Lenovo YOGA Tablet 2 10-inch Review
Software and User Experience
When you power on the YOGA Tablet 2, you’ll notice Lenovo placed its own custom skin on top of Android 4.4.2 KitKat. This skin includes features such as the Bottom Switch which can be accessed by sliding your finger up from the bottom of the screen. The Bottom Switch provides quick access to various controls including Wi-Fi, sleep settings, Bluetooth controls, and more.
There are three default Home screens on the YOGA Tablet 2. At the base of each of these Home screens, you’ll find a Google folder containing various Google apps, as well as icons for Chrome, Gallery, Camera, Contacts, and the Play Store. You can customize this bottom row of icons as you see fit. You can also add addition Home screens for a total of 18 home screens.
The YOGA Tablet 2 doesn’t use the same folder system as the YOGA Tablet 2 Pro. Instead, the second default Home screen contains various pre-installed apps. On the third default home screen, you’ll see a few more apps that come installed on the tablet as well as any apps you choose to install. You can drag an icon on top of another icon to create custom folders.
Some of the pre-installed apps on both tablets include Security HD, SYNCit HD, SHAREit, and CLONEit. Security HD is designed to help you speed up the tablet by closing unused applications, block ads, manage apps, and more. With SYNCit HD, you can sign up for a Lenovo ID account to back up your contacts to the cloud or back up contacts to an external card. SHAREit is designed to make sharing music, movies, and photos with other devices that are also running SHAREit quick and easy. CLONEit is designed to help users copy information, applications, contacts, and system settings to a new device.
There are a number of other applications already installed on the YOGA Tablet 2 as well including Gamestore, Kingsoft Office, Skype, Lenovo eFrame, a File Browser, User Guide, Amazon Kindle, and Evernote.
One software addition we wish Lenovo would have included with the YOGA Tablet 2 is an app that lets you use this tablet as a second monitor for your PC. Apps that provide this functionality are available for a small fee on the Play Store, but having this functionality out of the box would have been nice.
The screen found on the YOGA Tablet 2 is large enough for multitasking. Thankfully, Lenovo has included a MultiWindow function that lets you open three predefined apps in three separate windows. The apps that work with Lenovo’s MultiWindow function include Email, Gallery, Chrome, File Browser, Calculator, and Video. You can move and resize the open MultiWindow apps as you see fit.
