Originally published at: Lenovo's Yoga Book 9i, a foldable laptop no-one expected | Boing Boing
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At roughly $2k, its price was not unexpected.
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Speaking of trenchcoats, it looks like Penny’s computer book from inspector gadget.
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I wanted her computer so bad when I was a kid.
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I can see the most common incident requiring repair being closing the dual screens when you have the physical keyboard mounted on the bottom one.
Crunch.
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Yeah - they need a ‘sandwich mode’ hinge.
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i think it’s pretty telling that in all the reviews they don’t show it folded. as cool as an idea as it is, when you fold it up it’s a thick laptop AND a separate keyboard case. Not sure how practical that is. I bet 90% of the time when not at home people are going to be using one screen as a keyboard. at that point might as well have the real keyboard and one screen.
If you’re using it a home well it’s a lot easier and cheaper to get a monitor and a better keyboard.
I think this product is squarely in the “damn that looks cool” but no one will ever use the use case they imagine it for
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Lenovo’s laptop hinges suck donkey doo. How do I know this. Hm. Hm. I have a Lenovo ideapad 330. After about 14 months of use (warranty… caput), operation of the right corner hinge would cause the laptop case at that location to spread apart and worsen each time the laptop was opened. The fix cost ~$250 and required that the entire base be replaced. The repairperson informed me that the design of the new base appeared to be identical to the old base. Same problematic design. Great. Just great.
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Intriguing! Now do one w a Mac!
I have to check out this ‘soundbar hinge’ sounds interesting.
Doesn’t have to have some huge bendable foldable screen - that’s what hinges are for.
IBM had laptop hinge problems even before Lenovo acquired their laptop and PC business. Early in my IT career when I bought and configured laptops for new employees (1998-2000, I think), there was one generation of IBM Thinkpad (390X or 390ZX, I think) where the hinges just gave out after a year or two. They certainly gave out on mine, and I did nothing more than open it twice a day.
Everybody literally returned that model in a bag–they just fell apart after a while.
In the ten years or so that I used Thinkpads, it did seem like they alternated between good and crap. The model we were giving out before the 390s was extremely well built and we were using some of those in the lab ten years later as console servers (380D, I think).
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What happens when function suffers for the sake of form, I guess.
I learned about the IBM laptop’s problems when researching my Ideapad. My backup is an old Type 1836 Thinkpad and its hinges are bank vault-solid reliable compared to the ones in my Ideapad 330.
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