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Lenovo’s new Yoga Book replaces the keyboard with an E Ink screen

theverge.com

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Re: Lenovo’s new Yoga Book replaces the keyboard with an E Ink screen

#71

Post by JansjoFromIkea »

hultner wrote: post #60
dmos62 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Dasung's Paperlike monitors are a bit expensive. Onyx Boox Max2 [0] seems a bit more recent, slightly larger, has many more features, including usage as an exterior monitor through HDMI. It's an android-based ereader, with extensive note-taking, drawing, pen writing, music sheet drawing features. It's also cheaper $500+, compared to Paperlike's $900+. I'm not a fan of bloat, which is where Max2 might be leaning,…

Wow a HDMI input is so great, I've been looking for a tablet with something like that in order to make it double as extra monitor on the go. Tried duet with the iPad but it isn't good enough over lightning with video compression and such.

I was doing this with a Nook HD+ (still a pretty good deal second hand as a 9 inch HD screen if you see one cheap) and TwomonUSB a few years ago. Not the most stable software in the world but it worked well enough as a second screen (hot reloading webpage and terminal stuff on it, code on my main screen)

Re: Lenovo’s new Yoga Book replaces the keyboard with an E Ink screen

#72

Post by JansjoFromIkea »

hultner wrote: post #57
simias wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My only personal experience with e-ink displays is from my almost decade old Kindle and that was way too slow to be usable interactively for anything complex. Has the state of the art improved to the point that coding on a e-ink display is viable? What about color? Regarding TFA typing on a flat surface sounds painful, at this point you effectively have a tablet-style keyboard. That being said I'm a keyboard snob who…

See my comment about hacked Nooks, they're both really cheap and looks super fast. In general newer e-ink displays can render new content without refreshing the entire screen like in the early days. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17885138

I wouldn't say they're super fast but a $20 Nook Glowlight is an absolute steal if you want to get someone a starter eReader. Load it up with a few books and they're off.

Not too hard to get the kindle store running on it iirc, never bothered though.

Re: Lenovo’s new Yoga Book replaces the keyboard with an E Ink screen

#73

Post by CmdrKrool »

mmjaa wrote: post #14

I think this has a lot of potential to be a revolutionary product segment for musicians, for example. So much great music software is out there, literally impeded by not having such a great input mechanism - with something like a reconfigurable keyboard area, it means many different kinds of (musical) user interaction may be defined in the near future .. an interface for mixing, a drum-pad, complex synthesis models r…

"The display can’t show any arbitrary app, unfortunately. You can read and mark up PDFs with it, but that’s pretty much the extent of what you can put on the display."

Sounds like one loses the ergonomics of a keyboard but doesn't gain the full potential of a display. It's hard to see who this product is aimed at.

Re: Lenovo’s new Yoga Book replaces the keyboard with an E Ink screen

#74

Post by laurentMiguel »

torgoguys wrote: post #34
laurentMiguel wrote: post #4

I'm still consistently enraged at trackpads without physically distinct left and right buttons. No one does them right. Not even Apple.

>No one does them right. Not even Apple. Not even Apple? That made me laugh. As best I can recall, Apple is to blame for no one having them. Apple introduced no buttons on their models and other manufacturers followed. Since this article is about a Lenovo laptop, I'll point out that some Lenovo laptops (typically the big ones) still have physical left and right buttons for the trackpad. (I prefer their TrackPoint poi…

  I'll point out that some Lenovo laptops 
  (typically the big ones) still have 
  physical left and right buttons for 
  the trackpad.
Yes, I am well aware, and I absolutely love them for it.

Re: Lenovo’s new Yoga Book replaces the keyboard with an E Ink screen

#75

Post by laurentMiguel »

have_faith wrote: post #9
laurentMiguel wrote: post #4

I'm still consistently enraged at trackpads without physically distinct left and right buttons. No one does them right. Not even Apple.

I always turn on 'tap to click' on my trackpad so you can tap anywhere to click, and two finger tap to right click. I haven't missed physical buttons since getting used to this. Is there a particular use case that the physical buttons are better for? I can imagine gaming at least.

  Is there a particular use case that the 
  physical buttons are better for?
EVERYTHING.

Every time I need to create a new folder. Every time I need to copy and paste. Every time I need to see additional information about a file. Every time I need to inspect an element on a web page. Every time I need to move something off my desktop. Every time I want to open in a new window.

Every time I want to do ANYTHING involving a right-click for a context menu WHICH IS ALLLLLLLLLL THE TIMMMMMMMMME.

Tap-to-click, and two-finger context click, are both unacceptable. They result in accidental clicks, and accidental context menus on scroll. Adding any gestures to most track pads results in accidental gestures, and chained combinations of unintended actions. I turn them off.

Re: Lenovo’s new Yoga Book replaces the keyboard with an E Ink screen

#76

Post by kjullien »

Bought the last generation of this on a whim, used it maybe an hour since then.

Nothing about this is convenient except if your workflow involves you constantly changing keyboard layout for some reason.

A lot of products like this one already exist and do things better, MS Surface, iPad Pro etc.

I don't really understand what niche this fits in except for impulse buyers like myself.

edit: also on last gen there was no way to store the stylus, so I ended up losing it in a week or so. Feels like a pretty big oversight honestly, a problem that could be avoided with a simple pair of magnets.

Re: Lenovo’s new Yoga Book replaces the keyboard with an E Ink screen

#77

Post by api »

My speculation for a while is that the touch bar on the Mac is a foot in the door toward eventually replacing the entire bottom surface of the Mac with a haptic virtual keyboard.

If it's done very very well it could be awesome: durable, reconfigurable, what's not to love? It would take getting used to but I can't see it being that bad. But it must be done incredibly well or it will suck.

Edit: For prolonged work I would always much prefer a real keyboard, but for that I have a USB Das Keyboard. When using the laptop on the go I'm less picky and more interested in other things too like durability.

Re: Lenovo’s new Yoga Book replaces the keyboard with an E Ink screen

#78

Post by wilsonnb3 »

mmjaa wrote: post #14

I think this has a lot of potential to be a revolutionary product segment for musicians, for example. So much great music software is out there, literally impeded by not having such a great input mechanism - with something like a reconfigurable keyboard area, it means many different kinds of (musical) user interaction may be defined in the near future .. an interface for mixing, a drum-pad, complex synthesis models r…

I don't really see the use case for a reconfigurable keyboard area for musicians in a world where a quality midi controller can be bought for $99.

Knobs, drum pads, faders, and keys will always be better a reconfigurable touch pad for music.

Re: Lenovo’s new Yoga Book replaces the keyboard with an E Ink screen

#79

Post by Joeri »

amelius wrote: post #47
_carl_jung wrote: post #2

I'd like to see a laptop with an e-ink display I can code on. That way I can go and sit in the sun.

I want an e-ink display on which I can read scientific papers. Sadly, this isn't possible unless the whole paper fits on the screen, because scrolling on e-ink quickly becomes a real chore due to the refresh rate.

In the article's video review they demonstrate showing a pdf nearly full size on the e-ink screen when it's folded over into tablet mode.

Re: Lenovo’s new Yoga Book replaces the keyboard with an E Ink screen

#80

Post by LanceH »

Seanny123 wrote: post #54
dbingham wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about the Remarkable ( https://remarkable.com/ )? It's both got a larger screen and it's supposed to have a vastly improved refresh rate. I haven't tried it, but I'm really really curious about it.

It's beautiful hardware matched with absolutely horrid software. It's Android 4.0, which means literally nothing works. They've tried to fix it with custom apps, but I still can't achieve a decent work-flow and there's no community to make it better. It's actually the worst.

I read books with it and it's wonderful.
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