Lenovo Yoga Tablet offers three modes and great battery life

The Lenovo Yoga Tablet features a unique design that incorporates a curving battery cylinder at one end - with a built-in kickstand – while the rest of the tablet tapers down to a mere 3mm in thickness. The result is a form factor that’s incredibly flexible through its three unique modes: Hold, Tilt and Stand.
 
The Stand mode means that whether you want to sit back and stream a film, get your hands mucky following a recipe or jam along on your instrument of choice, the tablet will stand independently as the perfect digital accessory.

When gripping the tablet by the battery cylinder, the weight of the Yoga is centred on your palm, which in turn lets you grip it for longer – useful when reading an e-book or browsing your favourite sites.

Finally, the tilt mode lets you lie the tablet down flat to make it easier to use when it comes to typing or gaming.

Both the 10.1-inch Lenovo Yoga Tablet 10 and the portable 8-inch Lenovo Yoga Tablet 8 have impressive specifications to match the clever design. High definition displays mean that movies, TV shows and websites look consistently impressive and, thanks to in-plane switching (IPS) both models offer an unrestricted 178-degree viewing angle.

Backing up the visuals is the strong audio performance on both tablets courtesy of front-facing speakers and Dolby Digital Plus enhancement. Unlike other tablets that keep speakers at the rear, the extra clarity from Lenovo’s Yoga range adds an extra dimension to movie watching.

The aforementioned versatility wouldn’t be much use if the Lenovo Yoga tablets didn’t have the stamina to keep up. But, along with giving the tablet range its eye-catching design, the powerful cylindrical battery gives you up to 18 hours to play with, based on Lenovo’s own testing.

Naturally, you’ll find all the connectivity required in a modern tablet here as well. Both the Yoga Tablet 8 and the Yoga Tablet 10 feature integrated Bluetooth 4.0, 802.11 b/g/n Wi-fi and GPS. And, since both models are available with optional 3G HSPA+ connectivity, there’s no need to ever stray out of touch.

If you want to video chat through Skype or any other service, the Lenovo Yoga tablets both incorporate a forward-facing 1.6MP camera that offers a crisp and detailed picture. You can also stand the Lenovo Yoga up and use the rear-facing 5MP camera to capture high definition images in a variety of situations.

There are thousands of apps to choose from that open up all kinds of new uses for the Yoga tablets. And because both models offer expandable storage via a Micro-SD card, you never have to worry about running out of space. The Lenovo Yoga 8 and Lenovo Yoga 10 both offer 16GB of native on-board storage but can be upgraded with up to 64GB of micro-SD support.

You’ll find much more information, and the ability to purchase a Yoga tablet right away, at lenovo.com

Also, why not head over to T3.com's competition to try and win yourself one of three brand new Lenovo Yoga 8 Tablets.

Microsoft slashes prices on Windows 8.1 tablets, achieves near-parity with Android devices

We’ve known since IDF that Intel intended to put pressure behind Bay Trail’s sales volume by aggressively positioning the tablets across both Windows 8.1 and Android, but it seems Microsoft doesn’t want to be left behind — or undercut. The company has made significant slashes to prices on multiple devices in the Microsoft Store — the 32GB Dell Venue Pro has dropped from $299 to $229, while the 32GB Lenovo Miix 2 and Toshiba Encore (also 32GB tablets) have fallen to $249, from $299.
Dropping the Venue Pro to $229 actually puts Microsoft in the unusual position of going head-to-head against the $229 Google Nexus 7 (2013), but offering twice the storage (32GB versus 16GB). While Windows 8 has been roundly chewed up for offering far less than maximum capacity once the OS and restore files are accounted for, the 32GB Dell Venue 8 will still have 4-6GB more practical storage available than the Nexus 7 device.
The tablets themselves are powered by the Intel Bay Trail Z3740D, the same chip inside the Asus TransformerBook T100. While more expensive, the T100 also sports a larger screen (10.1 inches), a removable dock, and up to 64GB storage). Having used it extensively, I can say that the performance of this solution is surprisingly good — it far outstrips Clover Trail, and the integrated GPU is capable of handling many tablet games.
No, the Venue Pro 8 doesn’t have the Nexus 7′s 1920×1080 screen, but the 8.1-inch display on the Venue Pro still hits a PPI of 186. That’s higher than a conventional desktop monitor, even if it isn’t quite “Retina” quality (though as always, that’s a relative term and depends on viewing distance).

Microsoft is clearly trying to boost the visibility of its own Store (it’s selling the Dell Venue 8 Pro for a lower price than Dell itself). Still, this move also aligns with some of Intel’s priorities. The chip manufacturer has stated that its goal is to dramatically drive new tablet adoptions in 2014 with strong offerings in both the Windows 8 and Android ecosystems. If prices like this stick around, we’ll see Windows selling at head-to-head parity with Android throughout the year, at least at the upper end.

Google sells Motorola to Lenovo for $3 billion, throws in the smartphone towel

It has been almost two years since Google completed the purchase of Motorola’s handset division, but its experiment in trying to be a competitive smartphone maker has finally come to an end. While there were always plenty of doubters — starting with me — about the wisdom of Google entering the handset business, Google never wavered publicly about its commitment to the challenge.
Eventually the reality of how hard it is to compete in the smartphone market without taking your eye off the ball in other areas sunk home to Google — likely with the disappointing sales of its much-anticipated and much-trumpeted Moto X phone. Larry Page admitted as much in his blog post announcing the sale: “… the smartphone market is super competitive, and to thrive it helps to be all-in when it comes to making mobile devices.” This point was no doubt driven home by the fact that the Motorola division lost Google almost $1 billion in 2013. Lenovo will pay $2.91 billion in cash to acquire Motorola Mobility’s handset division — some parts of the company, including most of the patents, will stay with Google.

Lenovo knows way more about phones than you think

When I toured Lenovo’s private suite at CES this year, one thing I didn’t expect to see was a selection of pretty amazing smartphones. Since Lenovo doesn’t sell phones here in the US or Western Europe — yet — it doesn’t get much attention as a smartphone maker from the tech press. But in a few years it has become the fastest-growing maker of smartphones, with 45 million units shipped in 2013. At CES, Lenovo executives were coy about their plans to enter the US market, saying it would happen in time, but that they wanted to move carefully. Clearly the Motorola Mobility purchase — assuming it gains approval from regulators and closes successfully — jumpstarts that process in a big way.

What about future products?

While in some ways this deal echoes Lenovo’s purchase of IBM’s ThinkPad brand, there is one major difference — Lenovo already has a fairly broad, excellent, line of smartphone products, and a team that designs them. Without question some of the unique features of the Moto X, like always-on listening and custom covers, are worth keeping around, but it is hard to see Lenovo continuing both its own smartphone product lines and Motorola’s indefinitely. There will need to be some consolidation. Both companies have been silent about whether there will be a continued commitment to building some of the Motorola products in the USA. It is possible that regulators — already sensitive about Chinese companies purchasing flagship American technology names — may impose some conditions on the deal that affect this.
Current Lenovo phones are more traditional in approach than Motorola’s, with excellent hardware, great displays, and straightforward implementations of Android. They are also showing faster sales growth than almost any other line of phones. Motorola’s X and G have broken new ground in many areas, but they have hardly taken the US market by storm. Lenovo has said it will keep the Motorola brand separate, but it hasn’t said what that means for how it will merge the product lines. For those worried about the fate of the Ara modular phone research project, it is staying with Google and being moved to the Android group.

Will Lenovo play The Stig for Google?

Fans of hit series Top Gear are familiar with its “tame race car driver,” aka The Stig. The show gets to assign him all sorts of tasks, which he performs seemingly without complaint. Similarly, Google was likely looking for a more pliable business partner for Android than the hard-to-predict Samsung. With Samsung pushing its own app store and media hub, as well as Tizen — its Android alternative — Google probably wants to make sure it’s putting its mobile hardware jewels in more reliable hands.
At the same time, Google clearly can not afford to upset Samsung, on which it relies for the largest piece of Android sales. So it may not be a coincidence that the Lenovo deal was announced at just about the same time that Google and Samsung entered into a worldwide patent cross-licensing deal.
Personally, I’m excited by this deal — and not just because I said nearly two years ago that Google should sell Motorola. I’ve long been a fan of what Lenovo has done with the ThinkPad and IdeaPad product lines. With HTC in trouble, there hasn’t been a good competitor to Samsung in the US market for high-end Android phones. If Lenovo can combine some of the Moto X’s unique features, along with the excellent handset designs it is shipping around the world, consumers everywhere will benefit.

Lenovo Flex 20 dual-mode desktop

Lenovo has met with some success lately by taking traditional PC form-factors and then adding some sort of unique tweak that gives you another way to use the system. The company’s Yoga Computer and tablets are undoubtedly the most popular of that bunch, but the Flex desktops are going in a similar direction.

The Flex desktops start with a premium all-in-one PC, complete with Has well processors, a slim design, and a touchscreen. Rather than sticking it on a boring old stand, Lenovo stuck with a manageable size display (19.5-inches) and gave it a collapsible hinge stand.

A built-in battery was also added to give you two hours of time away from the wall socket, perfect for moving the machine between rooms, showing something to another person, or just getting some downtime playing touch games on the couch. When you’re ready to get back to the usual computing tasks, it comes with wireless keyboard and mouse and has all the features and performance needed to handle the usual PC work.