Lenovo Yoga Book with Wacom digitizer

That is a real shame actually, Apple itself doesn't believe iPads can now replace convertibles. And they have made one better than average digitizer device. Still, Mac + cintiq is faster than mac+astropad +Ipadpro. People should get huge discounts on Macmini when they buy an Ipadpro. And Apple should stream line the experience that Astropad tries to provide but at a cost.

 

You make some good points. However I think handwriting is absolutely fine on most active digitisers. I just quickly tested on my T730, Vivotab 8 and Note Edge and had no problems taking some long notes. The only issues I had were if I was printing and holding the device (not on a flat surface). If you care about speed though, you won't be printing.

 

Here are some additional thoughts/impressions from my IFA hands-on and some detailed pics.

Like I wrote before, for specific purposes and users this might work well or as a secondary tablet. The main point that I like, is that this can be easily added to a semi-A5/half-letter notepad. At IFA it seemed quite popular with regular folks. Without the paper notepad add-on, I wouldn’t be interested. And it is definitely not a real replacement for a true 2-in-1 with a “real” keyboard.

There were some folks from the actual development team. When I asked, why they didn’t put an eraser on the opposite end of the pen, he only said that he had wanted that as well, but in the end it didn’t happen. Then I asked him, if there is no eraser, why not make it a dual sided-pen, with ball-ink tip on one side and plastic tip on the other? To which he acknowledged as well that he would have liked that. Right now if you want to use both, you basically should get another EMR pen, because exchanging the tips all the time would get annoying pretty fast. I made also a comparison pic with a Wacom UP917 and the SP3 pen.

They said the main reason for not using a second screen, besides increased costs, was that they could not have made it with the same sensitivity. I guess the paper notepad would not have worked as well on the LCD. Obviously this would have also increased the thickness and weight slightly.

As for the bezels, Lenovo wanted to have the active EMR area on the keyboard and the LCD to mirror each other exactly 1:1. That’s what dictated part of the design. If you look at the pics below, you can see that the keyboard extends to the edges but the EMR area is marked at the corners. The folded paper on the one pic shows the active area. Since the device is so thin (see comparison pic with SP3), the ports on the side and the camera basically need almost the complete height, so the EMR layer does not cover these areas. In that regard, I think the bezels on the LCD basically had to follow the EMR layout of the keyboard section. The bezels are ca. 15mm left and right and ca. 20mm top/bottom.

The clamshell notepad attaches magnetically on top of the keyboard as well as on the outside of the device. I have no idea what standardized size the paper or the distance between the holes are. It is definitely not A5 which is a shame. I certainly would not want to buy paper notepads from Lenovo. When you put the paper notepad on it, the problem is you cannot see where the active area ends. They had a paper-style with a dot-grid pattern showing the active area. This is one point where a user might get annoyed.

The Android version can capture pen input with the screen off, but for Windows they suggested a low-tech solution of wrapping the pages around the back like on a reporter-style notepad, thus some sheets covering the screen and avoiding accidental inputs.

The SIM-card slot also doubles as the micro-SD card slot. Kinda annoying because you cannot quickly insert the microSD card unless you have a paperclip etc. to eject the card tray.

As for the ports, I wish they had exchanged the micro-HDMI with USB Type-C with DP Alt Mode.

Of course one interesting thing would be to dual-boot this with Android and Windows. Hopefully Lenovo does not block anything in that regard.

 

One device, two incompatible pen technologies...

 

@kvoram you are the man with these hands reports! I say these forums need to sponsor a representative at every one of these big tablet trade shows!

I knew the wide bezels had something to do with EMR...

But with this philosophy, the best way to achieve intuitive 1:1 mapping is to put an EMR digitizer under the screen too!

Did you ask them for the reason they chose not to put an EMR film under the screen layer?

 

The keyboards are different between the Windows and Android versions, to take account of the specific OS-related function keys...

 

I personally love this device. I've always wanted to be comfortable drawing on the screen, but glass just never has done it for me (and no amount of matte screen protectors has given me the tooth I've wanted). This looks like it combines the best combination of my personal wants all wrapped up in a reasonable price point.

 

@Nicholas8681 If pen on paper is important for you, you should check out the new Wacom Bamboo Slate. It is essentially that "EMR Digitizer+Paper Notepad" only without the tablet, but usable/syncable with any other device.

@Marty, I too wish they had made both EMR. They had said something about costs and target audience. I guess they figured that not too many people would depend on it and therefore increase sales, so the additional costs for every unit would not be justified.

 

Costs I can understand, but target audience?

I thought this was being marketed to "creative types", the same crowd that are probably thinking of buying iPad Pros for the Pencil.

I would say they are actually losing their target audience by not including a screen digitizer. You want to provide the "best of both worlds": tactile drawing/note-taking that augments, not replaces, standard digital inking.

Otherwise, to that audience, this will just seems like a step backward from the IPP.

 

According to Lenovo's Product Manager in this video, the target audience is aged between 15 and 35 years old. I find it curious that Lenovo has chosen to have Windows 10 Pro on the Windows version; I would have thought that the lower cost Windows 10 Home would have been perfectly adequate for their supposed target audience. If there are business users who need to join the device to their company's domain, it would be a simple matter of upgrading to Pro, and this would probably be handled by their IT department anyway.