Lenovo’s all-new Yoga Book is a tablet cum sketch-pad

Tablet days are long gone, but tech companies believe, there is still an untapped segment that could be leveraged. Lenovo, known for playing and toying with computing, has announced the all-new Yoga Book, which is much more than a tablet-laptop hybrid and a direct competitor to Microsoft’s Surface Book.

The Yoga Book, a 10.1-inch laptop-tablet hybrid that comes with either Android Marshmallow or Windows 10, has no keyboard. None at all, in the first glance. In fact, it’s "bottom" half, attached via Lenovo's signature 360-degree watchband hinge, is a touch-sensitive surface powered by Wacom.

Weighing 1.52 pounds, the Yoga Book is a giant touchpad, which lends a flat surface with the outline of keys. You'll definitely need practice (and may be auto-correction software) to crack the typing accuracy.

What Lenovo calls "Create Pad", can also be your canvas. Tap a button to the top right of the keyboard and the outlines disappear, leaving you with a blank canvas. Lenovo adapted Android 6.0 Marshmallow to automatically start recording your doodles in the company's default note-taking app once you put the stylus, to the touchpad.

When you start writing, a small window pops up on the bottom right of the screen and captures your scrawls.

Lenovo is also bringing the old-school experience. With a little finesse and jiggling of the stylus' nib with the included pen cap, you can pull out the nib and replace it with an ink cartridge to make a "real pen". You can also place a paper on the Create Pad, whatever you scrawl there will also show up in the Yoga Book.

As mentioned above, there are two variants getting released in October. The first runs on Android Marshmallow for Rs $499, which is also heavily customized. With note-taking capabilities built in, the software has also been altered to act more like a desktop. Without making any essential changes, Windows 10 version comes at a price of $549.

Both versions of the tablet have the same specs, including a 10/1-inch 1920 x 1200 display, 4GB of RAM, and 64GB of storage.

With a metal casing and slim silhouette, the Yoga Book comes with an Intel Atom x5 processor and has a generous 8500mAh battery that should last for up to 15 hours of general use.

The company also unveiled a thin Yoga 910 convertible laptop, which has a full-sized physical keyboard and bends all the way around to become a 14-inch tablet.