Lenovo has been offering convertible notebooks under its Yoga brand for a few years. Thanks to a 360 degree hinge and touchscreen display, you can fold the screen all the way back and use a Yoga PC like a tablet.

But the new 10.1 inch Lenovo Yoga Book takes things even further. Instead of a physical keyboard, it has a pad that can be used as a “halo keyboard” with virtual keys shown when you need them, or as a blank slate that you can use to draw or write notes on using a pen.

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Lenovo is unveiling the Yoga Book at the IFA show in Berlin this week, where the company is demonstrating how the “halo keyboard” with can provide haptic feedback: the device vibrates a bit when you press a key, but there’s no actual travel because there’s no actual… key.

It’s not quite the same as the physical sensation of feeling the keys move down when you press them, but it should help you make sure you’re touching the right section of the keyboard when you’re not looking down at your hands.

yoga book_02Turn off the keyboard and the space becomes a graphic tablet. You can use a digital pen that comes with the Yoga Book for drawing without having to place the pen on the color display, where your hand could obscure what you’re looking at.

The  pad surface is also a little rougher than the touchscreen, so you’ll feel more friction as you write or draw.

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Lenovo also lets you use the surface for one more thing: you can place a piece of paper on top of the pad and write notes on paper. The Yoga Book will save a digital copy of your paper notes as you write.

The Yoga Book isn’t the first paper-to-digital copying device, but Lenovo’s version doesn’t require any special type of paper and the stylus doesn’t need to be recharged.

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Lenovo will offer two versions of the Yoga Book: an Android model price at $499 and up, and a Windows version that starts at $549.

As you might guess from those prices, the Yoga Book is powered by an Intel Atom x5 low-power processor rather than a higher-performance chip. It has 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage.

Photo credit: John Everington
Photo credit: John Everington

But the convertible notebook/tablet/thing has a few premium features. The price includes a pen that uses Wacom technology and which does not require recharging.

The tablet has a full HD display. And it weighs just 1.5 pounds and measures 0.38 inches thick.

Lenovo says the Yoga Book should get up to 15 hours of battery life.

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