MacBook Air 2016 vs. Lenovo Yoga Book: Battle of Specs and Touch Keyboards; Features and Price Details Compared

Are Touch Keyboards the Future of Computing Technology?

By Christian Ver Marcelo, CP Contributor Thursday, September 01, 2016

Technologies that previously seemed too far-out have now come to reality. There's no better way to describe Lenovo Yoga Book's new input system other than being futuristic. As new innovations continue to challenge the established benchmarks, how will the rumored 2016 Macbook Air stack up against the Lenovo 2-in-1?

Display

The display of the Yoga Book is nothing spectacular, topping at Full HD with a resolution of 1920 x 1200, the 10.1-inch display with IPS touchscreen could surely use an upgrade. The display brightness goes up to only about 400 nits, covering a color gamut of only 70 percent.

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The 2016 Macbook Air is rumored to pack a Retina Display. The current 13.3-inch iteration has a resolution of 1440 x 900 pixels, but should be bumped up to 2304 x 1440 come the new iteration. This LED-backlit monitor follows suit with the current standard of the latest Macbook lineup.

Hardware

Lenovo's Yoga Book is one of the thinnest laptops ever made, clocking in at a mere 10mm of thickness. This fares well with the Macbook Air, whose 2016 version is supposedly thinner. The magnesium and aluminum construction of the Yoga Book is built for sturdiness despite its thin profile, as is the 2016 Macbook Air.

Blazing fast next generation SSDs are expected to be seen on the new Macbook Air, with Fusion Drive hybrid support still on the mix. This trumps the Yoga Book's 64GB storage option, expandable via a microSD card. Also, in line with the latest Macbook, the Macbook Air 2016 will get a versatile USB Type-C port, whereas the Yoga Book has the full arsenal of a microUSB port, mini-HDMI, and a headphone jack.

The internals of the Macbook Air 2016 will most likely be the Intel Skylake chipset with i5 processor. This has a very capable performance, effectively outdoing the Intel X5 processor of Lenovo's Yoga Book. Inside both devices is 4GB of RAM, which should be expandable for the Macbook Air 2016. However, what makes the Lenovo Yoga Book a 2-in-1 is its ability to be converted into a full-pledged tablet upon rotating its monitor 360-degrees.

Futuristic Keyboard Technology

The Lenovo Yoga Book's main feature is its touch keyboard. The physical keyboard has been converted into a flat, LED-backlit blank surface slate with matte finish, which Lenovo dubs as the Halo keyboard. It offers a typing experience similar to that of a tablet. Rumors are rich pointing out to the possibility that the Macbook Air 2016 is also going to adopt the feature.

Turning the keyboard off on the Yoga Book would allow the user to utilize the included pen and stylus. The surface can detect up to 2048 pressure levels and up to 100-degrees of angle. The pen can also be used to write on normal paper, with the content simultaneously transferred to the Yoga Book.

Software

The Macbook Air 2016 is slated to run the new macOS Sierra. This is Apple's latest iteration of their laptop operating system. The Yoga Book, on the other hand, comes with two variants—an Android Marshmallow and a Windows 10 version—both of which being Apple's software rivals.