[rwp-review id=”0″]
Lenovo is back with a new tablet, improved, better and more powerful. The Yoga Tablet 10 HD+ looks almost exactly like its predecessor, building on its unique form factor and physical features, most notable which is the Kickstand and that cylindrical bulge on its side.
Build & Design
The tablet has an exceptionally slim aluminium body (10.28 x 7.09 x 0.32 in. or 261 x 180 x 8.1 mm) has its center of gravity shifted toward its edge where a large cylindrical bulge lies. This part holds the kickstand as well as a battery, which we praised heavily on the previous model as it offers an impressive 9000 mAh of power.
The body has been fully crafted out of magnesium alloy, which combined with a smooth front glass surface leaves the impression of a premium device — right off the bat, anyone can see that the Yoga Tablet 10 HD+ is not your average tablet. The elegant side line with slightly rounded edges also contributes to the pleasurable feeling while using it.
This device comes in at 1.4 pounds (615 grams). Due to the shifted center of gravity it does not tire out the hand for the most part, we found that the 10″ version does get somewhat heavy on the wrist over a prolonged duration, something not felt in its 8″ older smaller and lighter sibling.
The most notable and unique feature of the Yoga 10 HD+ is the kickstand and cylindrical bulge on the side. This allows for two functionalities/features that make the tablet stand out from the competition: The battery (addressed later in the review), and the kickstand.
The Kickstand
Lenovo has always been a market leader in producing devices that can perform in versatile ways. It’s Yoga family of products are testament to that positioning. The Yoga tablet is no different. The Kickstand allows the tablet to be rested in a number of ways without the need to add a cover or accessories to achieve this.
This allows for three usage modes: the Hold, Tilt and Stand. In Hold mode, the weight of the device falls into your palm rather than your fingers, making it more comfortable for reading and browsing. Lay it down into Tilt mode and you have a perfect viewing angle for typing or gaming. Flick the kickstand and rest it upright in Stand mode to comfortably watch videos, listen to music, or video-chat.
Display
The most immediately evident change to the upgraded Lenovo Yoga Tablet 10 is the increase of the screen resolution. Instead of a mere 1280 x 800 pixels, this tablet now has Full HD resolution, i.e. 1920 x 1200 pixels, increasing pixel density from a humble 149 ppi to a more pleasant 224 ppi. From a usual distance, individual pixels can no longer be spotted with the naked eye, and displayed items do not seem even slightly blurred, as the case was with the first Yoga Tablet 10.
The contrast has also been improved, so it is now above average for a mid-range tablet. Black tones are now exceptionally dark, but the white tones could be a bit less ‘dirty’, i.e. lighter. The colors are realistically interpreted and quite vivid, yet not overly saturated, which can often be the case (and which many users actually like) with more advanced tablets. However, contrast sustainability still has certain shortcomings, especially when the display is exposed to direct sunlight, while the viewing angle is satisfactory and relatively wide.
Thanks to a new active ambient lighting sensor, automatic display brightness adjustment has more balance than the previous Yoga Tablet 10 featured. We found that the brightness adjustment is sometimes not subtle enough with fast and large dips or spikes in brightness (delayed optimization) depending on the ambient light.
All in all, the display offers an experience similar to that of premium Android tablets, and it is one of the best of the mid-range 10-inch devices.
Software
Not much is different here from Lenovo’s other tablets and smartphones. Lenovo does seem to start building up its own ecosystem of apps and services that compliment its range of products. With built-in apps like SHAREit, SYNCit HD and SECUREit HD.
SHAREit provides file sharing on multiple devices (tablet, smartphone and PC), it’s Lenovo’s version of Apple’s Airdrop. The process gets a bit long when sharing with devices that don’t have SHAREit installed, but it’s still great because, unlike Airdrop, it does share with multiple platforms (Mac, PC, Android).
SYNCit allows you to sync your preferences and contacts with the cloud, easily retrieving them later on your new Lenovo device or laptop. To us, this is a bit redundant since Google Contacts provides the same functionality and is far more and better connected with Google’s other products.
The tablet also makes use of its 10″ real-estate by enabling a multi-window mode, allowing you to work on two apps at the same time.
Sound and Battery
Both deserve to be mentioned, but not big enough for their separate sections.
The Yoga Tablet 10 HD+ comes with a Dolby enhanced front speakers, giving deeper and more immersive sounds to your music and videos. The nice thing about this Dolby system, which has its own control panel, is that it is fully customizable and could be changed to accommodate the mode you’re using the tablet in (Hold, Tilt, Stand), all at a flick of a switch.
The battery is nothing short of outstanding. It’s safe to say that we’ve never experienced a battery that lasts this long on any device we’ve tested, ever! At the time of writing this review we logged 7 days and 5 hours of usage on the battery with 23% still left to go! Need we say more!
Performance
Let’s get some numbers and key specs out of the way. The Yoga Tablet 10 HD+ sports a Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 quad code 1.6GHz and a 2GB RAM. The unit we reviewed had 16GB of storage space, expandable via SD card slot. The tablet also supports SIM cards for cellular data connection.
The tablet scored 19363 on AnTuTu Benchmark test. Not too bad, but not as much as we’d hoped for it. It does fit well in its mid-range tablet category though, providing a smooth and streamlined experience throughout. We haven’t experienced any lagging or drop in performance even while running multiple apps in multi-screen mode. 3D games performed smoothly as well, but the quality of the graphics suffered a little as the game optimized its rendering to fit the processor’s capacity.
Wrap up
The Lenovo Yoga Tablet 10 HD+ is a well rounded tablet that delivers a lot more than what you pay for. At AED 1,499, it’s pretty much a steal. The tablet doesn’t exactly compete with the heavyweights out there like Samsung’s Pro tablet range and Apple’s iPads, but it’s not supposed to do so in the first place.
This is a mid-range tablet that is built to address all of an average users needs, delivering them in both style and decent power. The enhanced display resolution is a plus from last year’s model and the battery life is simply unparalleled.
If you’re looking for an affordable, mid-range tablet that has a quality build, versatile viewing modes, enhanced Dolby sound system and a killer battery, the Lenovo Yoga Tablet 10 HD+ is definitely the tablet of choice for you.
