I’ve had some time with a production sample of the Lenovo Yoga 710 and while I can’t bring you a full review there’s a lot I can tell you about it. The Yoga 710 is an 11.6-inch ultramobile Windows convertible (laptop-style with 360-degree hinge) running on a Core M CPU. Bloggers had unlimited access to it at CeBIT earlier this month and were able to draw a lot of conclusions. Here’s my summary review.

The Lenovo Yoga 710 is incredibly slick, has a great screen and the keyboard is working very well, at least for me. It’s Macbook-like for sure but not quite the fasion-piece and it’s likely to be offered at a lower price, according to reports.  For me it’s one of the most important subnotebooks of the year.

Note: All information here based on the pre-production sample shown at CeBIT.

The Acer Cloudbook 11 CB3-111-C670 Windows 10 laptop is available at a price of just $169. If you want the more sensible 32 GB version you’re still only looking at $189. For a laptop that runs a new Braswell processor and weighs just 2.54 pounds you can’t ignore it. So I didn’t, as I passed through the Acer booth at IFA 2015. I was particularly interested in testing the keyboard.

Acer Cloudbook 11. How’s that keyboard?

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[Europe-focus] If you’re looking closely at the super-cheap Medion S2218 that’s being offered in Aldi in the UK / Ireland today (next week in many mainland EU countries) you’ll want to just check through this – an updating post including reviews and feedback that you need to read before buying.

Update: Mini ‘day 1’ review available at the end of this article.

Medion Akoya S2218 (MD99595)

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This is very interesting news if you’re interested in a touch-enabled convertible Chromebook. The Acer C738T has been leaked. It indicates a another step towards a Chrome OS tablet. This is an entry-level 11.6 inch offering but a 4G option makes this particularly interesting for those that want to go mobile with their Chromebooks.

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I was working at CeBIT with Mobilegeeks on their Techlounge product last week. If you haven’t heard of them it’s because they’re big in German but not so big in English. I’ll explain more in another post but it meant that my focus was on creating videos (with the talented German, Rob Vegas) that would fill-in between the live sessions. In all we created around 25 videos in German and English and it was interesting to take a look at stuff I don’t normally look at. Curved monitors, for example. More interesting for me though were five Core M-based products that tell me one thing – Core M will move into the low-cost market.

Core M is built for low-cost. Its small die means, when yields are good enough, it’s cheap to produce but initial products, as always, tend to be a little more costly. Did you take a look at that Macbook yet? More mainstream are the Acer Switch 12 (reviewed here) and the UX305 which, at $699-$799 represent good value 2014-era Ultrabook performance without fans. But prices will drop further…

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The Acer Aspire E11 (ES1 in some areas) is one of a new-wave of 200-euro / dollar Windows netbooks entering the market as both a response to low-cost Chromebooks and  part of a continuing drive to cut the cost of entry-level laptops. It’s made possible by a low-cost Intel System on Chip and tight motherboard integration, low-cost storage and the removal of the fan. Just 32GB of SSD storage is offered so there are some limits to how you can use the ES1. Look at it as a cloud-computer though (100GB of free One Drive is included) and it’s easy to see how it might fit into schools, bedrooms and living rooms in many houses across the world. The Acer Es1 can boot Linux too so if you feel like trying  XBMC , Tails, Ubuntu or other distros, you can. A full unboxing and test video is embedded below, after my words on the first 48 hours with the Acer Aspire E11 ES1-111M.

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The Lenovo N20p has been in use since it arrived nearly 2 months ago and looks likely to stay that way. Why? Because it’s the perfect round-the-house mini laptop, has great battery life and is, importantly, more fun and stable than other budget devices. If you like the idea of a touch-enabled convertible read on because this is a full review of the Lenovo N20p convertible Chromebook.

Update: 2020 – still in use. Update 2022 – No longer in use. (Out of support – security risk.)

The 11-inch  Samsung Chromebook 2 update is official in the USA. Samsung have a product page (videos too) and  reviews from some big tech websites are already out there.  This upgrade from Samsung’s Exynos ARM-architecture CPU uses the Intel Celeron N2840, brings AC WiFI and gives you a free software pack. It costs $250 and looks like it could be very popular in Q4. It’s still fanless, still has the 30Wh battery inside and the design remains the same.

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