Who needs a Keyboard? Lenovo Unveils Yoga Book Laptop that is Part Tablet, Part Sketch Pad

Lenovo's Yoga Book might be the company's boldest/oddest experiment yet. The device operates on the principle of writing things the old-fashioned way. You can actually grab a pad, stick it on the second surface and write away, and the Yoga Book will go to town digitizing it.

The company had to ditch the physical keyboard in order to make the writing surface. The effect of toggling between a plain black surface and a fully illuminated keyboard is a cool one, sure, but actually typing on the thing is a lot like using a tablet screen, states Engadget.

What's new

Half of the Yoga Book has a 10.1-inch, 1080p touchscreen display, 8-megapixel camera, 4GB of RAM, 64GB of storage, and a microSD card slot. About the only surprising thing about is the Intel Atom processor, a rarity among tablets in 2016 - a small reminder that Lenovo has been working on the Yoga Book for a long time.

The other half of is what makes it special and different. Open up the Yoga Book, and you'll see a flat, black expanse. Powered by Wacom technology, typing on the Yoga Book's "Halo" Keyboard is much closer to typing directly on a touchscreen than using a traditional keyboard, states The Verge. Like many smartphone virtual keyboards, the Yoga Book can adapt to your typing style over time and adjust the size of tap targets accordingly.

"While the traditional keyboard or laptop are unlikely to disappear entirely, other devices will take over more of our computing tasks," said Avi Greengart, an analyst at Current Analysis.

#Lenovo #YogaBook copies handwriting off paper notepads #tech  https://t.co/lifImlS0nn

— Singleclic (@Singleclic) September 1, 2016

The panel is attached to the screen with a hinge comprised of 130 different pieces and can be rotated behind the display entirely. When closed, the whole thing is under 10mm thick, putting it much closer to the realm of a smartphone or tablet without a keyboard than a laptop.

Lenovo adapted Android 6.0 Marshmallow to automatically start recording your doodles in the company's default note-taking app once you put the stylus to the touchpad. According to a review by TechCrunch, The Android version has Lenovo's multiwindow support, so it can handle multitasking as well. The Yoga Book, which comes in Android ($499) and Windows 10 ($549) flavors and launches in September, could be a one-off experiment. But the company believes it marks the start of something.

"Yoga Book is our first push into virtual keyboards," Jeff Meredith, Lenovo's V.P. said. "You'll see this trend continue." Lenovo deserves props for making a bold, innovative move and for those who prefer pen and paper, the Yoga Book is a compelling candidate that could trump the iPad Pro and Surface.