Lenovo Android A12: Budget Alternative Yoga Book, Ditches Windows 10; But Will It Compare To Chromebook?

Lenovo debuts a Yoga Book notebook that seeks to rival that of the popular Acer’s Chromebook.

ZDNet said the Lenovo Yoga A12 appears to be an amalgamation of the Yoga Book tablet and a laptop, retailing at USD299. The Yoga A12 comes in a slimmer design reminiscent of the tablet, along with a touch-screen keyboard that comes with haptic feedback and adapts a user’s typing habit over time. It has a 12.2-inch display with a 360-degree hinges, enabling the user to switch from laptop use to slate use for watching streaming shows or videos, to upright display for work mode.

But what’s lacking with this notebook is the Windows 10 option available on the Yoga tablet. However, Lenovo said the company opted for an Android ecosystem is because they wanted to offer an alternative to users whose first computing experience is on an Android phone or tablet.

“We found a segment of users who grew up with Android as their first-ever computing experience—either on their family tablet or a personal smartphone. This held especially true in emerging markets. For these users, Android and productivity weren’t mutually exclusive—the smartphone or tablet experience can be seamlessly extended to the personal computer,” the company blog post read.

But its comparison to Chromebook ends there. MS Power User reported that the Android ecosystem does not offer some productivity features that are offered on a Window 10 ecosystem. Moreover, the hardware features are minimal for someone who wishes to do remote work.

“For $299, you get a 12.2-inch HD screen, the Intel Atom x5 processor, only 2GB of RAM and only two Dolby Atmos speakers. The device also comes with 32GB of internal storage and promises to offer up to 13 hours of battery life on one charge....[But] 2GB RAM on an Android tablet likely won’t offer the ideal experience for productivity,” Mehedi Hassan for the site said.