Last week some buzz was created by a photograph that someone snuck out of our Beijing design studio. The picture was of a pocket-sized PC we developed about two years ago, well before the current netbook craze and the introduction of a similar form factor by one of our competitors. Since the design has been shown in public in the past and received some attention, I thought it might be of some interest to discuss the design inspiration and share some photos and drawings of the device.

We in Lenovo's Beijing design center refer to this concept as the "Pocket Yoga," an extension of an award winning design we've shown in public based on a folding concept inspired by the practice of yoga by one of our New Zealand-based designers. The full Yoga concept was a folding notebook with a detachable keyboard. The system unit was covered in leather.

When you open it to a normal angle, it can be used as a laptop. Its full-function keyboard gives you enough space to type, so your hands won't be crowded or compromised. Or you can open it 360 degrees, folding the top cover back to the base, and it becomes the tablet notebook. In the tablet mode the user can read, draw with the special pen, or surf the web. All in all, we believe this configuration gives the user the option to use the device as a hand-held notebook, giving more space than a mobile phone, along with the ability to type with more powerful multi-media features.