Lenovo stands up rinky-dinky new Yoga tablet Lenovo is extending its foldable laptop-cum-tablet Yoga line with an even more flexible model. The Chinese computer giant claims this one sports three usage modes to its predecessors’ two, but we think that’s, er, stretching the point. Past Yoga devices could sit on your knees or a desk as a laptop or, with the display folded …
@Dave K
>Show me an Apple product with a design like that.
Here you go!
http://images.apple.com/keyboard/images/hero_1.jpg
They do look very similar, albeit from just one specific angle. The placement of a power button at the end of a cylinder probably didn't originate with Apple though... some older Sony VAIO laptops had a similar design (though the power button was green). Like this Lenovo Yoga, the VAIOs used a cylinder since it was a part of a hinge mechanism (whereas the cylinder shape on the Apple wireless keyboard comes from the shape of the AA batteries it contains):
http://www.pocketables.com/images/2008/09/22/sony_vaiotz.jpg
However, Mr Bough is incorrect to say that Lenovo have nothing beyond copying Apple... The original Lenovo Yoga looks to be a good design, simpler and more sensible than some other laptop/tablet hybrid designs. That is not their only interesting laptop... the beastly Lenovo W700ds mmobile workstation with two screens is unlike anything Apple have ever made:
http://www.pclaunches.com/entry_images/1208/23/lenovo_thinkpad-W700ds-thumb-450x353.jpg
"Nice price and from the renders at least they look good, shame that I bet they're plastic rather than metal bodies."
Sorry, but you can get a tablet with the same guts as these (1280x800 screen, MediaTek Cortex-A7 class SoC) for a third of the price. IIRC, there is a bit of aluminum in the body, but nowhere near enough to justify these prices.
AC was probably using the brand as shorthand for the OS's perception amongst both consumers and developers. You can tell he didn't mean for it to be taken literally because he placed quotation marks around it.
The Android logo has been used prominently on some hardware packaging in the past (if only to indicate that it was a 'smartphone' and not a feature phone, or that the device was more than just a portable media player), when it wasn't as well known amongst consumers as it is today. Using a logo in that way is what people usually take to be 'branding', being as it is akin to marking symbols on the rear end of cattle with a hot branding iron.
That said, wasn't there a recent Reg article about a survey that found they general public had a greater awareness of Samsung than they did Android?
Thanks Dave, AC did indeed mean that... though you have explained it better.
I really don't get the downvotes. Android has all the potential to be great, but all this crap being released means that I get to hear a lot of "Android sucks" (or "Samsung sucks"), "iPhone is better". When asked why, it invariably turns out that the complaining party has bought an "Android" device of 100 quid and expects the performance of the latest Nexus/S4.
So yes, all these experiments to see what sticks dilute the "brand" (i.e. the Android logo). I know it's an OS, I also know that the average user couldn't care less. AFAICT the little green robot is still prominently in place on a lot of boxes.
2 weeks back, was in a local mobile store 'showroom-ing'. Two middle aged men walked in: one drew his VLP (obvious PoS from China possibly without an IMEI) and complained to the drone that it "stuck"and stuttered a lot. His friend joined in the argument that this was an expensive phone (12,000 rupees is no small amount here) and kept asking for a replacement.
The store guy admonished the customer that he should perhaps have listened to him while buying as he had warned that 'Samsungs' 'hanged' at times and how it was always better to go for Apple if one wanted performance from one's phone. The flustered customer somehow saw reason in that wisdom: then haggled and finally exchanged for a supposedly unhangable Apple for 24600inr (400USD for the iPhone 4 16GB, NOT even 4 with an s, just plain 4) after taking a hit of about 75% (consumer protection doesn't apply here in India) and went home beaming.
I walked out in pure awe of the Power of white space and myriad pro.
"A thick, cylindrical spine that runs full width ... provides not only a handy haft with which to grasp the tablet but also a stand to raise the tablet’s rear when it’s placed on a desk"
And it also, if I have read correctly, includes a battery to give the thing an 18-hour claimed life which is a very good thing in my book.
It *looks* like a really good design let down by budget internals. Pity really. I'm loth to spend several hundred quid on a powerful mobile computing device when I already have several in varying sizes around the home, but if this had a spec that was competitive with the latest Nexus then I'd have been seriously tempted. Shame really, though probably a good thing for my bank balance.
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