<div>Living with the Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga for the past few weeks has been nothing short of a luxury.<br /> <br />While I knew that this Ultrabook-tablet hybrid has a screen that bends 360 degrees, it’s only when I started using it that I fully realised how it was possible to work or digitally entertain myself in a variety of situations, some of them pretty much horizontal. While there have been many hybrids and convertible form factors changing the good old laptop, the Yoga, which won some awards at last year’s Consumer Electronics Show, is special because of its very strong hinges. How these would fare over the years, one can’t say, but they’re sure to be repairable in any case. For now, what I can say is that the screen’s flexibility, quite like a yogi really, lets you use it like a regular laptop, a tablet on a stand, in tented TV-like mode, and folded right over as a tablet. Those are the advertised positions. When you use it, you figure that there are actually many in-between screen positions to fit the way you like to sit or recline with your gadgets. I even tried it out as a tummy-top with the screen at exactly the right angle for me to watch some videos. The fact that there’s no fiddling and clicking into place, no danger of the screen dropping away from the keyboard, means that you use it all the more confidently. <br /> </div><table width="400" cellspacing="5" cellpadding="5" border="0" align="center"><tbody><tr><td><img width="600" vspace="3" hspace="3" height="388" alt="" src="/image/image_gallery?uuid=dd9a6f58-a19f-431e-b9c3-ed2464cbf4a4&groupId=222922&t=1361624207388" /></td></tr><tr><td><strong><span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">BLACKBERRY Z10 AND Q10:</span></strong> <span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 153);">BlackBerry Z10 launching in India on 25 Feb and the Q10 coming later are the new BlackBerrys, finally complete with a re-thought smooth operating system. Communication is a thumb-swipe away for the hyper-connected<br /><span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);"><strong>DELL INSPIRON 15Z ULTRABOOK:</strong></span> This budget laptop is light and thin and comes in brushed aluminum. With Windows 8 and an optional touchscreen variant, its big sound and screen (15 inches) is ideal for those who want to do more than just work.<br /><span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);"><strong>MICROSOFT’S SURFACE PRO: </strong></span>The Surface, yet to surface in India and not doing as well as expected elsewhere, has just turned Pro, getting the full Windows 8 treatment instead of the more limited RT. It also has a pen and a 1920x1080 screen.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><div><br />The IdeaPad is otherwise beautifully built. When you hold it, you immediately feel that this is top-notch gadgetry. It looks matte-finish metallic and feels soft. There’s even an orange version. But, as is the case with all these softened materials, any finger oil goes straight on to it, and no matter what you do, there’s always some on one’s hands by default. Luckily, they’re wipeable, with some effort. The inside is a grainy matte material as well but somewhat less prone to fingerprints, which is a good thing because your palms rest on the ample space reserved for them. <br /> </div><div>One has to think of the hybrids that have come out so far more as Ultra- books with a secondary function of a tablet. As an Ultrabook, it’s slim and light and doesn’t have that teardrop shape that everyone has copied from the MacBook Air. In fact, nothing has been copied from Apple’s designs here, and that itself is rather refreshing. <br /> </div><div>The keyboard is comfortable even though the keys are shallow. My only problem with it was that the Shift, Enter and other keys on the right were close together and sized differently from the ones I’ve been used to, causing me to keep pressing Enter instead of Shift. And that, when my own primary laptop is a Lenovo ThinkPad. Another problem that I faced is that when you touch the screen, it tends to move a little although this depen­ds on your choice of angle. <br /> </div><div>As a tablet, as expected, it’s too thick and heavy to compete with the standalone tablets of the world, because obviously you’re holding a tablet-plus-key­board, not just a tablet. Together it’s 1.54 kg. A big problem here is also that the keyboard is exposed to more abuse than usual as you put the device down on a surface or your lap. It’s also not natural and comfortable to feel a keyboard on the flip side of a tablet. Perhaps they should explore some kind of retractable thin cover that can slide over it at the touch of a button. But that’s just an idea for the IdeaPad.<br /> </div><div>There are two versions of the Yoga. This, the 13-inch, runs on Widows 8 Pro and costs Rs 84,290. The 11-inch Yoga runs Windows RT (the lighter but more limited version of Windows) and costs Rs 61,790.<br /><br />mala(dot)bhargava(at)gmail(dot)com<br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: normal;">(This story was published in Businessworld Issue Dated 11-03-2013)</span><br /><br /> </div><div> </div>
BW Reporters
Mala Bhargava has been writing on technology well before the advent of internet in Indians and before CDs made their way into computers. Mala writes on technology, social media, startups and fitness. A trained psychologist, she claims that her understanding of psychology helps her understand the human side of technology.
