In a world fraught with jelly and terrorists who post on Facebook about their day, one man will do something blah blah blah….OK, the introduction to this is in no way going to be as good as the title.

(Meanwhile back in reality sting) Earlier in the year, I had decided to take the plunge further into what the cool kids do and purchase a tablet, in this case, the Lenovo Yoga 10.

This had prompted writing in one of the few posts that materialised on the web site earlier this year about the device in question, given that there in fact wasn’t much in terms of any real world usage about Lenovo’s quirky thing with the fat arse you used to make it stand up.

The few reviews that were out if you were to read up about it, suffered from a good number of problems, but within the usage from my own poor hands, a good few got fixed with a massive update to the entire operating system which made it a hell of a lot better.

But while the software got a hell of a lot better and the battery life was superb for the price paid, the hardware itself was still limiting in a big way. A lower res screen where despite producing good images for video, you still got see pixelation even when reading porn purchased from Amazon that you could read without anyone judging. A number of applications refused to run at all for one reason or another.

Now, we have a new contender in the ring; The Lenovo Yoga 2 (Explosions and rock music sold separately) and this is a real life review type thing. All professional and sh*t.

Before and after, just like those home makeover shows…

Now I know what you’re thinking; “Paul you manly stallion among men!”, I hear you cry (while you were thinking silently too, look, just don’t question it) “You purchased a tablet a mere few months ago and now you have this thing? What the what man? I thought we were bros and ting?”

Well yes, this on the face of it appears to be a stupid thing to do, especially given the situation at present where I work at night in alleys making people feel good to pay for drugs, but at the time, there was again a fairly good offer for a recent release.

Lenovo will refund the VAT paid on the device if purchased between a particular time, and also, selling the old tablet brings back a lot of the cost, which is good as this is the 32GB version with the underpants of a quad core Intel chipset instead which at the moment, brand new, does go for £280. Eep.

So why go for this above another device and why so soon? And why 32GB above the standard 16GB which comes with most tablets these days?

Well frankly the below screenshot will tell you….

Xcom, Xcom, you’re my xcom….

One of the worst things about tablet reviews is the fact they overlook certain things such as how it will perform with some of the higher end game releases, such as in this case, the complete conversion of 2K Games’ Xcom Enemy Unknown.

When I had the Yoga 10, and was denied being able to p*ss away more of my life on something which brought endless joy until it ended on PC, I was gutted.

Other games like Zen Pinball and the Walking Dead ran OK, but the poor resolution screen really let the side down and then the occasional stutter would cause you to miss a key moment and make you want to make Lenovo pay the iron price. (Sorry, I am now mid way through the third series of Game of Thrones…)

A tablet’s gaming performance is not on the list of priorities for most, but if you do pay a fairly hefty price for something which hopefully you will have for a good while, you want to see what it can do. Thankfully, this new tablet has been massively helped from the intel chipset and it now just seems to run anything at speed, and the 2GB of Ram as helped in this area too. When holding it for a while you can tell where the processor is as the bottom left is where it heats up the most, but it’s not to the point where you will worry. Maybe….possibly….err…..

The perfect sandwich making companion (well we weren’t going to do the toilet photo were we?)

Back to the main reasons you have a tablet in the first place, the playback of movies stolen from the internet while making sandwiches, with playback from Netflix and Youtube all are pretty damn good, slightly enhanced over the original Yoga 10 for sure thanks to the increased true HD resolution of the screen, but in all honesty, the video playback was well done on the Yoga 10 to begin with so your mileage may vary on you were to really notice with that.

Reading and blinding yourself with reading crap is certainly better to do, given you don’t notice the blurry nature of the text from the previous version so that is also welcome. But the back of the Yoga 2 does beg attention as on the unit I received, the back plastic pops in when you’re holding it and basically makes it feel like cheap tat you’re holding, despite the stand being metal and completely sturdy as well. The stand now comes with a silly hole where you can hook it up now and hang it upside down. No idea why but it’s there if you want.

Machine hate human, machine will break us….

The touching (oooh you naughty thing) of the screen, was pretty responsive, more it appeared than the Yoga 10, and there were moments where I was able to touch type into a chat window with the keyboard, which is interesting to say the least. A proper keyboard is always better but this was pretty good in terms of responding to what I wanted to interact with.

Now then, Lenovo, we’ve got to have a bit of a chat now about your software. Tsk, tsk….where did your mother and I go wrong with you?

You seem to always release something which is all so close to just being great to run everything from Android despite the fact you ripped off the IOS interface, but it seems that there is always something that makes us wish you could be given a slap for being a bad baby.

The Yoga 2 occasionally stops programs dead for no real reason except perhaps it’s own sick twisted pleasure.

At present the BT Sport App (which about 12 people use) will pretty much stop playback and refuse to do anything, and occasionally with other applications such as the Wolf Among Us, you just end of back at the main screen and you wonder if you suffered a stroke and missed things. If their track record is to go by, it will probably get fixed with that Lollipop thing from Google comes out, but of course again this is another area where your mileage may vary.

The battery life was one of the best things truly about the Yoga 10. When they said 18 hours, you got about 15, which in itself was a remarkable achievement despite the bulky bit at the bottom which as they doubled as a stand you instantly forgave. With the Yoga 2, not so sure as it’s early days. The battery life does appear to be less than before, particularly if you play a lot of video but it does still last a long time for other things as it did before.

In all honesty, it will take some time to confirm how often it would need a recharge, but in the face of things, the better specifications have had an impact on the 18 hour battery claim.

The big reason for going for the more expensive 32GB built in memory option instead of the 16GB is a change Google made where for most things out the box, you can only install on the internal memory now.

That may change in future but for now in the next version of Android (subject to the apps supporting the new way they allow to do it) but given you would want to stick with a machine for a good while, you will be better off paying for the extra internal storage. With all the games and apps that I could finally install, along with the Amazon Music store content, I only had 7GB left by that point. Of course uninstalling is always an option but I’m glad the worry is not as present.

All in all, the tablet is an excellent step forward, with the great ability to run pretty much anything available, and it seems to be more ready for developments further down the line. The good hardware is let down by the frankly crap quality of the back plastic and the software crashing / weird behaviour needs to be addressed.

But Lenovo seems to be on the better track now with their tablets, and if you really want it, there will be a full Windows 8.1 version of this tablet soon too, but again, you will need to be mindful of the storage limitations there.

Or you could go eat some cake and forget about all this.