If you liked the look of Lenovo’s Halo keyboard from the Yoga Book but found the $500 price point a little high, the Yoga A12 tablet appears to be an affordable alternative.
At 12.2 inches, the newly announced Yoga A12 is slightly larger than the 10.1-inch Yoga Book, which was introduced last fall. Like the Yoga Book, it runs Android and features the futuristic-looking Halo keyboard. The keyboard doesn’t have any raised keys — it’s flat and offers haptic feedback on touch. It also adapts to your typing habits like the keyboards on most smartphones, thanks to built-in prediction and artificial learning software.
The Halo keyboard on the Yoga A12 does not support the same stylus features as the Yoga Book — there’s no pen or digitizer pad.
The Yoga A12 boasts an “HD” display, which means it has a 1,280 x 800 pixel resolution. It packs 32GB of internal storage, but unfortunately only comes with 2GB of RAM. All of this is powered by the Intel Atom X5 processor, which should be powerful enough to handle most tasks on Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow.
A 10,500mAh battery life is claimed to keep the tablet running for 13 hours, though we’ll have to test those claims.
Lenovo’s A12 uses a modified “multitasking hybrid UI” that makes Android a little more productive on a larger, tablet-size screen. It’s unclear when or if this device will be upgraded to Android 7.1.1 Nougat.
The device can be flipped like the Yoga Book, thanks to the 360-degree hinge. It comes in grey and rose gold, and Lenovo says it will be available for purchase on February 8 on the company’s website. The Yoga A12 starts at $300.
Two new highly requested iCloud plugins just got added to ChatGPT, giving people who rely on Apple’s Mail and Calendar services a way to search emails, check appointments, and manage their schedules directly through the chatbot.
The integration is rolling out to all ChatGPT plans, including the free tier. You can access it on the web, desktop, and iOS.
Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.
Samsung’s scandal over its Game Optimizing Service, or GOS, has returned with a bill attached. South Korea’s Fair Trade Commission has tentatively fined the company 20.1 billion won, or about $15.1 million, over gaming claims made for the Galaxy S21, Galaxy S22, and Tab S8.
The regulator says Samsung promoted the devices as gaming powerhouses without disclosing that GOS placed preset CPU and GPU limits on certain demanding games. Samsung disputes that conclusion, calling GOS a legitimate way to manage heat.