degrees to 135 degrees

Other Features

• 1280×800 resolution
• 1.2 GHz quad core processor
• 16 GB included storage, with expansion to 64GB with a microSD card
• Dolby Digital Plus DS1 front facing speakers
• 5 MP autofocus rear camera
• 1.6 MP front facing camera
• Bluetooth 4.0
• 18 hour battery life!

The new Lenovo Yoga tablets is available now from Lenovo with a retail price of $249 for the 8 inch and $299 for the 10-inch.

First Impressions

I have to say, I LOVE the built-in kickstand.  It is so convenient.  I like to use it next to my desktop to keep abreast of emails and social media news while I’m working on my PC.  It’s my second screen!  It’s also handy when lying down, I can sit it on my stomach and read through email’s while it’s propped up since the tablet has a built-in stand.  The Yoga Tablet’s 1.3 lb. size does make it heavier than I’d like, but this issue is minimized when I use the built-in kickstand capability.  And the 800×1280 screen is beautiful.

Hunter Hunted played after the the Yoga Tablet was announced while we had the opportunity to mingle, tweet, and actually get to use the tablet and ask questions.

A Mom’s Perspective

I attended the Lenovo #BetterWay Yoga Tablet launch as a member of the new Lenovo Moms team.  Lenovo Moms is a group of 15 moms across the United States, blogging on family technology, food, travel, and more.   Over the next several months I will be using the Yoga Tablet and the Flex20 to show you how my family is using technology to make our time more efficient…and more fun.  The Flex20 is the new fusion of the All-in-One PC and the tablet.  It can be used upright or tabletop, ready for the family to view pictures, watch movies, or play games together- with several hands touching it at once!

My kids and I have used other tablets in our house all the time.  We use them for games, streaming movies and sitcom’s, reading books, taking pictures and video (my daughter’s favorite), cooking recipes, and checking email.  Now with the new Yoga Tablet, because of it’s built-in stand, I can see even more possibilities of using a tablet.  It strikes me funny that something so simple as a built-in tablet stand can be so revolutionary, but after using it for a few days now, you know, it kinda is.  And with the battery life of 18 hours, I can leave it on as an always on desktop companion throughout the day, and now worry about killing the battery for use at night.

How would you use the Lenovo Yoga Tablet’s built-in stand?

*  I was given a Lenovo Yoga Tablet as a member of the Lenovo Moms and will be using it on a daily basis to make life easier.  All opinions are my own.