Lenovo's 'Yoga Book' Laptop Is So Thin It Needs A Touchscreen Keyboard (gizmodo.com)

An anonymous reader writes: At IFA in Berlin, Lenovo announced the Yoga Book, a laptop that measures in at just 0.38-inches thick, making it the thinnest laptop currently available. In order for it to retain such a slim profile, the keyboard needed to be redesigned. The Yoga Book features what is called the Halo Keyboard, a touchscreen keyboard that is separated from the display and doubles as a drawing tablet. Gizmodo reports: "Officially it's called the Halo Keyboard, and if you've ever tried to quickly type on a tablet's software keyboard than you'll be familiar with the experience. Only it's a little nicer because the keyboard is separated from the display, so it doesn't suck up screen real estate, and it has a pleasantly rough texture. It's also got haptic feedback, which in the case of a touchscreen keyboard is sort of like sticking lipstick on the pig. A press of a button turns the keys off and turns the keyboard into a drawing tablet. From there, it behaves a lot like a Wacom tablet, directly reporting pen input into your chosen app. It even reads pen inputs through paper laid over the input panel." Some other specs of this 2-in-1 laptop/tablet include an Intel Atom processor, 64GB of onboard storage with support for a microSD card, 13 hours of battery life, 4G LTE, 802.11 AC Wi-Fi, front and rear cameras, and a 10.1-inch, 1080p display.

Comments

10mm

[I4ko]

So it is 10mm thick (or rather 9.6). It is not remarkable. I have a Dell that isn't much thicker at 13mm. I also have a tablet with removable keyboard (A laptop) that comes at less than that. Also Atom - Intel's garbage.. Not interested. Give me a Haswell/Broadwell/Skylake any day (XXXXU processors), but the Atom/Braswell/Bay trail/Cherry Trail are the utter crap

Re:10mm

[Anonymous Coward]

So it is 10mm thick (or rather 9.6). It is not remarkable. I have a Dell that isn't much thicker at 13mm.

Your Dell is a whopping 30% thicker.

Practically speaking 10mm is not much thinner than 13mm. But then it is not much thinner than 20mm or 30mm.

Re:And with that decision...

[Hognoxious]

Son'y be dillt, I;n usibh ome rifht niw.

Re:And with that decision...

[youngone]

From Lenovo's site: Yoga Book: The First Tablet for Natural Sketching and Note-Taking

So yes, it's a Tablet.

No thank you!

[Anonymous Coward]

what is this obsession with making things thin, the space it saves is almost irrelevant and tactile feed back is a wonderful thing.

Re:No thank you!

[jareth-0205]

what is this obsession with making things thin, the space it saves is almost irrelevant and tactile feed back is a wonderful thing.

No idea, and the company themselves don't really push that it's just a factor of what they're building - ie if they put a real keyboard in it it couldn't be a drawing-tablet with a pen also. It's an obsession of the article headline writer. Something far more interesting I think about it is that you can put paper over it and write on that, with the pen input also copied digitally.

Is there a picture somewhere?

[93 Escort Wagon]

Given the description, I found it rather surprising the linked Lenovo news page didn't include an actual photo anywhere.

Or perhaps the thing is so thin I simply couldn't see it?

Yoga Book?

[drinkypoo]

Will it teach me how to bend over and blow myself?

Obligatory PFSC

[well_in_theory]

http://67.media.tumblr.com/7bc...

Re:And with that decision...

[93 Escort Wagon]

From TFNR...

"The real-pen accessory can draw with the precision of a pencil or paintbrush, with 2,048 pressure levels and 100-degree angle detection."

It's not a touchscreen if it doesn't have a screen

[hackel]

The most interesting thing about this is:
"Touch-typists used the Moving Virtual Layout (MVL), which adapted to fit the user’s natural style, learning where the user intended to strike the keys through experience. On a mechanical keyboard, the user could dynamically adjust the position of their fingers onto the keys, helped by the shape of the keys and gaps in between. To overcome this problem on a touch keyboard, the halo keyboard used artificial learning to correct repeated mistakes or mistyping, learning the difference between common errors, like when a user hits the Alt key but intended to hit the spacebar instead."

Re:It's not a touchscreen if it doesn't have a scr

[somenickname]

Cool. Can it simulate nubs on the F and J keys? If it can't then your hands can't find their way back to where they need to be and, your ability to touch type is now lost. I agree that the artificial learning part is pretty cool but, cool doesn't trump useful.

I understand that this laptop isn't meant for power users but, frankly, widescreen laptops weren't meant for power users either. How many power users are still using a laptop with a 4:3 aspect ratio? How vehemently did they object (Hint: A LOT)? I'd be happy to let this slide as a toy that no one will use for real work but, when I see a modern day ThinkPad, I'm inclined to believe that the Yoga series is a staging ground for things to come.

DO NOT WANT.

Cool

[OneHundredAndTen]

But, why? Why does anyone want such a thin laptop, other than for boasting to own the thinnest laptop in the world?

Re:Cool

[somenickname]

That's the primary motivation. In fact, fashion is the primary motivation behind most hardware design decisions now. If you want a high end ultra-portable laptop, you now have to buy a fashion statement. Nobody makes a functional high end ultra-portable anymore.

I've tried to replace my ThinkPad X220 on several occasions now (always lured by the fancy new screen resolutions) and every time I've sent the "upgrade" back for a refund because it's unusable in a real work environment. Pretty? Sure. Suitable for writing software? Fuck. No.

Fuck thickness. Power users want a real (NOT chicklet) keyboard, a ThinkPad nub, a high resolution matte screen. Screws on the bottom of the laptop to indicate where to upgrade the RAM and disk. More screws on the bottom to indicate where to replace the keyboard when you wear it out. Make it thick enough that you can decorate the edges with a vast array of full sized ports. Make the battery removable so you can travel with a bunch of them (bonus points for having an onboard 5 minute battery to allow hot swapping). If you include a trackpad at all, don't be a fucking idiot and make it overlap the natural points where your palms rest. Put a nice CPU in it with good, active cooling. Make it weigh 2-3 pounds.

Or, I dunno... Just make it fucking thinner, I guess.

Re:Too thick

[ThatsMyNick]

It already exist, it is called a knife.

No thank you

[Billly Gates]

THe MS Surface is still the thinnest and Lenovo comes with malware like spearfish by default .... oh and the spyware is installed as drivers which means even if you do a fresh install Windows Store will automatically install the crapware again making it perpetual and impossible to remove!

Fuck em. I will never buy a product from such a company.

Good, Now They Can Start Making Useful Notebooks!

[BrendaEM]

Good, the marketing people are happy. If you would kindly make useful notebook computers for the rest of us, that'd be swell.

Re:And with that decision...

[harrkev]

Amen to that.

The real problem, IMHO, is that when I type, I rest my fingers on the keyboard and then just press the one that I want harder. I also rely on the "feel" of the key under my fingers to determine if I am actually hitting in the middle of the keys or if I need to shift my hands around just a little.

On a touch screen, resting your fingers on the keyboard is called "pressing several keys at the same time" and is bad. So, to actually "type" with a touch screen, you need to hover your fingers over the keyboard, which also means that your fingers can easily shift.

So, yeah, touch screens suck for typing.