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Lenovo's Yoga Tablet 2: Willing to Take Design Risks
If we look past the media hype behind Lenovo's Yoga Tablet 2 supposedly being "engineered" by Ashton Kutcher, what we have appears to be a very interesting device. As with Samsung's experimental interface designs, I'm happy to see Lenovo challenge the incumbent device—Apple's iPad, obviously—by differentiating themselves through some unique design efforts. By building in a kickstand, adding something like real speakers, dropping in a pico projector and using a cylinder to break the "glass rectangle" form factor while providing some much-needed ergonomics, Lenovo has demonstrated they're willing to take risks and break with convention.
It is of course ironic that Kutcher played the famously focus-group-averse Steve Jobs in Jobs and is now conducting focus groups for an Apple competitor, but if this video is uncooked, it seems they actually got some useful feedback that directly informed the Yoga Tablet 2's design:
So, anti-celebrity snickering aside, what do you all actually think of the design? Pluses and minuses of the bulge? If the projector eventually becomes up-to-snuff (I'm cynically imagining the first-gen will be too dim), do you think that'll become a feature on all tablets? And why don't other tablet manufacturers—or for that matter, phablet and smartphone designers—seem to consider that we humans actually have to hold the things?
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That being said I just picked up my keyboard and held it the way they are holding this tablet, and it's surprisingly comfortable. (Don't worry no one could see me.) I look forward to trying one of these. And I suspect Ashton is not as vapid as many suspect.
Apple envisions the iPad as a magic portal — a minimal, essentially disappearing window through which we will be able to see, well, nearly everything. Photos, airplane flight manuals, hospital x-rays, relatives across the world, the entire internet. Apple's ultimate vision is for the hardware to disappear, leaving nothing but the magic window. I think it's remarkable how close Apple has come so far.
Lenovo has no particular vision; they just want something that sells fairly well in the iPad's "tablet" space. They see their tablet as maybe a tool for business people who go from meeting to meeting doing powerpoint presentations. The pico projector reminds business purchasing agents that presentations are a primary purpose, even though the projector is too weak itself to actually make those presentations … not to mention the awkwardness of trying to run a presentation while the pad is sideways and precariously propped up at one end. And apparently they hope that it will sell fairly well as an "entertainment device" to young photogenic focus-group types. Who, um, want to take photos with a giant tablet, and listen to music through tiny speakers instead of through headphones? Riiiiight. They can legitimately boast that it's a bit more pragmatic than an iPad — it can stand up, and it has a lump to hold onto, like many cameras. Their vision is different, very prosaic and limited, and I think they succeed in their goals pretty well.
Apple envisions magic … and then comes as close as current technology and design ingenuity allows. Lenovo's vision is to create an improved buggy whip. Nothing wrong with improved buggy whips. But they aren't magic.
As to anti-celebrity snark: actually, I think Ashton Kutcher does a really good job here. Regardless of whatever silly title they give him. If it takes celebrity to convince the bosses to do things right, good on him.
low-angle prop, comfy grip, room for other features
+ Kickstand:
More stable than many, hang tab
+ Real speakers, that face forward.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
- The bulge:
It ain't flat. Makes many people squirm for some reason.
- PICO projector:
Still too dim to be truly useful on battery-powered devices.
Unknowns that will have a HUGE bearing on success or failure:
* Software / UI
* Touchscreen responsiveness
* Overall quality of feel (though Lenovo have a great record)
With that said, the projector seems gimmicky to me. I'm not sure how often people would use it and it doesn't seem to have proper adjustment.
However, the fact that it took an outsider to get there just cements the fact that a lot of the companies in tech are risk adverse and bet on cutting their margin to low ball everyone rather than try something different and gain by innovating. I think the PC industry slowly killed itself by trying to make cheaper devices rather than better ones. They painted themselves in a corner by making the PC a commodity. Heck, it took Microsoft to jump in the hardware arena and make the Surface to finally get someone other than Apple to build a computer to a higher standard.
A tablet with a USB port and a simple interface to view, add, or remove files from a USB flash drive would make these much more convienient. Is it that hard to incorporate a USB port in these things, or would the software required to read these files (jpeg,pdf,mp3,mp4,etc.) be too large? Would somebody with background in this field please explain.