Jared Newman / TIME.com

It was nearly a year ago that Lenovo showed off the Yoga, its first crack at a convertible Windows 8 laptop. The finished product was pretty good when it launched 10 months later, but its 13-inch touchscreen was a bit too unwieldy when flipped around to tablet mode.

At this years Consumer Electronics Show, Lenovo is showing off a follow-up: the IdeaPad Yoga 11S, with a smaller 11.6-inch, 1366-by-768 resolution display. Like the original IdeaPad Yoga 13, this machine runs a full version of Windows 8, with support for all existing desktop apps. (Another 11-inch IdeaPad Yoga launched late last year with Windows RT, which can only install tablet-optimized apps from Microsofts own store.)

Just like the existing Yogas, the Yoga 11S has a touchscreen that folds completely around into a tablet (with its keys resting a bit awkwardly on the underside). Lenovo likes to say there are actually four modes in one, because users can stand the clamshell up on its two edges like a tent, or prop the screen up from tablet mode so its facing forward. Though I didnt get much time to play with the Yoga 11S, I think the smaller screen will make it more manageable as a tablet.

Jared Newman / TIME.com

The Yoga 11S will also be one of the first devices to use Intels Ivy Bridge Y series processors, which draw less power than current Ivy Bridge chips. Unfortunately, this doesnt mean a big boost in battery life for the Yoga 11S. Itll clock between 6 and 7 hours on a charge, due to the fact that theres a smaller battery inside compared to the Yogas bigger brother, but the improved thermal design means less reliance on noisy fans to keep the system cool. The Windows RT-based Yoga 11, by comparison, lasts up to 12 hours on a charge.

Other specs for the Yoga 11S include at least 128 GB of solid state storage and at least 4 GB of RAM. In my brief hands-on, the trackpad and keyboard felt just as high-quality as the larger Yoga.

Lenovo says it will ship the IdeaPad Yoga 11S in May or June, positioning it as a back-to-school laptop-tablet convertible. Itll have a starting price of $799 with an Intel Core i3 processor.

(MORE:Check out TIME Techs complete coverage of the 2013 Consumer Electronics Show)

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Lenovo Plans a Smaller Yoga Convertible with Full Windows 8 on Board

Andrew finally gets his hands on the Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 13, but his first venture into Windows 8 turn sour fast as hardware problems plague the convertible laptop.

The streetcar taking mehome from FedEx was excruciatingly slow. The large cardboard box resting on my legs meant no one could sit beside me and I was collecting more than enough dirty looks to spoil my afternoon. But inside that box was the key to my new Microsoft-centered universe. A piece of hardware that would finally allow me to adopt Windows 8 as my main operating system, something I had been lusting over for months: Lenovos Yoga 13. When I finally arrived home and freed it from its corrugated confines, I was pleased to find a good looking, thin Ultrabook. I turned it on and it booted up in under 10 seconds. The Start screen popped up and I tried to use the touchpad to navigate before I remembered I was staring at a touch screen. I immediately snatched it off my desk and flipped the screen all the way back until the Yogawas transformed into Tablet mode. Call it a novelty, but it truly felt like I was stepping into the future.

Then it all fell apart.

My first order of business with Windows 8 was performing a refresh. The Yoga had previously been used as a review device at the office and I wanted towipe it cleanbefore loading my own files onto it. As I snooped around, however, I noticed the usable storage of the Yogas 128GB SSD was closer to 64GB. I searched the Internet and found an official fix from Lenovo. Curious but not quite satisfied,I bookmarkedthe pagebut found a better solution in a forum that gave me a bit more free space. Following the tutorial, I backed up my recovery partition to an external hard drive and repartitioned the hard drive to gain 112GB of free space. But when I tried to refresh the OS, it failed.

In what I stillthink is a natural reaction to a Windows 8 software problem, I visited Microsofts support page to figure out what went wrong. Not wanting to make a phone call, I chose the online chat option. I was connected to a nice man with a ponytail, whom I sincerely hoped could solve my problem. According to him, I could just create a USB recovery drive using Windows 8s built-in tool that would allow me to refresh the OS. I thanked him and tried to implement the instructions he gave me. Unfortunately for me, it didnt work and I received an error about missing files. Feeling burned by customer service, I decided to pursue the answer on my own.

What I found was both worrisome and comforting. I could use the recovery drive I had backed up to my external hard drive to refresh Windows 8, but I wouldnt be able to usethe drivefor anything else.Since I needed my external drive for media storage, I needed a different set up. I had to get the recovery information off of my external hard drive and back onto my computer. Maybe Im a poor excuse for a technology aficionado, but I thought maybe a simple copy and paste from external drive to hard drive partition would suffice? Wrong. The refresh still failed and since the thought of reading one more forum post made me want to vomit, I went to bed.

In the morning, with a fresh outlook, I decided to once again approach Microsofts support team for advice. I was connected via chat to a very lovely lady. She was extremely courteous, made a few good jokes, and was generally great to talk to. She walked me through a rather lengthy process of copying all my system files to a separate partition and told me that should fix my refresh problem. I was overjoyed and happily made small talk with her as we waited for the files to be copied. Once it was finished, I attempted to do a refresh of my computer to see if the recovery partition would kick in. Surprise! It failed. At this point I was pissed off. I skipped Saturday brunch to work on this, spent almost two hours copying files, and had absolutely nothing to show for it. I caught the woman right before she signed out of our chat session.

Oh, she said. You needed a recovery partition?

Yes, I replied. What did we just do?

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The Life and Tiles of a Windows 8 Convert: How the Yoga broke me

Lenovo has announced the ThinkPad Helix and IdeaPad Yoga 11S with Windows 8 at the 2013 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.

Credit: VentureBeat

Follow all the news, reviews and rumours on ourCES 2013: Live Blog

Two latest additions to Lenovo's family of convertible laptop-tablet devices- ThinkPad Helix and IdeaPad Yoga 11S have made their appearance at CES 2013.

The Lenovo ThinkPad Helix is a convertible device featuring a "rip and flip" design which can be used in different positions. The device functions as an Ultrabook as well as a tablet, thanks to a clever hinge; the 11.6in tablet can also be detached from its base.

When connected though, a clever cooling system is brought into play, allowing the processor (up to Intel Core i7) to be overclocked for increased performance.

The screen can be docked into its keyboard base forwards or backwards (facing away from the keyboard) and battery life is claimed to be five hours for the tablet, and a further five from the keyboard dock.

Around the back you'll find a 5-megapixel camera, along with a 2-megapixel camera on the front for video calls; there's also NFC for contactless payments or copying data from one device to another, and LTE for connecting to high-speed mobile broadband; tucked away inside the screen you'll find an active Wacom stylus for writing on and interacting with the screen.

IdeaPad Yoga 11S

The Lenovo's IdeaPad Yoga 11S is powered by third generation Intel Core i5 processor and runs the Windows 8 operating system. Just like its predecessor, the IdeaPad Yoga 11, users can work with Yoga 11S as a laptop or flip the device's screen to turn it into a tablet. In addition, it can be converted into Stand or Tent modes.

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CES 2013: Lenovo Announces ThinkPad Helix, IdeaPad Yoga 11S

The unfolding of the Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 11s

One of the most talked-about Windows 8 laptops was the 13-inch IdeaPad Yoga. Though it looks like a standard ultrabook-style laptop, the name Yoga hints at the system's big selling point, that the display can fold fully over to become a tablet.

A contemporaneous 11-inch Windows RT version felt like a bit of an afterthought, and CES 2013 is certainly a no-man's-land for RT, so instead Lenovo has created a new 11-inch version of the Yoga, but with the full Windows 8 operating system.

The 13-inch Yoga seemed to be everyone's choice for a great Windows 8 ambassador during the holiday season -- both Microsoft and Intel touted it as a best-in-class example, and Best Buy featured it in a television ad. Shrinking the idea down to an 11-inch system creates a product that, in tablet mode, feels a lot closer to an iPad than the 13-inch convertible/hybrid laptops we've seen.

If you haven't seen the Yoga in action, the real hook is not the tablet mode (which is perfectly usable, but leaves the keyboard exposed, sticking out from the back), it's the stand mode, which I sometimes call the kiosk mode. The screen is folded back about 270 degrees, turning the system into something like a small touch-screen kiosk. It's great for sharing video or presentations in a group setting, or for just getting closer to the screen while keeping the keyboard out of the way.

The 11-inch Windows 8 version of the Yoga can have up to an Intel Core i5 low-voltage CPU, and the IPS display runs at a resolution of 1,600x900 pixels, which seems perfect for a high-end ultraportable. Besides basic black, new colors include pink, gray, and orange (I've seen orange on other IdeaPad laptops in the past, and it actually looks quite nice).

While the 13-inch Yoga and 11-inch RT Yoga are both available now, the new 11-inch Windows 8 one won't be available until sometime in June 2013. It will start at $799.

Update: Added hands-on video.

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IdeaPad Yoga 11S hands-on: Lenovo's 11-inch convertible goes Windows 8

LAS VEGAS -- Lenovo continued its deluge of new Windows 8 product offerings at CES 2013, with key additions to its line of Windows 8 hybrid laptops announced Monday, including a smaller IdeaPad Yoga 11S. These new laptops follow up on the company's earlier announcements of touch-based additions to its IdeaPad and ThinkPad clamshell line.

Lenovo is also launching the ThinkPad Helix, which can function as a pure tablet or dock to a keyboard with additional battery. It looks to be a drool-worthy road warriors dream system, with 4G LTE connectivity, a full HD display, and a detachable keyboard.

Lenovos innovative IdeaPad Yoga 13 is getting a little sibling. The IdeaPad Yoga 11S has all the features of the original Yoga, but in a smaller package that weighs just a shade over three pounds. The Yoga 11S will offer a bright, 1366 by 768 pixel IPS display. While Lenovo didn't provide specific configuration details, the entry level model will come priced at $799, and the Yoga will offer a variety of Intel 3rd generation Core i5 CPUs as well as up to 256GB SSDs.

The Yoga 11S comes with full support for 10-point multitouch on both the display itself and the trackpad. Lenovo will also include its Lenovo Motion Control software, which uses the built-in webcam to recognize motion gestures for activities such as flipping through slideshows. The Yoga 11S features the same180-degree hinge as the Yoga 13. The lid can latch into "tent mode" (the screen and body are stood on edge, like a tent) or "stand mode" (where the keyboard is behind the visible display, useful for presentations.) Fully rotated 180 degrees, the monitor is flush with the body, with the keyboard underneath, which allows the Yoga to be used as a tablet.

The Yoga adheres to Intels Ultrabook spec, at 0.67 inches thick, along with the requisite fast boot capability, and Lenovo says that it should run about six hours on battery power. The Yoga 11S's outer shell comes in both Silver Gray and Clementine Orange, and it features the same rubberized texture that's used on the Yoga 13.

The Yogas 180-degree hinge may be cool, but the Helix represents the likely future of mobile PCs. The Twist is a tablet that fully docks into a keyboard base. In addition, the tablet can flip over into stand mode. Lenovo calls this combination of detachable tablet, docked clamshell, and stand mode rip and flip. When separated from the dock, the tablet weights just over 1 pound, 13 ounces; the full clamshell (tablet plus dock) configuration weighs 3.68 pounds; both the dock and the tablet have batteries built in. In Ultrabook (docked) mode, the Helix can run up to ten hours on its two batteries.

The Helix offers a laundry list of features that make it desirable for road warriors. The 11.6-inch screen is an IPS panel with 1920 by 1080 pixel resolutionthe same resolution you'd find on a 1080p HDTV. The tablet supports full 10-point multitouch, and it includes a digitizer pen if you prefer using a stylus over your fingertips. Lenovo will offer configurations with up to 8GB of DDR3 memory and a range of Intel Core i5 and i7 CPUs. Two 1080p capable webcams, front and back, are also included.

The Helix is the first Lenovo Windows 8 Ultrabook to include support for optional 4G LTE mobile broadband,in addition to the built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. The Helix comes with NFC (Near Field Communication) tap-and-go support, so you can exchange data between two Helix systems by simply tapping them together.

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Lenovo’s hybrid laptops get smaller with the Yoga 11S, Helix tablet