IFA 2013: Various brands

Lenovo Vibe X hands-on

Lenovo brought the Vibe X - an Android 4.2 phone with a slim, 6.9mm body. That's the same thickness as Lenovo's bigger K900 and while it's not the thinnest we've handled, it still pretty impressive.

Lenovo Vibe X

It felt quite light too, we wouldn't have given it 121g. We also liked the build of the phone - again, it's not the best we've held, but definitely among the better ones. The back is made of polycarbonate that's good to the touch with a grippy grooved pattern.

The camera on the back is a 13MP shooter with an LED flash. The camera can record 1080p video.

The back is made of nice polycarbonate and holds the 13MP camera and LED flash

The glossy metallic accent on the back is a strip that circles the entire phone body. The sides of the phone hold the power button on the left, volume rocker and microSIM card slot on the right, microUSB port and mic at the bottom and 3.5mm audio jack on top.

The sides of the Lenovo Vibe X

The 5" IPS LCD screen has 1080p resolution (that's 441ppi) and fairly good image quality. The screen is protected by Gorilla Glass 3 with beveled edges. The Lenovo Vibe X has three capacitive buttons under the screen.

Above the screen is a wide angle 84° 5MP camera.

Lenovo Vibe X has a 5" IPS LCD screen with 1080p resolution

The phone runs Android 4.2 with Lenovo customizations on a Mediatek MT6589T chipset - that means a quad-core Cortex-A7 processor at 1.5GHz and PowerVR Series5XT GPU. It's okay in terms of speed, but the interface wasn't entirely smooth.

The phone will come with 16GB or 32GB of built-in storage, there's no microSD card slot.

Here's a quick hands-on video with the Lenovo Vibe X:

Lenovo S5000 hands-on

The Lenovo S5000 has practically the same design as the Vibe X with the metallic strip that encircles the device, the patterned polycarbonate back and the glass-covered screen (well, without the capacitive buttons).

The S5000 is not as thin as the Vibe X but it's still pretty slim for a tablet, measuring a millimeter more (7.9mm). Its weight is more impressive - 246g or just over twice the weight of the Vibe X. The build quality is nice, practically the same as the phone's.

The Lenovo S5000 shares its design with the Vibe X

The 7" screen is an IPS LCD again, but of WXGA resolution (1280 x 800). It's not as good as the phone's screen - noticeably less sharp and quite reflective too. Lenovo says the screen puts out 350nits of brightness, but that wasn't enough to compensate for the reflections. The company is silent on what sort of screen protection they've employed, if any.

The Lenovo S5000 has a 7" IPS LCD screen

The Lenovo S5000 runs Android 4.2 with the same software customizations as the Vibe X. It's powered by a similar Mediatek chipset (MTK8389) with a quad-core Cortex-A7 processor at 1.2GHz and PowerVR Series5XT GPU. Despite the lower resolution of the screen, we still felt some minor lag.

The camera on the back of the tablet is a 5MP shooter and the one at the front is 1.6MP.

The 5MP camera on the back

The positioning of the controls is slightly different from the one on the phone - the power button and volume rocker share the left side (the right side is bare). The 3.5mm audio jack is still on top and the microUSB port on the bottom. This port supports USB OTG.

Power button and volume rocker • 3.5mm audio jack on top

The tablet has 16GB of built-in storage, expandable via a microSD card slot. The 3G version of the tablet will also have a slot for a SIM card. That version supports 3G HSPA+ data connectivity but can also do voice calls.

The Lenovo S5000 has a 3,450mAh battery, official numbers say it lasts 8 hours when browsing the web over Wi-Fi or 6 hours if you're watching HD videos.

The S5000 is priced to undercut the Nexus 7 (2013) by €30 / £20 for the respective Wi-Fi only versions. It is thinner and lighter, plus it has expandable storage, but the Nexus has a clearly superior chipset and sharper screen (1920 x 1200), a current Android version (and timely updates in the future) and optional LTE, so Lenovo is facing an uphill battle with the S5000 unless they go for a much cheaper price.

Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro hands-on

We're fans of the original Yoga so we were excited to get our hands on the sequel, the Yoga 2 Pro. Lenovo has certainly improved several aspects of its convertible ultrabook.

Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro in laptop mode

To start off, the Yoga 2 Pro is thinner and lighter - it now measures just 15.5mm thick and weighs 1.39kg, compared to the 17.1mm and 1.49kg of the old model.

The 13" screen got a boost as well - it now has the whopping 3,200 x 1,800 resolution (up from 1,600 x 900) and the pixel density has gone up to tablet-grade 276ppi. The screen is an IPS LCD for great viewing angles and puts out 350nits of brightness but it was even more reflective than the S5000's screen (we had a tough time photographing it).

Yoga 2 Pad in tablet mode

Anyway, the capacitive touchscreen can detect up to 10 fingers and is vital for Yoga 2 Pro's main trick. The ultrabook gets its name because of its flexibility - it can be used as a laptop, a tablet and in "stand" and "tent" modes (actually the Lenovo had set up the stand mode wrong, it's supposed to look like this).

All the modes of Yoga 2 Pro

There's not much to say about laptop mode - it's a touch-enabled Windows 8 laptop. Stand and tent modes are good for watching videos and using the Yoga as a compact all-in-one.

Laptop mode, tablet mode • tent mode (screen side) • tent mode (keyboard side)

The tablet mode is what sets the Yoga line apart - bend the screen all the way back and the Yoga 2 Pro becomes a proper Windows 8 tablet. The keyboard gets disabled. Feeling the keys at the bottom is not ideal but not a deal-breaker either. This is a sturdier alternative to the detachable screen form factor that is gaining in popularity.

Despite making the Yoga even thinner, Lenovo has kept the full size USB 3.0 and microHDMI ports next to a card reader. There's an additional USB port on the other side (but it's just USB 2.0) along with a 3.5mm audio jack, a volume rocker and a screen rotation lock key.

Ports on the side of the Yoga 2 Pro

The Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro is powered by a fourth-gen Intel Core i7 ULT processor (Haswell), runs Windows 8.1, packs up to 512GB SSD and has a backlit QWERTY keyboard.

Backlit keyboard with roomy touchpad