Lenovo Yoga Tablet 10 review

CHIPSET

Inside the Lenovo Yoga Tablet 10 is a modest MediaTek quad-core chipset running at 1.2GHz. This is based around the older ARM Cortex A7 architecture, so it’s not going to compete with the latest offerings from Qualcomm or Samsung. That said, it’s not problematic either, Android 4.2 ran smoothly on it with no major hiccups. It is the same chipset as in the Asus MemoPad HD 7, though, which costs just £130, so while it may be capable you certainly aren’t getting a top-end specification here.

It did perform admirably in our tests though with practically the same scores as its younger sibling. Browsing ticked along at a respectable 1,354ms and it was quick enough in 3D to run the current crop of 3D games smoothly. That, however, is due to a lack of ambition from Android games developers, there’s simply nothing to push the latest devices, and its scores in benchmarks were merely mediocre.

Battery life was anything but though, with an excellent 12 hours and six minutes. That’s about two hours more than more than any other 10in Android tablet we’ve seen. It’s no doubt down to the whopping 9,000mAh battery inside, which will keep you browsing all day long.

There’s the usual poor 5-megapixel camera, we don’t know who takes photos with a tablet, but these poor cameras really should put them off. The front-mounted camera is good enough for video chat and the like, but nothing more.

It’s just as good looking from the side, though it’s not all metal

ANDROID

Lenovo has taken the brave move of messing with the Android operating system. It’s gone for an iPad-style design with no app tray and each icon on the screen representing the application itself, rather than merely a shortcut to it. If you don’t have a lot of apps installed it’s not a bad thing, as it keeps stuff simple and makes it easy to uninstall things you don’t need. For those who like to have tons of apps installed at once, it simple makes a mess of your home screens unless you’re very careful.

Android has been dumbed down, though some will prefer it this way

A more clear cut problem is the lack of multiple user support on the device. It’s based around Android 4.2, and the vanilla version allows for multiple user accounts with their own home screens, apps, email accounts and the like. It’s great to be able to share the tablet and still have all your own stuff just where you want it. It’s also one of Android’s major advantages over the iPad. We can see it’s simpler to leave it out, but we’d much rather it had been included.

CONCLUSION

The Lenovo Yoga Tablet 10 is the kind of device that will split opinion. It puts a clever and practical design, a long battery life and a stylish appearance above a high specification. It has a dumbed down version of Android, that first-time users might like, but which lacks multiple user support.

If you value the physical design and immediate ease-of-use over technical potential and long-term flexibility then this is a great buy. While those who are keener to get to grips with everything Android has to offer should hold out for the next iteration of the Google Nexus 10. It’s not for everyone then but this is still a great device at an attractive price.