Lenovo Yoga Book preview: The keyless laptop from the future has landed

It’s rare that a product could be called revolutionary in its thinking, but that’s certainly an accolade that could be awarded to the Lenovo Yoga Book. For this 10.1-inch convertible is about as far removed from a laptop as we’ve seen, while still, essentially, being one.

To explain: the Lenovo Yoga Book has a keyboard without physical keys. It learns your hand positioning over time to compensate for typing mistakes. It even offers predictive word completion, much like a smartphone’s predictive text.

It also comes with a physical stylus that can be used for handwriting or drawing directly onto the would-be keyboard panel – or, using the pen nib, you can write on real paper with a pad positioned above the would-be keyboard and this input is mirrored in digital form. That’s thanks to the EMR writing surface.

So the Lenovo Yoga Book is like Wacom tablet meets laptop, meets tablet, meets the future. The Yoga Book is, indeed, without compare.

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It’s also incredibly difficult to use as a laptop. The typing experience, with its limited haptic feedback, feels like a shot in the dark on first try. And second. And beyond. But, equally, it’s so compelling as a concept that we want to be locked in a room with this device for a couple of hours to adapt to its nature and see how that typing experience evolves. Maybe we’ll never get it and want to throw it out the window. But for kids who’ve not been used to full size keyboards for many years, it could potentially be an ideal starting point.

Besides, the Yoga Book isn’t precisely a laptop either. Your word rate is going to be lower on this for writing a novel, but for notes, sharing and digital backup it makes a lot of sense for productivity’s sake. It’s a marriage of ideas that is that rare thing in tech: original.

It’s also the world’s thinnest convertible, at just 9.6mm thick when shut closed. And its 690g weight makes it not much heavier than most tablets. That a product three years in the works can be created so thin is a testament to Lenovo’s design team – just look at that slender edge (the screen side is a mere 4mm).

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However, it lacks some of the mod cons: there’s no USB Type-C for example, instead it’s built on microUSB 3.0. Which is fine, but seems a little out of date. The Intel Atom x64 processor on board isn’t the most spritely either, but that’s the payoff for a device so small and light.

Operating system is a user choice: the Yoga Book comes in Android (£449) or Windows (£549) forms, putting the choice in your hands. Android is version 6.0, with moderate tweaks – a task bar and multi-app window support (up to four) – to make for better multi-tasking. Still, with that lightweight hardware, the 8500mAh battery is said to last for as long as 15-hours per charge – again, ideal for productivity’s sake.

Given that many Yoga products with the high-grade 3-axis hinge come in at a much higher price point makes the Yoga Book a compelling proposition, albeit one that’s tricky to grasp.

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We’re in a world of love and hate right now. The Yoga Book is one of the most exciting tech products we’ve seen in some time; it’s the laptop reinvented. And also one of the hardest things we’ve ever used to type on – at first, anyway.