This is the Lenovo ThinkPad Yoga, the first ThinkPad model with the 360-degree flip-and-fold design. Just like the consumer-centric IdeaPad Yoga, the business-class ThinkPad version can operate in four modes: classic laptop, stand, tent, and classic tablet. However, there’s an important difference. The big innovation on the ThinkPad Yoga is its “Lift and Lock” system on the keyboard. It flattens the keyboard keys when the laptop is in the stand, tent, and tablet modes to prevent accidental pressing of the keys. When you put the device in the standard laptop mode, the keys pop-up, so you can normally use it for typing. While we are at the keyboard, it’s worth noteing that it has ergonomic smile-shaped AccuType keys, LED backlight, and the trackpoint in the center of it. It’s accompanied by a one-piece trackpad, which has clickable areas on the bottom of it and on the top (for use with the trackpoint).
Generally, the Lenovo ThinkPad Yoga is a 12.5-inch convertible with a 1366×768 or 1920×1080 pixel 10-finger multi-touch display with optional pen input support and the Intel 4th Gen Core CPUs (up to Core i7) also known as Haswell. It will ship with up to 256GB of solid state drive or up to 1TB of hard drive space and up to 8GB of main memory. The battery life is up to eight hours, according to the PC maker. The system has NFC functionality as a novelty, two USB 3.0 ports, a 4-in-1 card reader, mini HDMI video output, as well as Lenovo’s proprietary OneLink port for docking which also serves as a charger jack.
What’s great about the display is that it isn’t completely glossy, like on almost all touchscreen laptops. It’s a kind of semi-antiglare, so it doesn’t reflect ambient lights much. Please note that the laptop will be also available with Gorilla Corning glass, which is glossy. When it comes to finger touch input, the panel is quite responsive and the optional Wacom digitizer technology ensures you get accurate pen input. Touch input in the classic laptop and “stand” modes can be troublesome on the ThinkPad Yoga, because the whole panel wobbles if you push it too hard. However, in the tablet and tent modes, the display is completely stable. The screen has great viewing angles from all sides, so it is probably an IPS panel.
The laptop weighs around 3.5 pounds which is a bit heavy if you compare it to tablets with no keyboard, but also it’s about a half pound heavier than the corresponding IdeaPad counterpart. The ThinkPad Yoga is fairly thin in profile, measuring 0.75″.
Overall, the notebook is really sturdy, which is not a surprise since it belongs to the ruggedized ThinkPad family. It appears to be made of magnesium-alloy, while the large hinges are made of metal. The design is simplistic, with dark-gray matte surfaces all over it.
The ThinkPad Yoga is expected to arrive in November, with Windows 8.1 pre-installed. According to Lenovo, the base price will be $950. For those who rather want an entertainment-oriented instead of business-use Yoga, Lenovo has released a new 13.3″ IdeaPad Yoga version (Yoga Pro 2) with Haswell and 3200 x 1800 screen resolution (a post about it is coming soon).
