Lenovo Yoga is a Windows 8 laptop tablet hybrid

Lenovo's new Yoga concept is a Windows 8 laptop that folds back on itself to become a tablet. If you're struggling to decide between a laptop and a tablet, it may be the answer to your prayers.

Calling a laptop the Yoga may seem pretty ridiculous, but at least it makes sense -- this thing is as flexible as any lycra-loving Bikram bunny. The lid not only opens up, but keeps on going, folding back on itself. The laptop's screen then becomes a touchscreen, turning the Yoga into a tablet.

We've seen similar folding mechanisms before and we've often been put off by the build quality of the hinges, but Lenovo reckons this new effort has been rigorously tested and doesn't add the same bulk previous machines suffered from.

The whole thing is around 17mm thick, which isn't quite as svelte as some of the sleek new ultrabooks that have been appearing at CES, but it's far from chunky and should still make it fairly usable as a tablet as well as a laptop. But at 1.5kg, you're unlikely to want to hold it up in tablet mode for too long.

The Yoga is set to ship with Windows 8, which brings many tablet-like elements such as chunky homescreen icons and live tiles. We're pretty excited to see just how Windows 8 operates on a tablet, although it's likely to put off more dedicated desktop PC users.

The 13-inch screen has a 1,600x900-pixel resolution -- pretty average, but it offers 10-point capacitive touch for all the swiping, poking fun you could want. When you fold it round, the keyboard remains exposed underneath, so you'll have to make sure you're not too rough with it. Thankfully, the edge is raised slightly to protect the keys if you place it on a flat surface.

Inside you'll find Intel's latest Ivy Bridge Core-series processors with up to 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD. The base price in the US is expected to be at the $1,200 mark (around £775), though there's no firm price for this top configuration as of yet.

We're quite chuffed to see manufacturers working on better, more convenient ways of combining tablet and laptop functionality. At this point however, we don't think we'd choose this type of compromise over the tablet and dock system offered by the Asus Transformer Prime. We're welcoming the chance to have our minds changed when we get our hands on one later in the year.

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