Lenovo Yoga Tablet 10 review

We loved the first version of this tablet we saw, the 8in Lenovo Yoga Tablet 8, and this larger 10in version is largely identical, which bodes well. It’s also keenly priced at just £249 and we’ve been crying out for such aggressive pricing from Android tablets for some time, so that’s another point in its favour.

There’s no other 10in tablet that looks this good for this little

Despite being relatively cheap, the Lenovo Yoga Tablet 10 certainly doesn’t look cut-price, in fact it’s one of classiest-looking Android tablets to date. We have seen a decent but cheaper Android tablet, the Versus TouchTab 10.1, but the Yoga Tablet makes that device look positively lumpen and backward in comparison.

That’s not hard though as the Yoga Tablet is pretty svelte by any standard, measuring just 8.1mm in depth for the most part – which isn’t far off the much-vaunted new iPad Air. It looks great for it, though Lenovo isn’t in direct competition as there’s a large cylindrical section at the bottom that bulges out to 21.5mm.

It may be chunky, but it’s certainly not unattractive and it gives the Yoga Tablet 10 numerous advantages over typical slate-style devices. It makes it more comfortable to hold in portrait mode for starters, providing both more grip and offsetting its 605g weight into your palm, making it feel lighter still. Smaller tablets are usually a better choice for one-handed use, but the Yoga Tablet is again up their with the best, in this case the super-lightweight (469g) Apple iPad Air.

The bottom bulge allows for a range of useful extras to be included

One simple thing we really like about the Yoga Tablet is its power button. This big round button at one end of the cylinder has plenty of travel and is easy to find, unlike some of the tiny little excuses for buttons you see on most tablets. The extra space afforded by the bulging design has also allowed for front-facing stereo speakers. These produce much clearer, louder audio than anything we can think of with rear-mounted speakers.

The speakers alone make this a great choice for those who like to, for example, watch catch-up TV while cooking. But add in the built-in kick-stand and the Lenovo Yoga Tablet 10 stands (literally) above the competition for this kind of hands-free media playback. The stand lets you adjust the angle to suit you, and you can reverse the tablet and use the stand instead to prop up the screen for more comfortable gaming or typing. It’s a brilliant piece of design.

The stereo speakers also benefit from Dolby Digital software, adding a sense of space that such small speakers shouldn’t possess

Despite its shiny-silver finish the Lenovo Yoga Tablet 10 isn’t all metal, but then we wouldn’t expect it to be at this price. The kickstand is metal as are the side pieces of the chassis, the rear panel is plastic but it’s nicely textured and looks smart.

DISPLAY

After all this brilliant design and styling, it comes as a bit of a shock when you turn the tablet on and discover it has a basic 1,280×800 resolution screen. It’s the main compromise made in order to keep the price low and those who are used to high-resolution smartphones might find the pixelated display a bit much to take.

That said, it’s not a bad panel, colours are vibrant, viewing angles are excellent and it’s nice and bright. unsurprisingly it’s an IPS panel and its lack of pixels is about the only stick you can beat it with. We found we noticed the low resolution most when browsing the web or just using the operating system, when watching video or playing games it’s less of an issue.