8 Unique Features Of The Lenovo Yoga Tablet 2 Pro

Yoga Tablet 2 Pro

In the arena of pure tablets, the Lenovo Yoga Tablet 2 Pro is the new king of the hill. Its 13.3-inch quad-HD display has more than an inch on the Samsung Galaxy Note Pro 12, and it's packed with other great features that we believe will make it the must-have tablet of 2015. Here are eight unique features of the Yoga Tablet 2 Pro not found everywhere else.

Hanger Stand

Praise the tablet Gods: Lenovo's latest comes with a stand. Arms get tired just thinking about sitting through an entire movie while holding a 2-pound piece of plate-glass. Press a button on the back of the Yoga 2 and its innovative aluminum stand pops out and seizes in any position along its 180-degree axis. It can prop the tablet upright for movie watching, prop up one end while laying the screen mostly flat for document editing, web surfing or gaming, and it can rotate to a position parallel with the screen and act as a hanger. The stand's hole serves another purpose; click next to find out what it is.

Sound

If, like us, you've been waiting for a tablet with three speakers, then the Yoga 2 is the tablet for you. And because of its bulbous lower edge, its two front-facing speakers can be larger than most other tablet speakers and, therefore, better at doing their job. That third speaker -- made by JBL-- faces rearward and is responsible for generating the Yoga 2's great bass response. It's positioned along the lower edge of the unit's rear panel and remains exposed when the stand is closed thanks to the carry hole. The machining here is superb. And the quality from this 8-watt sound system turns external speakers from must-have to don't need.

Intel Inside

While ARM-based SoCs remain the dominant tablet platform, Intel is catching up quickly as it continues to refine its ultra low-power SoCs. In its elegant, new tablet, Lenovo chose to build around the Intel Atom Z3745, a quad-core, quad-thread 1.33GHz SoC with Intel HD Graphics that draws about 2 watts. The unit also includes 2 GB of LPDDR3 memory and 32 GB of storage with as much as 64 GB more added via microSD card. A 9600 mAh Lithium battery is rated to deliver 15 hours of continuous usage.

Controls

After several years now using Android, we've thought about numerous ways to improve it. Lenovo has too. For example, we've wondered why the name of the currently connected Wi-Fi access point isn't displayed right on the Wi-Fi control button. Lenovo's done that. And we've wondered why a screenshot requires some whacky combination of button presses when a simple button would do. Done. We've also wanted a tablet with a built-in projector. Lenovo's done that too. It wasn't really our idea, but it is fairly awesome. Click next to learn why.

Projector

A tablet with ... what? This idea is so simple and so brilliant, we're surprised it hasn't been done before now. Pointing out the right-hand side of that bulbous base is the lens of a pico projector, which sends a mirrored image of what's on the 2,560-x-1,440 IPS screen. A dedicated power button turns the projector on and off, as do several software controls. Setting the projector about 10 feet away from a white wall in a completely darkened room yielded a perfectly presentable picture that was about 50 inches across. There's a slider near the lens for physically adjusting the focus, and a keystone correction function in the Projection Settings panel.

Multitasking

Lenovo now has the ability to display multiple applications on the screen simultaneously. When the feature is active, a mutliwindow button appears along with traditional soft buttons for Back, Home and Recent. Pressing it brings up an editable menu of apps available for multitasking. Our 2-GB test unit was able to add three resizeable floating windows atop a fourth app before being warned that the system was running low on memory. Incidentally, tapping on that warning "broomed" away the floating windows, presumably freeing up memory.

Smart Switch

The unique stand on the Yoga 2 permits four ways to position the tablet, and a Lenovo feature called Smart Switch activates a picture and sound profile for each. When set to stand upright, screen brightness is set to full and Dolby sound is set to movie mode, with the subwoofer enabled and volume at about three quarters. In tilt mode, which lays the slab flat and tilts it up at one end, the "matt" screen setting warms the color temperature with a yellowish tone.

Competitive Pricing

The Lenovo Yoga Tablet 2 Pro is a beautifully engineered product that we would be proud to carry around, prop up or project images from. It's got the usual array of sensors and wireless capabilities, 8 MP and 1.6 MP cameras and runs Android KitKat 4.4.2 with numerous Lenovo enhancements. At a starting list of $469, Yoga 2's price is well in line with the competition, however technologically distant they might be. This is a tablet that the CRN Test Center recommends with confidence.