When is a tablet more than a tablet…when it’s a Lenovo Yoga tablet. Synonymous with the Yoga name, you can use it in so many positions, its possibilities are endless. Top that off with a fabulous WQHD display and built-in projector, and this thing rocks. I vote it best tablet for the money – hands down.
Yoga Tablet 2 Pro
When I first opened the box and removed the Yoga Tablet 2 Pro, I was immediately impressed with the solid, “this-is-going-to-last” build quality. Despite its slim profile, the case is firm and the bottom cylindrical base makes a perfect area to grip. This two pound tablet isn’t going to slide from your fingers like many others I’ve tried. Within that cylindrical area are two of this tablet’s main features: extended battery life and a built-in projector.
Built-in projector
Being the smallest pico projector I’ve ever used, I was quite happy with the quality of the projected image. The darker the room the better, but a projected 50” image size (from about 6-1/2 feet away) is large enough for a small group to really enjoy. There’s an ingenious slide lever on the barrel of the projector to fine tune the focus.
Great battery life
Any time I can get a tablet to last two or three days of intermittent usage without having to recharge it, I’m sold. I didn’t ever get the 15 hours Lenovo mentioned, but I was almost always using the tablet at full brightness and wasn’t trying to be conservative. In my one constantly-on test, I got almost 9 hours of battery life with the screen turned to about 50% brightness and playing videos and listening to music.
Beautiful screen
As I said, I kept the screen at full brightness as I just absolutely loved the WQHD display. The 13.3 inch display is similar to my Yoga 3 Pro Ultrabook in size and has a 2560 x 1440 resolution touch screen. Watching videos on this screen is a real pleasure.
The screen was also bright enough that I could use it in full daylight while we traveled throughout New England recently. The 2015 Buick Regal GS we were driving had OnStar’s 4G, always-on LTE network in the car and we could surf, watch videos, whatever we wanted, where ever we wanted, at amazing speeds. It was awesome and I could tell Yoga liked it as much as we did.
Sound
Good video is nothing if you don’t have good audio to match. Prior to the Yoga Tablet 2 Pro, I was always prepared to hook up an external Bluetooth speaker so everyone in the room could hear. That’s not necessary with this tablet as it pumps out the sound via JBL 2.1 surround sound speakers with an actual onboard woofer and 8 watts of power.
Built-in stand
Press a button on the back and the hinged kickstand pops out for use. With the newly designed kickstand, you can easily place it in typing mode or projection mode (TILT), standard upright mode (STAND), or hanging mode using the new square hole (HANG). With the kickstand locked back in place, Lenovo calls that HOLD mode.
My favorite is a modified hang mode – upside down – where it fits perfectly in the magazine rack of my exercise bike.
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Rear camera
The Tablet 2 Pro comes with a fast aperture (f2.2) enabling you to take photos in dim light with the 8MP auto-focus camera. The front facing camera captures a 1.6MP HD display. In normal lighting, I found the colors to be very similar to my dedicated DSLR and Point-and-Shoot cameras.
Even in this heavily backlit photo, you’ll see it did a good job of capturing detail in the black light fixture mounted to the house.
Atom Quad-Core Processor
The Intel processor is quite capable of showing HD videos without stuttering and delivering the MultiWindow feature where you can have three apps floating above other programs. Using the free ShareIt app, I was able to beam photos/video from my phone to the tablet in record time and then post them to social media from the tablet as we traveled. A 257 MB video transferred in just 57 seconds.
What’s missing?
Only two things come to mind for me as I tested the Yoga Tablet 2 Pro. I would have loved to have had the volume controls on the right side instead of the left. Since I typically hold the tablet with my left hand and navigate with my right, that would have seemed a little more intuitive.
The other request I would love to see all tablet manufacturers incorporate is a ¼”-20 mounting hole so a myriad of tripod mounts, dashboard mounts, etc. could be attached. My one fear using it in the car was that an unexpected fast turn could have sent it sailing….not what you want.
Verdict?
This is a definite buy if you are one that likes to stream Netflix anywhere you go, or wants to share videos and slideshows with your friends. The Yoga Tablet 2 Pro is about as versatile as they come and looks great to boot. Anyone watching me use it always did a double take…and with good reason.
Special Pricing
As a member of the Lenovo Insiders group, I’m happy pass along special pricing to my readers. Go here for their special purchase program.
Disclosure: Lenovo loaned me the Yoga Tablet 2 Pro to do this review.