Thinner and lighter than air, the Apple MacBook kind, Lenovo's upcoming Yoga 900S made it's debut at CES 2016 in Las Vegas this week.
The transforming and folding Yoga 900S wasn't alone. It was accompanied by the 15-inch and 17-inch versions of the ideapad 700, the 13-inch ideapad 710S and the 17-inch ideapad Y900. It's just that it stood out from the other high-end laptops Lenovo unveiled to kick off the latest CES.
Specs And Features
The 12-inch Yoga 900S weighs about half a pound less than the 2.38-pound 13-inch MacBook Air. And with its 2,560 x 1,440 resolution, the Yoga 900S has a higher pixel count than the 1,440 x 900 MacBook Air.
The Yoga 900S, which runs on Windows 10, delivers up to 10.5 of hours of video playback. That's enough juice to travel between Las Vegas and London on a single charge, according to Lenovo.
With its 360-degree "watchband" hinge, the Yoga 900S can swing back and forth between being a laptop and a tablet. Along with enabling the Yoga 900S to shapeshift, that watchband hinge also helps give the laplet its lightweight build, according to Kevin Beck, PC competitive analyst for Lenovo.
"There is an incredible amount of design and engineering that went into inventing this attractive little feature," says Beck. "While its design may look simple, the engineering behind it definitely is not. In fact, it took years to innovate and continually refine the YOGA 900S hinge to what it is today."
That "attractive little feature" is composed of 813 parts that include caps, hinge cells, gear sets, rivets and brackets. Those parts work in concert to give the laplet its four points of articulation: tablet, tent, stand and laptop position.
"We needed something that would be able to rotate 360 degrees, while also able to lie flat when closed or in tablet mode," adds Beck. "So our team experimented with bicycle chains, tank treads and more before finally deciding on the perfect design inspiration that satisfied both the designers and engineers for a balance of form and function: the watch band."
And of course, without the watchband hinge, the Yoga 900S wouldn't be what Lenovo describes it to be: the world's thinnest convertible notebook.
The WORLD'S THINNEST convertible notebook. Introducing, the YOGA 900S #LenovoCES @intel https://t.co/eBKOS0sggc pic.twitter.com/wrQnhqzGT6
— Lenovo (@lenovo) January 5, 2016
The flexible hinge allows for the screen and keyboard to close in on each other, leaving no space between them at 12.8 mm or 0.5 inch, which is slightly thinner than the MacBook Air's 0.68-inch height.
Pricing And Release Date
The Lenovo Yoga 900S starts at $1,099 when it launches this March. That's roughly half the price of the gamer-centric 17-inch ideapad Y900, which is set for a June 2016 release.
That price point puts it $100 below the starting price for the 13-inch MacBook Air and about $300 over the cost of the 11-inch version of the Apple laptop.
For those looking for a high-end Windows laptop for a bit less than Lenovo's asking price for the Yoga 900S, the company also announced the new 15- and 17-inch ideapad 700 laptop. Just don't expect to do any folding tricks with a watchband or something.
Future Proof
The refreshed Lenovo lineup was built to withstand the wilds of the near future, which can render useless a product that wasn't thought out enough. To build future proof machines, Lenovo focuses on "real people with real computing needs," according to Johnson Jia, senior vice president, PC Business Group, Lenovo.
"We recognize the pain points and constantly refine and innovate to create ever lighter, faster and more powerful devices that combine technical prowess and striking design to re-imagine computing experiences," says Jia.
