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Rise of the Yoga-likes: The best hybrid design goes mainstream

Laptops and hybrids with foldback hinges, similar to Lenovo's Yoga, are all the rage.

Dan Ackerman
Dan Ackerman leads CNET's coverage of computers and gaming hardware. A New York native and former radio DJ, he's also a regular TV talking head and the author of "The Tetris Effect" (Hachette/PublicAffairs), a non-fiction gaming and business history book that has earned rave reviews from the New York Times, Fortune, LA Review of Books, and many other publications. "Upends the standard Silicon Valley, Steve Jobs/Mark Zuckerberg technology-creation myth... the story shines." -- The New York Times
Dan Ackerman
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A Yoga (or yoga-like) for everyone

Lenovo's Yoga laptop/tablet hybrid is the closest thing PC design has had to a eureka moment in years. The 360-degree fold-back hinge allowed for a workable part-time tablet experience while keeping the all-important laptop shape intact. It's not surprising, then, that other PC makers would follow suit, with similar designs coming from Dell, HP, Toshiba, and others. Here's a brief survey of what we call "yoga-likes" for everyone.

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2 of 7 Sarah Tew/CNET

Dell XPS 11

Unlike the Yoga line, where the keyboard, while deactivated, is still clacking around under your fingers in tablet mode, the XPS 11 tries a different tack. In this case, the keyboard is actually almost entirely flat, with no moving parts.

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3 of 7 Sarah Tew/CNET

Dell Inspiron 11

We recently got a chance to get our hands on this upcoming 11-inch system and gave it a brief test drive. In the hand, it feels solidly built, especially considering the low price, thanks to its part-aluminum body (even if it's on the thick side) and stiff-but-flexible hinge.

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4 of 7 Sarah Tew/CNET

HP Pavilion x360

HP's pitch for the Pavilion x360 is a little different than Lenovo's for the high-end, premium-priced Yoga, which starts at around $1,000. Instead, HP's version starts at $399, which means it runs Intel Pentium chips, rather than the more mainstream Core i-series CPUs (although that's honestly fine for an 11-inch laptop).

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5 of 7 Sarah Tew/CNET

Toshiba Satellite Radius

The difference here is that instead of an 11-inch or 13-inch laptop screen, Toshiba is taking the idea bigger, into a 15.6-inch laptop. The basic idea is still the same: fold the hinge back -- Toshiba calls it a flip-and-fold design -- and use the system as a thick, heavy tablet, or prop up the screen for easy viewing without the keyboard getting in the way.

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6 of 7 Sarah Tew/CNET

Lenovo ThinkPad 11e

Even Lenovo is getting in on the act, creating a series of Yoga spinoffs. One upcoming set is a pair of 11-inch models with the Yoga hinge, one with Windows 8, but the other with Google's Chrome OS. These will cost between $350 and $550, and are initially targeted at the educational market.

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7 of 7 Sarah Tew/CNET

The real deal: Lenovo's Yoga 2 Pro

Of course, the current Yoga flagship is still worth a look as well. The 13-inch Yoga 2 Pro starts at $1,099 for a Core i5 configuration, plus a special feature none of the Yoga-likes have -- a better-than-HD 3,200x1,800 display. (A standard HD-resolution version, called the Yoga 2, starts at $999 for a 13-inch model, and $449 for an 11-inch lower-res version.) Read all the latest Lenovo laptop and hybrid reviews here.

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