Lenovo Yoga 8" And 10" Android Tablets

Tom T

Senior Member
Feb 18, 2011
1,632
191
Surprised I haven't heard much about these, the 8" device went on sale at Bestbuy today. Moderate specs but a unique design with built in multi angle stand and an amazing 18 hour battery life!


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edap

Senior Member
Dec 12, 2012
1,120
106
Lenovo's new celebrity spokesperson for the tablets is Ashton Kutcher, so I'm sure that we'll be hearing a lot more from the company in the near future. Kutcher’s role in yesterday's announcement felt somewhat bizarre, especially since Lenovo claimed that he helped with its design (it’s hard to tell if that was just a bad corporate joke or if the company is being serious). In a livestream event, Kutcher recounted his history with technology and his admiration for Lenovo as a company that dares to try new things. (With Shakira working with T-Mobile and Alicia Keys at Blackberry, I probably shouldn’t be surprised when tech companies nab celebrity mascots.)
 

Greg_E

Member
Nov 15, 2011
248
13
At $274 for the 16gb 10 tablet it is somewhat tempting, but lack of threads on it leaves me questioning if it is a good deal. My Acer a500 is showing some signs of age to the point that I'm looking for a replacement. Not going to be another Acer unless I can get it CHEAP!

I wish Mr. Kutcher had pushed them to put in a higher resolution display!
 

Greg_E

Member
Nov 15, 2011
248
13
Got what is hopefully a good deal on a 16gb Yoga 10 with matching keyboard on ebay, hopefully it actually works.
 

Greg_E

Member
Nov 15, 2011
248
13
Very fast shipping, got it today. First impressions are that it is decent, faster than my Tegra 2 Acer a500, lighter too. Display looks good and is nice and bright or dims down to fairly dark. Charging from a computer USB port is slow to the point where I was losing more than I was putting in. Built in video player sucks, looks like it doesn't use hardware acceleration because videos stutter a little, and these videos played fine from the same SD card on my a500 and my cheap china tablet (Pipo U1pro) both are only two cores. Open Office (AndrOpen Office) run a lot smoother than my a500, but I haven't tested too much stuff because I was busy loading software and doing system updates. The forward facing speakers are surprisingly good. Wifi has been stable for the last few hours.

Keyboard is THIN and easily bent (thanks to the USPS), still trying to bend it back into shape and haven't used it yet. The biggest disappointment with the keyboard is the very non-standard charging cord, what were they thinking! Next is that the keyboard doesn't really attach to the tablet for transport, it sort of snaps onto the edge of the display but only friction along a 2.5 inch distance holds the keyboard and tablet together when stored. I'm thinking a leather keyboard/case will be the better option.

Things I don't like:

I don't like the way all the apps need to fit on the 4/5 pages, the icons are all big so there isn't a lot you can do. Wish they went with a more traditional set of main pages for your most used stuff and then have the button to get to all apps. Also no HDMI, kind of a short sighted thing to leave off, but it probably saved a bunch of money in licensing. The main camera in the round battery part may be interesting, but it is a huge fingerprint magnet down there, not a good placement in my opinion. Can't charge and have a USB drive connected, would have been nice to have a second USB even if it was a dedicated charge port. The back of the display is still a bit slippery, they did machine the aluminum with a pattern, but it could have been a little deeper for better grip. Many stock apps can't be uninstalled but it looks like they can be disabled and I'll start on that in the next day or two, lots of other stuff that needs to be gone.

I'll try to get some pictures of the keyboard charge socket.
 

Greg_E

Member
Nov 15, 2011
248
13
Talking to myself... After uninstalling and disabling most of the junk I'm fairly happy with this tablet now. After 10 hours of web surfing, email, and a few streaming programs from Netflix and Hulu+ it was showing 40 percent battery remaining for a projected 18 hours between charging. Bluetooth would drag that down a bit, but it is still pretty nice. The display is set brightness on 2 out of 5, 5 is really bright!

Had a lot of crashes with the stock Android browser, also with Chrome browser, and also with Firefox... the answer seems to be Dolphin browser for now. Still working on moving all my bookmarks to this tablet.

Need to install some ereader apps and move all my books to this device from my Acer a500, would be a lot easier if this had a full size USB connection, waiting for my OTG cable to arrive.
 

Spider

Administrator
Staff member
Mar 24, 2011
15,785
1,813

Greg_E

Member
Nov 15, 2011
248
13
Probably going to be Aldiko because I know how to work it and it does a decent job on the PDF documents I need to read. But before I commit I need to check a few others.

I should mention that Lenovo has the hardware maintenance manual as a PDF in the downloads section for this tablet, covers both the 10 and 8 inch versions.
 

Spider

Administrator
Staff member
Mar 24, 2011
15,785
1,813
Aldiko is my favorite as well. It seems to handle anything you throw at it and does a great job of locating books no matter where they are.
 

Greg_E

Member
Nov 15, 2011
248
13
Another update:

Ran it for a few hours more and at around 14 hours it popped up a warning that I was at 15 percent power remaining, did a couple other things and went to bed. When I got to work I pulled out the included charger which says it is 2 amps and plugged it in with display off, took a little over 5 hours to finish charging (14% to 100% and light off). It looks like it will fast charge to 80%, normal charge a little higher, and then trickle to the finish. This might be shown if you look at their power manager app while charging.

I tried a few different ereaders last night and Aldiko is probably staying, wish Acrobat Reader would go in single page mode so I could just flip pages. Kindle is OK for PDF but not great. I also tried FoxIt PDF which renders the characters a little differently, of all the other readers I tried FoxIt and Acrobat and Aldiko are the only ones that stayed. I need to try a few other documents before I can decide which one to use. I did this a couple years ago when I got my Acer a500 and since this Lenovo is Android 4.2 I figured I should take another look around and see what might have changed.
 

Greg_E

Member
Nov 15, 2011
248
13
NuShield now has DayVue screen protectors for the Yoga 10, not sure if they made one for the 8 inch version because I don't have one and didn't draw it for them. The 10 inch protector is my creation and fits tight, if you have fit problems it's probably my fault.

No issues at all with the touch screen after installing my protector, it actually seems to have improved the ease of use for me by having a less slippery surface. I use NuShield protectors on all my devices and pay for them because they just work, some of the other brands have been problematic for me.
 

Greg_E

Member
Nov 15, 2011
248
13
It didn't blow up! All my web browser cookies are gone. All the app icons got shifted around. Probably a bunch of new bloatware I need to disable. Touchscreen seems more accurate, it was always a little off of check boxes and things.

Also takes about 3 times longer to boot now! Might be due to bloatware, might be from something else.

Still surprised this abandoned tablet got updated to 4.4, I figured when to Yoga 10+ came out I had seen the last update, pretty happy about this.
 
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