Lenovo continues its aggressive Android push with the Lenovo Yoga Tablet 10 HD+ which is a is now its top of the line Multimode tablet, featuring an impressive 18 hours of battery life during multimedia activities. In case you missed our initial review of the first Yoga Tablets, Lenovo’s goal with this line of product is to provide decent performance, a design suited for real-world usage, and an impressive battery life — at a reasonable cost.
Performance/Price Ratio
In this instance, this is true as well. Looking at the specifications, it seems clear that Lenovo has picked the components that would bring the best “bang for the buck”. for example, a 1080p screen is not “hiDPI” like competitors who climb up to 2560×1600 in display resolution (Nexus 10), but devices like the Surface 2 or the Surface Pro have proven that 1080p looks great on a 10” display.
Industrial Design
The Industrial design uses the same aluminum build with a massive aluminum stand which will give the tablet a slight incline, which is great for typing. It is heavy enough to allow the tablet to stand up in a stable way in case you want to watch a movie or use a keyboard. Despite looking a little bulky and massive, the Lenovo Yoga Tablet 10 HD+ weight is close to the Nexus 10 at 1.35lbs.
Hardware configuration
Inside, Lenovo has switched from a MediaTek processor to a Qualcomm Snapdragon quad-core chip running at 1.6GHz. There is little detail about which Qualcomm system on chip (SOC) Lenovo has selected but, this could be a Snapdragon 400, or maybe a variant of the Snapdragon 600, but I don’t think so because the 600 tends to be clocked at 1.9GHz or so, and Lenovo wants is aiming for cost-effectiveness, so the 400 seems more on target.
The tablet comes with “up to” 32GB of internal storage, but ext expandable with another 64GB via microSD. This time, Lenovo has integrated some wireless broadband connectivity with support for HSPA+ 42Mbps, which falls back to 3G if needed. Bluetooth 4.0 is present, but it is not clear at the moment if WiFi AC is supported.
18hrs battery life = capacity + optimizations
Obviously, the 9000mAh battery capacity is the star of the show. Interestingly, this is just a little higher than the iPad Air, and smaller than the 11,000+ mAh of the iPad 4. to reach 18 hours of battery life, Lenovo has done quite a bit of with in terms of software and system optimization. Also, keep in mind that handling 2 million pixels (1080p) instead of 3M or 4M makes a big difference in terms of battery life. Maybe you remember that the iPad got its battery capacity boost when it switched to the Retina display – there’s a reason for that.
This is an interesting addition for those who liked the initial Yoga 10 tablet, but wished for slightly better display and internals. It makes sense to offer something like this because many users are probably willing to pay a little extra to get the better display. Lenovo seems to say that the Qualcomm processor is faster than the Yoga 10 MediaTek, but without knowing more about it, it’s hard to tell what effective difference it brings to the table.
The pricing remains the final element that we need to assess the value proposition of this device, but if the previous models are a good indication, Lenovo should price it to sell. We’ll know soon enough.