Lenovo's high-end flagship tablet Yoga Tablet 2 Pro is gaining some well-deserved attention for its design, marketing, and functionality, but how does it really stack up in the real world?
The Lenovo Yoga Tablet 2 Pro is a unique device that can be used as both a tablet and a projector. It was first released in October of 2014 as a redesign to the Yoga 2 Pro ultrabook laptop. It features a 13-inch Quad HD display at 2560 x 1440 resolution, the 4th generation Intel Atom processor running at 1.86 GHz, packs in 2 GB of RAM, 32 GB of storage space, and the whole thing weighs in at only 950 grams.
Related: Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro and Yoga 3 Pro Review
While its predecessor has been criticized for its relatively short battery life (Lenovo pegged it at 9 hours for the Yoga 2 Pro), this latest tablet version boasts up to 15 hours of run-time. But it's the tablet's flexibility, portability, and that built-in projector that really has everyone talking.
"The Lenovo Yoga Tablet 2 Pro is out of the ordinary," PCWorld's Florence Ion says in the site's review. "It's not much bigger than most Android tablets at 13 inches, but it has a pico projector embedded in its hinge. That's in addition to its neat kickstand that you can orient any way you like."
The Yoga Tablet 2 Pro's built-in projector can display up to 50 inches wide at 854 x 580 on almost any wall. The fact that the projector is built into the Yoga Pro 2's hinge is an ingenious design that actually has both form and function.
"I'm not a typical projector user, but the Yoga Tablet 2 Pro's built-in projector seemed to perform better than the standalone 3M Streaming Projector I have stowed away," Ion continued. "The farther it was placed, the bigger the projection was, though the picture wasn't very detailed. It's good enough for showcasing a playlist of music videos during a themed party or projecting a Powerpoint presentation during an important business meeting, but not if you were thinking of hosting a backyard movie night."
"This is a highly original option that sets this tablet apart from the pack, and is rather useful for business, as well as personal occasions," Tablet PC Review's Dragan Petric said in his review.
The tablet's performance is also the talk of the review town with the newly redesigned Intel chips replacing the older Qualcomm processors. "The choice to go with Intel might have been questionable had these devices not all included such large batteries, but as it is these processors bring above-average performance and above-average credibility of these tablets for the mid-range class, to which they, clearly, only belong when it comes to their price," Petric continues. "Compared to Qualcomm's chipset, the Intel one also features LTE connection support, which is another additional value."
PC Magazine's Eugene Kim, however, disagrees. "It's a decent setup, but not nearly on the same level as Qualcomm, Samsung, or Nvidia chips that power other Quad HD devices."
The popular magazine's review touches on many of the same positive points for the Yoga Tablet 2 Pro, but the reviewer was not as impressed with the performance.
"The end result is somewhat choppy performance, especially when it comes to graphically intensive tasks," Kim continues. "Home-screen animations will stutter at times, and general navigation feels somewhat stilted. Apps still launch quickly, though, and video playback is smooth. Web browsing benchmarks were positive, but scrolling on Chrome produced similarly choppy performance. Likewise, games like Asphalt 8 and GTA: San Andreas struggle to produce consistently smooth frame rates-they're still playable, but not quite as enjoyable. Lenovo should be applauded for the quality of the display here, but pushing all those pixels appears to test the limits of the Intel Atom chip."
All in all, the Lenovo Yoga Tablet 2 Pro's reviews seem to focus on the fact that it's an impressive bit of technology for the money. " At $470, it's pushing into iPad territory, but you're getting a much larger display and the built-in projector," Kim concludes.
