Lenovo Yoga Book is the best thing to happen this year to PC industry

Lenovo Yoga Book is first of its kind gadget that is absolutely futuristic and is a result of years of hard work from the company. Lenovo Yoga Book looks like a super thin ultrabook but it does not have any keys on the base area. What it has is ‘Halo keyboard’, a name penned by Lenovo for multi use keyboard. In short, the Halo keyboard is a keyboard, sketchpad, virtual paper in one. Pricing for the Yoga Book will start at €499 for the Android version and €599 for the Windows version. Pricing and availability may vary from country to country. All will be globally available beginning in September. In the US, the Yoga Book will be sold online by the end of October with a price tag of just $500.

Halo keyboard displays virtual keyboard (looks a bit like those laser etched flat key pocket keyboard) by default. When you turn on the bundled pen, keys disappers to turn the base into digitizing pad. Whatever you scribble on the digitizer is saved in Yoga Book. When you are writing using the pen, the halo keyboard replicas the touch and feel of paper. You can even place a real paper and use the pen (in ink mode) to write on paper. Whatever you write is capture by the EMR circuitry. Lenovo’s digitizer pen uses electromagnetic induction technology. Electromagnetic waves are sent from sensor. These signals are prcoessed through algorithm based analysis to digitize whats written on a real paper that is placed on the Halo keyboard.

Thanks to 2048 levels fo pressure sensitivity and 100 angle detection, you can show off your art skills. Lenovo design team had spent 18 months trying to perfect the feel, trying 100 different samples to get right anti glare coating.  The top layer is a gorilla glass layer with anti glare coating. Second layer contains touch panel keyboard that recognizes typing. Third layer has LGF backlighting membrate that lights up the virtual keys. Fourth layer has EMR film that kicks in when digitizer (pen) is used for input. Underneath these layers is the mother board containing SoC, memory, eMMC, battery etc.

“We set out to redefine the tablet category conundrum, namely that consumers no longer separate their activities into productivity and entertainment – it all blends together, and so should the device they use,” said Jeff Meredith, vice president and general manager, Android and Chrome Computing, Lenovo. “The Yoga Book introduces keyboard and handwriting input capability in an elegantly simple, unconventionally slender tablet design. We believe our unique design will offer tablet, 2-in-1 and traditional notebook buyers a first-of-its-kind option for evolving usage trends.”

The Yoga Book is among the thinnest 2-in-1 ultrabooks (9.6mm thin when closed) and weighs 690 grams. For strength, Lenovo has used magnesium and aluminium alloys. The Yoga Book is powered by Intel Atom X5 processor, has 4GB of RAM and runs Windows 10 OS. The display is a 10.1″ FullHD touchscreen display. You can also rotate the base to use the Yoga Book as a tablet, thanks to the 360 degree hinge. Lenovo Yoga Book can stay on for up to 15 hours on a full charge.