Mere weeks after announcing a new roster of Yoga devices earlier in October, Lenovo’s at it again with a new 13.3-inch Windows tablet that—like the other tablets—comes with its own keyboard cover. This tablet hides a potentially neat new trick, however.
As you’d expect from Lenovo’s Yoga lineup, the new tablet can be used in four modes: the now-usual hold, stand, and tilt form factors, as well as a brand new hang mode. For the latest Yoga maneuver, Lenovo put a hole in the kickstand, allowing you to hang your tablet on a wall for presentations or video viewing.
The story behind the story: The Yoga lineup’s blend of versatility and productivity-friendly design rapidly propelled Lenovo’s laptop-slash-tablets to the top of the Windows hybrid heap. While the Yoga Tablet 2 with Windows almost seems to be more about filling a potential hole in Lenovo’s hardware lineup than driving innovation forward, the new hang mode could appeal to the business crowd that usually opts for ThinkPads over Yogas.
Pico, no?
Lenovo’s new 13-inch Windows tablet is basically just a beefed up version of the Android-based Tablet 2 Pro announced earlier in the month. Unlike the Tablet 2 Pro, however, the 13-inch Windows version doesn’t appear to come packed with a pico projector. That’s seems like a bit of an odd choice considering built-in mini projectors would be a sought-after feature for business users who are more likely to choose Windows over Android, but hey, maybe the new hang mode compensates for that.
Just as with the Tablet 2 Pro, the new 13-inch Windows tablet offers Intel’s 1.86GHz Atom “Bay Trail” Z3745 quad-core processor, a 13.3-inch Quad HD IPS display with 2560-by-1440 resolution, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0, and a 1.6MP front-facing camera. The audio extras are also the same, including the two large speakers, a JBL subwoofer, and the Wolfson Master Hi-Fi Codec.
But because this is a Windows tablet, Lenovo wisely bumped up the RAM to 4GB and doubled the onboard storage to 64GB. The microSD slot is the same as the Tablet 2 Pro’s, supporting up to another 64GB for 128GB maximum on the Windows version. Lenovo also added a larger battery than the Tablet 2 Pro’s: a 12,800mAh power pack that Lenovo says can provide up to 15 hours of tablet time for the 13-inch Windows slate.
Packing a bigger battery, the new Windows tablet is a tad heavier than its Android counterpart, coming in at 2.27 pounds (without the keyboard cover) versus 2.09 pounds.
Similar to all kinds of other Windows devices out there, the 13-inch Yoga Tablet 2 with Windows includes a free one-month subscription to Office 365. Lenovo says it will start selling the 13-inch Yoga Tablet 2 with Windows in November for $700.