Lenovo Yoga Tablet 2 Pro Reviews

Even if you're not that guy or gal who said "I really need a projector in my Android tablet", the Lenovo Yoga Tablet 2 Pro has a lot to offer. Literally. It's a lot of tablet at 13.3 inches, but it doesn't feel unmanageable or look chunky. Rather it's sleek, modern and trim in its tapered aluminum casing with that distinctive Yoga barrel hinge that houses a rotating kickstand. Not many really big Android tablets have fared well in the market, we suspect because they were unwieldy, and I have a feeling that this Yoga Tablet will do better thanks to its low $499 price point, sharp and colorful IPS display and modest 2.09 lb. weight.

The Yoga runs Android 4.4 KitKat on the 1.33 GHz Intel Atom Z3745 quad core CPU with boost to 1.86 GHZ. It has 2 gigs of RAM and 32 gigs of storage. If those specs sound similar to Atom Windows tablets, that's because they are. In fact, Lenovo will also offer a Windows interpretation of this tablet. When Intel CPUs first came to Android, the OS wasn't particularly well optimized for that processor line, but things have changed and the Yoga Tablet 2 Pro performs well, even if the CPU falls behind the top Qualcomm Snapdragon offerings. Given the price concession here, we suspect many will be fine with middle of the road performance.

The tablet has a truly lovely 13.3" QHD 2560 x 1440 IPS touch screen. Unlike the Samsung Galaxy Note Pro 12.2, it doesn't support a digital active pen, but you can use a capacitive stylus (you'll lose palm rejection and pressure sensitivity though). Viewing angles are very good, colors are pleasing and it's bright enough for use in a sunny room. Given the large display, we suspect that buyers will be spending quality time with streaming video services, and the front-facing stereo speakers and rear facing JBL subwoofer deliver Ultrabook levels of sound. Lenovo paid some attention to sound quality here and beyond the JBL subwoofer you get a pre-loaded Wolfson Master Hi-Fi codec.

Dual band WiFi 802.11n with MiMo ensures good streaming speeds, and we had no problem streaming full HD Netflix on the tablet. The Yoga Tablet has Bluetooth 4.0 but no NFC, which is still a rarity on Android tablets. Should you prefer playing your own library of movies, you can use USB flash drives and low power portable hard drives with the Lenovo--you'll need a USB OTG cable to connect them though.

In terms of expansion beyond USB drives, the tablet has a microSD card slot supporting cards up to 64 gigs. There's a blank spot for a SIM card, but it's not built out and Lenovo hasn't announced any plans for a 3G/4G LTE capable model. You can use your smartphone's mobile hotspot or a MiFi with the tablet if you need wide area networking.

Battery life averaged 8.5 hours in our tests with brightness set at 50% and both WiFi and Bluetooth turned on (only WiFi was active). We edited an MS Word compatible document in the bundled Kingsoft Office, streamed an episode of Orange is the New Black, did social networking, browsed the web and did email for our battery tests. We had the music player running in the background for an hour while working on our document. The Yoga Tablet 2 Pro has a 9600 mAh Lithium Ion battery that's sealed inside.

Benchmarks

	Quadrant	AnTuTu	3D Mark Ice Storm	Sunspider JavaScript Test
Lenovo Yoga Tablet 2 Pro	15,928	33,672	16,670	696
Samsung Galaxy Note Pro 12.2 (Exynos)	15,337	34,890	13,785 (unlimited)	528
Nexus 9	13,728	56,937	26,307	926
Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.5 (LTE)	22.278	37,786	16,434	428
Samsung Galaxy Tab Pro 8.4	23,355	34,890	13,785 (unlimited)	396
NVIDIA Shield Tablet	21,414	51,838	30,364 (unlimited)	510
Google Nexus 10	4959	13,658	n/a	1308
Samsung Galaxy Tab Pro 10.1	14,515	33,947	13,458 (unlimited)	472
Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 10.1	9181	17,239	4615 (unlimited)	920

Geekbench 3: 787 single core, 2456 multi-core 

I'm not one of those reviewers who make fun of folks who use tablet cameras--the best camera is the one that you have with you, after all. But a 13.3" tablet as a camera? I dunno. That said, the Yoga Tablet 2 Pro has a pretty decent 8 megapixel rear camera with an f/2.2 lens. It can shoot 1080p video and take reasonably good photos if you can hold the tablet still. The front 1.6MP camera is perfectly adequate though not standout good for video chat.

Lenovo modifies the stock Android UI quite a bit, and Android veterans might not like this. It's a newbie-friendly experience with one standard home screen and additional screens serving as the app palette. You could of course download your own launcher like Nova, if you want a more standard Android experience.

The pico projector, for which we can blame product ambassador Ashton Kutcher, is an odd addition. The projector lens lives on one end of the barrel hinge and there's an app that makes it easy to start projecting the screen on the nearest blank wall. Anything you can show on the tablet's screen you can also project. You'll need a dim to dark room since the projector reaches just 40 lumens, but it's honestly one of the better mobile pico projectors we've used. Despite low resolution 854 x 480 image, in a dusky room the image looked sharp, clear and colorful.

Conclusion

If you're hankering for a really big screen Android tablet for watching movies, spending quality time on YouTube or to simply make browsing the web outright PC-like (minus Adobe Flash Player of course), then the Lenovo Yoga Tablet 2 Pro is worth a serious look. It's a lot of nice tablet for $499 with a lovely QHD IPS display, decent performance and a truly lovely design that includes a built in stand. And at 2 lbs. it's easy enough to carry around and hold for short periods of time.

Price: $499

Website: www.lenovo.com