There has been a lot of talk about Lenovo’s “Pocket Yoga”, which closely resembles the form factor of the Sony VAIO P series (or rather, the VAIO P resembles it). In the words of Lenovo, it’s the smallest pocket notebook. The photo(s) were from two years ago.
Over at Design Matters, one of Lenovo’s official blogs, Johnson Li, who is the Director of Lenovo’s Beijing Inovation Center, has spoken about the concept product from Lenovo that was leaked out.
Note: If you are curious to see several images from the Pocket Yoga concept design, Lenovo has posted photos on the Lenovo Photo Library at flickr. Yes, there is a photo of it in somebody’s back pocket.
Li mentions what created the hoopla:
Last week some buzz was created by a photograph that someone snuck out of our Beijing design studio. The picture was of a pocket-sized PC we developed about two years ago, well before the current netbook craze and the introduction of a similar form factor by one of our competitors. Since the design has been shown in public in the past and received some attention, I thought it might be of some interest to discuss the design inspiration and share some photos and drawings of the device.
We in Lenovo’s Beijing design center refer to this concept as the “Pocket Yoga,†an extension of an award winning design we’ve shown in public based on a folding concept inspired by the practice of yoga by one of our New Zealand-based designers. The full Yoga concept was a folding notebook with a detachable keyboard. The system unit was covered in leather.
The use of leather is interesting – Li says that it can “transform a cold, plastic or metal machine into something warm and considerate, transforming it into something friendlier and more like a trusted and valued possession. Always there, always waiting.”
He also considered the “soft hinge” design that has three different modes, to be one of the major innovations. It allows the touchscreen display to rotate all the way over to lay flat, and turns the device into a Tablet PC.
Read: Design Matters (LenovoBlogs.com)