What's Hot: Very attractive, unique cylindrical battery housing with rotating stand built-in.
Pleasing IPS full HD display, decent speed. Affordable price.
What's Not: We're not fans of Lenovo's custom UI, the tablet ships with Android 4.4 KitKat rather than 5.0.
Reviewed February 11, 2015 by Lisa Gade, Editor
in Chief (twitter: @lisagade)
You don't have to spend a lot to get a nice 8" Android tablet. Take the Lenovo Yoga Tablet 2 with its stylish and unique design, solid upper midrange specs and a 1920 x 1200 IPS display. Lenovo Android tablets have been distinctly low to mid-range and that's changed with the second generation Yoga (not to be confused with Lenovo's Yoga Windows convertible laptops). The Yoga Tablet 2 is available in 8, 10 and 13.3" models in both Android and Windows 8.1 flavors, all with similar specs. We've reviewed the 13" Android model (which adds "Pro" to the name) and the 13" Yoga Tablet 2 with Windows, and this time we're focusing on the popular 8" size with Android.
The Yoga Tablet 2 has a distinctive and practical design element: a cylindrical area that allows for a big 6400 mAh battery without making the tablet thicker. It sits at the base in landscape mode and provides a handhold and comfortable center of gravity. When held in portrait mode, it feels like a magazine with some of the pages folded back. A rotating metal stand flips out from the back and mounts to the cylindrical section, and you can stand the tablet at a variety of angles or even hang it on a wall (there's a cutout in the stand for this purpose). The stand is rigid enough that you can tap the tablet's glass very energetically and it won't fall or bounce, but it's not too hard to move as desired. The high capacity battery translates into a solid 9-10 hours of actual use time, which is good for an 8" tablet. The silver tablet (Android models are silver and Windows models are black) looks good enough to count as modern decor in your kitchen or study. The front is glass and the rear at first blush looks like metal though it's plastic. The tablet is quite thin and despite the high capacity battery weighs a reasonable 0.92 pounds. Lenovo certainly did an excellent job with looks and practical design. There's no need for an accessory stand unless you need one for portrait mode where the built in stand is of no use.
The front facing stereo speakers are surprisingly loud and full for a small tablet. Lenovo describes them as "large chambered", and we can only assume they're not kidding. The tablet has Wolfson Master HiFi audio processing and Dolby surround sound. For ports it has the usual 3.5mm combo audio jack, micro USB for charging/data transfer/USB host and a microSD card slot.
Android 4.4 KitKat
Lenovo hasn't often offered major version OS updates for their past Android tablets, but the majority of their previous models have been lower end, and those are often neglected by manufacturers when it comes to OS upgrades. Still, we don't expect anything here, so if you're keen on getting Android 5.0 Lollipop, this might not be the tablet for you. Lenovo customizes the UI with their own launcher, and though it's newbie-friendly, it's not one of our favorites. It has a somewhat standard main home screen, and a sideways swipe takes you to the application palette rather than further home screens. For those who don't like this, I suggest installing a third party launcher like Nova. Lenovo offers a small set of apps that can run in floating windows for a taste of multitasking. It's not as fancy as Samsung's TouchWiz, nor does it support as wide a variety of applications, but it's certainly better than nothing. The tablet has enough horsepower to support multi-window multitasking without lagging.
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Lenovo Yoga Tablet 2 8" Video Review
Horsepower and Performance
The tablet runs on the quad core 1.33 GHz Intel Atom Z3745, a Bay Trail family CPU we've seen in Android and Windows tablets. Android 4.4 KitKat plays nicely with the Atom, and performance is good. It's not as fast as the top of the line Snapdragon CPUs used in more expensive tablets, but it does decently well compared to the Snapdragon 801 and sits well above the Snapdragon 400 used in some budget smartphones and tablets. It's fast enough to play current 3D games and it multitasks well. The tablet has Intel HD graphics, 2 gigs of DDR3L RAM and 16 gigs of internal storage. There's a microSD card slot to augment storage capabilities. While it might achieve only 75-80% of the top Snapdragon and Exynos CPU benchmark scores, those CPUs offer more power than many of us need.
The IPS display is sharp and bright, and the 1920 x 1200 resolution is more than adequate for a tablet this small. No, it doesn't have the breathtaking AMOLED colors of the Dell Venue 8 7000 or Samsung Galaxy Tab S 8.4, but those are the best tablet displays on the market and those models cost $400. The Yoga Tablet 2's display looks as good as some premium tablets that cost $300, and colors are pleasingly saturated. Nice job, Lenovo!
The Yoga Tablet 2 has dual band WiFi 802.11n that performed well in our tests. It has Bluetooth 4.0 as well, but lacks NFC and there's currently no 3G/4G LTE option in the US, though you can use your phone's mobile hotspot or a MiFi if you need a connection beyond a WiFi hotspot. The tablet has a respectable rear 8 megapixel camera with BSI and an f/2.2 lens. It can't compete with the better camera phones on the market, but as tablet cameras go, it's not bad at all. It can record 1080p video without much blockiness or noise, but you'll need to hold it still to avoid jittery footage since there's no image stabilization (nor would we expect that feature on a tablet at this price range). The front 1.6MP camera is adequate for video chat and selfies.
Conclusion
As you might guess, we think the Lenovo Yoga Tablet 2 8 inch is a very attractive tablet for $229, with good performance, solid build quality and a lovely full HD display. The integrated stand is brilliant as is the barrel hinge that allows for a relatively large battery. It's comfortable to use in hand and on the desk and it looks darned good too. We're not keen on Lenovo's launcher software, that's easily remedied with a third party app. We're not sure if the tablet will get Android 5.0 Lollipop, and for tech enthusiasts, that's more of a concern.
Display:8" IPS screen. Resolution:
1920 x 1200. Has ambient light sensor and accelerometer.
Battery:6400 mAh Lithium
Ion Polymer rechargeable. Battery is not user replaceable.
Performance:Quad core 64 bit 1.33 GHz Intel Atom Z3745 (with boost up to 1.86 GHz). 2 gigs DDRL3 RAM, 16 gigs internal storage.
Size:8.5
x 5.9 x 0.1-0.3 inches. Weight: 0.92 pounds.
Camera:1.6MP front camera, rear 8MP camera with BSI and f/2.2 lens that can shoot 1080p video.
Audio:Built
in stereo speakers, mic and 3.5mm standard stereo headphone/mic
jack.
Networking:Integrated
dual band WiFi 802.11b/g/n and Bluetooth 4.0.
Software:Android 4.4 KitKat with Lenovo UI. Standard suite of Google Android applications including web browser, email, gmail, YouTube, Maps, Google Now and the Google Play Stores.
Expansion:1
SDHC microSD card slot, USB OTG (requires USB host cable adapter).
