In most circumstances I prefer to stay in major chain hotels because of the loyalty program benefits so I was never tempted in trying Yotel Istanbul airport in the past.  However for this trip I was carrying a lot of luggage, arriving in IST late and departing the next day early morning, so I booked one night for the convenience.  The hotel is inside the airport terminal and has rooms landside and airside which is great, however guests have to pay a premium for that convenience.  I expected lower standards than large hotel chains, in the end I thought the hardware was fairly decent so I will consider returning in the future when circumstances warrant it.

Room

I booked a Premium Plus King room and as expected this is the room that I received.  At first glance the quality of the room was quite good, I thought a decent comparison would be a recently built Aloft with fairly modern features and design, and also being a bit more spacious than an average Aloft because my room type was 29 square meters.  The main negative I noticed was the lack of window, in fact there was one but it was overlooking the hallway and it felt preferable to draw the blinds down to avoid anybody taking a peak in our room.  Without any natural day light the room was fairly dark but the lighting fixtures were quite bright to offset the problem although with a strange purple color.

Upon closer inspection, there are a few more points that stood out, some positive and some negative.  The mattress was surprisingly comfortable, it was firm with some kind of foam mattress.  In terms of amenities it was a bit light to my taste, for example no bathrobe or slippers, no coffee kettle or boiler.  Also the tap of the sink in the bathroom was close to falling apart.  On the plus side, they had a safe and an ironing board in the room so it was not bare bones either.  

Location

The hotel only has two floors but the hallways were very wide corridors so it did not feel cramped in public areas.  My room was on the landside so I could simply walk out of the hotel and have access to any of the airport restaurants in the terminal, before security screening.  

Wifi

Wifi worked ok with download speed of 10 Mbps however upload speed was too low at 2 Mbps.

Overall

As far as I know, there are no hotels whatsoever (yet?) anywhere near the new IST airport so Yotel stands out significantly for its convenience which avoids the need to take a taxi to a distant hotel.  However even if considering the cost savings of a round-trip taxi fare, Yotel remains far more expensive than hotels of the same caliber, not to mention not earning points from chain hotels which has some cash value.  So guests must clearly pay a significant premium for the convenience and Yotel has the monopoly for such convenience.  They deliver it well due to their ideal location with decent rooms both landside and airside so I can recommend it for a quick overnight for people willing to pay for it.