Lenovo Yoga Tablet 8 Review

We’ll admit, we’re smitten by the affordable cost attached to the Lenovo Yoga Tablet 10 – more so when it proves to give us one of the longest lasting battery life on a tablet. Well, if that’s too much tablet for you to handle, there’s always its smaller sized sibling in the Lenovo Yoga Tablet 8. Sporting the same unconventional design and specs, it’s setting its eyes on attracting consumers who have a penchant for good things in small packages.

The package contains:

In a world of flat slates, it continues to be refreshing to see a tablet that takes an unconventional approach with its design. When it comes down to it, the Yoga Tablet 8 is simply a smaller sized version of its 10-inch sibling – so there’s nothing that separates them except for size and weight. Constructed out of polycarbonate plastic and aluminum alloy combination, it has an appealing visual contrast, seeing that the materials give it a clean finish. Additionally, it’s one solid thing to hold in the hand – despite being heavy towards the edge with its cylindrical handle. Out of everything, it’s just the compact size of the tablet that we adore so much, which makes it super easy to handle with a single hand.

Around its svelte edges, we find its volume control, microphone, microUSB port – while the ends of its cylindrical handle accommodate its 3.5mm headset jack and power button. Beneath the display, there are left/right speakers that feature Dolby Digital Plus enhancement. It’s in an odd position no doubt, but we have to constantly remind ourselves to not cover up the 5-megapixel auto-focus camera that’s built into one side of the cylindrical handle.

A rarity amongst tablets in general, there’s a sturdy and adjustable kickstand in the rear, which is constructed from aluminum alloy. Obviously, it gives the tablet its yoga-like abilities, seeing that it’s used to prop it up in a variety of ways. Even though there are rub feet on them, they only come in contact with the surface when it’s in “stand mode” – whereas with “tilt mode,” it slides around as we try to type.

Display

Keeping within budget, it’s packing along an 8-inch 1280 x 800 IPS display that’s effective enough for most things, but hardly the sharpest thing around the block with its 189 ppi pixel density. Despite that, it exhibits most of the pleasant qualities we’re familiar with IPS LCD displays – like its neutral color reproduction, average viewing angles, and a modest brightness output. However, it’s something that requires some shielding when it’s used outdoors with the sun presents. Like we said, for what it’s worth, it gets the job done, but it isn’t the most prevalent or astounding display we’ve seen.

Interface and Functionality

Just like its bigger sized sibling, the Lenovo Yoga Tablet 8 is running the same customized Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean experience. Now it’s funny how they’re approaching things, seeing that they’re trying to “simplify” the experience by removing the apps panel altogether. Unfortunately, it kind of backfires because it ends up being cluttered, as the icons littered throughout the homescreens interferes with the personalization aspect of the platform.

On the surface, the experience provides us all of the comforts we’re familiar with Android, like its slick notifications panel and quick multi-tasking. Adding to the homescreen experience is Lenovo’s smart side bar, which is a special menu that pops up in the homescreen when we swipe our finger towards the left, from the right bezel. Essentially, it merely offers us an alternative way of accessing some recently opened apps and other options.

Quite honestly, we didn’t expect to find anything extravagant with the customized experience, even more when they decided to do away with the apps panel. It’s not the most intuitive or features rich experience, but everyone has to start somewhere.

Due to its smaller size, we actually find it more challenging to type with this tablet. In portrait, the cylindrical handle makes it feel a bit awkward, but we’re still able to type with few mistakes. As for the landscape option, it’s cramped and the lack of rubber feet when it’s in “tilt mode” makes it slide around as we type.

Processor and Memory

Yet again, its low price point dictates the kind of processor it’s packing along for the ride. To be specific, it’s a quad-core 1.2GHz MediaTek MT8125 processor coupled with 1GB of RAM. It’s not something we’d refer to as first-class hardware, but nonetheless, it’s effective enough to handle most basic tasks with ease. However, it strains and cracks under pressure with more processor intensive stuff.

Advertised as having 16GB of internal storage, it equates to actually 12.87GB out of the box, which is a sufficient tally considering the price point and all. If that’s still not enough, it can be supplemented thanks to its microSD card slot.

Internet and Connectivity

Its performance might struggle at times with certain things, but when it comes to surfing the web, the tablet suffices enough to give us a tolerable experience. Heck, at the very least, it has all the elements that make it fantastic – such as quick page loads, fast rendering, and smooth navigational controls.

Even though there’s a placeholder to what appears to be a SIM slot next to the microSD slot, there’s no mention if we’ll see this tablet become available with cellular connectivity in the future. Instead, it’s stuck with 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi connectivity, as well as aGPS and Bluetooth 4.0, but it’s missing modern conveniences things like NFC and video-out functionality.

Camera

Thankfully, Lenovo didn’t tinker too much with the camera app, since it bears a good combination of shooting modes and manual controls to give both novice and hardened shutterbugs something to mess around with. Launching the app takes approximately 3 seconds, with another few seconds after that for the auto-focus to kick in and actually snap a shot.

Sadly, snapping photos isn’t one of the tablet’s strong attributes, since its quality is subpar. Essentially, it’s just the speckled details that it captures that detracts us the most, which doesn’t helped either when colors appear washed out and dull when lighting conditions are good. Worst yet is its low lighting performance, seeing that everything is further dulled out to the point of making photos just flat in overall appearance.


Sorry folks, things don’t get any better with the Lenovo Yoga Tablet 8’s high definition 1080p video recording quality – it’s just horrendous on all fronts! From its soft details, to the heavy artifacting elements that pop up when panning quickly, there’s nothing that can make up its poor quality. Well, the only good thing going for it is the clear audio recording it’s able to produce.



So what did we learn here? Overall, the tablet is just a lackluster when it comes to capturing the moment. Indeed, it’s nice that we’re presented with the option to do so, but we’d be quick to hesitate on going through using it because of the scary results it delivers!

Multimedia

Sticking with the usual Google Play Music app for all our music playing needs, it has all of the essentials that we’re normally accustomed to using. Even though it’s armed with dual front-firing speakers, their outputs are rather weak, which doesn’t help either when tones sound a tad bit flat.

Thankfully there isn’t a hitch when playing high-definition 1080p videos, seeing that they play back flawlessly. Better yet, it has a diverse support of video codecs out of the box – meaning, it can play things like DivX, H.264, MPEG-4, and XviD. Aiding the experience is Dolby Digital Plus audio for a subtle surround audio experience, and an enhanced multi-tasking experience by being able to layer a video on top of everything else we’re doing.

Battery

Without question, the Lenovo Yoga Tablet 8, much like its 10-inch sibling, is a champ when it comes to battery life. There’s just no comparison, as it blows away most of the 8-inch and under offerings that are out on the market right now. Specifically, its hefty sized 6000 mAh battery is able to pull out an impressive 13 hours, 23 minutes running our custom battery benchmark test. Putting it into a real-world situation, we’re able to achieve an amazing 2.5 days of normal usage – a tally that makes it a road warrior. All told, the Lenovo Yoga 8 has the reputation of having the best battery life in the sub 8-inch tablet category.

Conclusion

It’s not the most grandiose thing, nor is it specs heavy either, but despite that, the Lenovo Yoga Tablet 8 has a wonderful mixture that easily appeases consumers who want something decent to use on the road – and without spending a fortune! Blessed with a retail price point of $249.99, it easily undercuts many of its rivals in the affordable Android tablet space. Heck, it even gives the Google Nexus 7 a good run for its money.

However, power users might feel as though that the Lenovo Yoga Tablet 8 isn’t ample enough to handle their needs, which we tend to agree with. Certainly, the design is different and unique, a refreshing thing to see in a world of slates, but as we look into the software experience, we find some of its biggest opportunities. Unlike the stock and most up-to-date Android experience that’s running on the Google Nexus 7, Lenovo’s customized Android experience follows a similar premise by simplifying things – though, the result isn’t quite as transparent from a user’s standpoint.

Regardless of that, the low price point alone lends to give the tablet a huge amount of value. And we can’t forget to mention that it literally blows away the competition when it comes to battery life. When it all comes down to it, consumers can grow to appreciate the tablet, as long as they can tolerate and make use of its bland software experience.

Software version of reviewed unit:
Android version: 4.2.2
Build number: B8000_A422_026_130919_WW-WIFI
Kernel version: 3.4.5