Awardee: Ben Ho
Semester of Award: Fall 2016
Materials Awarded: Lenovo Yogabook for Windows ($376 on Amazon)
Project Description:
Used for classroom presentations. The Lenovo yogabook is a tablet that runs full windows and has a unique built in Wacom writing surface that works with the included digitizer pen (so super accurate). The digitizer pen also has an ink tip so that you can place a piece of paper on the surface, and it will automatically recognize whatever is written.
Runs Windows surprisingly well for a tablet, so Office works fine. Mostly used for in class powerpoint presentations where I could draw graphs into the slides and then students could download the annotated slides afterward.
It’s a nice alternative to the iPad Pro which most people currently use since it runs regular Windows, and it is much cheaper ($376 vs close to $1000). https://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-Yoga-Book-Processor-ZA150000US/dp/B01M6W1LET
It would also work well for making video lectures since it has a camera, and the writing surface is separate from the screen so you don’t cover up the screen with your hand while writing.
It takes a little getting used to writing on a separate surface from the screen, but it is not too bad. There is a setting in Windows that lets you see where the pen tip is on the screen when you are just hovering over it. Most graphic designers draw in this way. I got used to it after a few minutes.
You can write directly on the screen (since it is a touch screen). It works ok but it is less than ideal. It is less accurate than writing on the wacom surface.
You can also type on the writing surface. You can make a touch keyboard light up like in Star Trek. But this like all touchscreens is awkward to type on. I use a $50 folding Microsoft bluetooth Keyboard when I need to type.
There is an android version as well, but I didn’t try that. I suspect there is less software support for android tablets though.
Windows tablet support is not bad. It doesn’t have a lot of software support and is a little fiddly. But it runs all my regular windows programs. So when I needed to demonstrate my stats software in class, it did that perfectly as well. I mostly just used Powerpoint and that worked great.
One other limitation is that it only had a micro USB port and a micro HDMI port for video so you will likely need adapters.
