Lenovo Ideapad Yoga 13 - If You've Got it, Flex it

 If You've Got it, Flex it

The launch of Windows 8 was considered by many as a new era of personal computing, especially for laptop devices. The new operating system (OS) has been completely redesigned for touch input (though it did retain some familiar elements such as the desktop environment), and with it came new and interesting ways of interacting with your PC. After all, with general consensus now being we're in a post-PC era and embracing the era of cloud computing, there's a greater need for devices and interfaces that are adept at handling touch inputs in an intuitive manner.

Having said that, most of the flagship Windows 8 machines now include multi-touch displays to take advantage of the touch-friendly user interface. And if that wasn’t enough, manufacturers have also introduced a new variant of Ultrabooks, known as the convertible Ultrabooks. These notebooks are still very much Ultrabooks in nature, but they are able to 'transform' and function as tablets when the need arises. One of the hallmarks of a good convertible Ultrabook is to transform themselves from notebook to tablet mode seamlessly.

We've already reviewed two such convertible notebooks in great detail - the Sony Vaio Duo 11 and the Toshiba Satellite U920t - but one of the simplest and intuitive methods of transformation we’ve seen so far belongs to the 13-inch Lenovo Ideapad Yoga that we've for detailed review today. For those who recall, we’ve already had a rather in-depth hands-on article that describes the Yoga in detail. In that article, we mentioned that it looks almost exactly the same as last year’s Ideapad U300s Ultrabook, but uses different build materials and has a couple of useful upgrades.

What we didn’t go through in detail however, was how the patented hinges enable the Lenovo Yoga’s simple but very functional 'bending' abilities. We'll cover that in greater detail in the following section, as well as a thorough review of its performance capabilities to give you a verdict.

Patented Hinges

If you haven’t noticed by now, the Yoga is first and foremost an Ultrabook, that is able to flip its screen 360 degrees backwards to become a touchscreen tablet. This transformation method isn’t seen anywhere else in the market, with other manufacturers opting for the sliding, swivelling or docking form factors. As we mentioned in our earlier article, this is due to the fact that the hinge design has been patented.

That’s not to say the Yoga’s hinge design is overly complex (such as those found in other convertible Ultrabooks). In fact the hinge design is so simple, it’s almost a genius. All the user has to do is simply flip the screen to the angle needed, and start using the machine.

Take a closer look at the hinges, and you will find that they aren’t 'anchored down' like in conventional notebooks. At 0 to 180 degrees, the hinges sit upright. From 180 degrees onwards, the screen locks into place, and the bottom part of the hinge starts to move. This innovative hinge design allows the screen to move fluidly from a closed position, to the fully opened tablet mode.

According to Lenovo, the tight hinges employed will last 25000 cycles. That means if you open and close the notebook twice a day, 365 days a year, the hinges will last you for more than 30 years. That’s about 10 times more than the average lifespan of a typical notebook.

Two New Modes

Of the Yoga’s four usable modes, we’re pretty sure no further explanation is needed for the laptop and tablet modes. It’s worth mentioning however, that when the notebook is closed or in "tablet" mode, it is locked into place with magnets. This gives it quite a premium feel, and keeps the notebook closed when it should be.

Premium feel aside (which the Yoga has in spades), what’s more interesting are the two remaining "stand" and "tent" modes. At first glance, they look quite similar as they both allow you to prop the screen up to almost any angle, and yet they’re vastly different.

In "stand" mode (as seen in the top right tile of the above photo), the keyboard of the Yoga faces down, with the palm rest in contact with whatever surface it’s on. In this mode, it’s easier to prop the notebook up on uneven surfaces like your lap, or a pile of uneven magazines. This mode is better for consuming media (such as watching movies), because it hides the keyboard, while bringing the screen closer to you. This is useful when you need a tablet's usage mode, but having it prop itself.

Unfortunately, the problem here is that the chiclet keys would be in contact with whatever surface you put the machine on, so there’s a risk of the lettering coming off due to abrasion and wear and tear over time. Lenovo’s fix for this would be to provide a faux leather slot-in case (sold separately) that protects the keys, while keeping dirt and grime away from the leather-like palm rest.

As for the "tent" mode, it also brings the screen closer to you, but this time it’s more ideal for interaction. In "stand" mode, the force generated from prodding the screen will eventually push it backwards. "Tent" mode has the keyboard edge acting as resistance so the screen won’t wobble when you touch it.

The resistance from the edges on which the notebook stands on, mostly comes from the leathery coating that covers most of the machine’s exterior. We found it to be highly scratch resistant, so you don’t have to worry about your Yoga’s good looks when the machine is in “tent” mode.

Build Quality

We also found that the scratch resistant exterior finish a better option compared to anodized aluminum in terms of aesthetics. Firstly it looks just like anodized aluminum, but it can withstand simple abuse without scratches and scuff marks. Secondly, because it feels slightly rubbery, you can get a grip on the machine if you choose to go 'nude' (no cover) with the Yoga. 

As for the interior, the palm rest is covered in a leather-like rubber material which feels similar to the exterior coat, but with a bit more texture. The likely reason for this design choice is that in "stand" mode, this material gives the palm rest enough friction to reduce the chances of the notebook from sliding about. A bonus side-effect of this design decision is that it’s very comfortable for your hands and palms while typing on the Yoga.

And of course if Lenovo opted for a scratch resistant coat on the machine instead of aluminum, it would mean that the chassis is made of plastic. Fortunately we didn’t find this material choice a compromise to the Yoga’s build quality. If anything, we found that the thick plastic scratch resistant coating is hardier than 2011’s Lenovo Ideapad U300s.

We’re not saying that it can withstand hard knocks or being run over by a car, but it’s very well made. It’s rigid in all the right places like the back of the lid, bottom cover and palm rest, with hardly any flex found in any of these places. The only hint of flex we could find, was on the keyboard, which sits on a separate housing. But before you write it off, take note that there’s a practical reason for this - the separate housing makes it easy to have the keyboard replaced if the letters ever fade away (due to the Yoga’s "stand" mode) or if it falters in some way.

Keyboard and Trackpad

Flex or not however, you’d probably not notice it anyway, thanks to the Accutype chiclet keys. The keys have a fair bit of travel, as well as resistance, which makes for a pretty comfortable typing experience. It’ll definitely benefit from having even more of each, but that's a compromise that Lenovo has to make in order to keep the machine as thin as possible.

While the keyboard is pretty good, we were even more impressed with the premium feel of the large, clickable, multi-touch glass trackpad (clickpad). Clicking on the trackpad is smooth, and every corner of the clickpad has the same degree of click-ability as the center of the clickpad which makes it much easier to use. The matte texture of the clickpad also allows your finger to slide around easily, making navigation with the trackpad a breeze.

Display & Speakers

You’d need all the help you can get from the good trackpad because of the Yoga’s 13-inch, 1600 x 900 pixels resolution, multi-touch screen. It’s a much higher resolution than that of the U300s (1366 x 768 pixels resolution) and many other basic Ultrabooks, which means it gives you much more screen real estate. It also makes images look sharper on the screen, perfect for Windows 8’s new tiled start screen.

And because it’s an IPS panel, the viewing angles on the Yoga are also much wider than those on competing Ultrabooks from other manufacturers. However, a small problem we found is that the Gorilla Glass (necessary to protect the multi-touch display), makes the screen too reflective. This is an unavoidable side effect of having a multi-touch display. Having said that, we’ve noticed some competitors with glossy screens employ anti-glare coating to help reduce glare tremendously. It would have added on to the Yoga’s cost, but we feel it’s a necessary enhancement that would complement the notebook even if it jacked up the price higher.

To match the gorgeous multi-touch display, the Yoga also comes with a pair of powerful speakers (for Ultrabook standards). Manufacturers have shown over the past year that Ultrabooks are capable of incorporating pretty decent speakers. Thus it’s no surprise that the Yoga’s speakers are loud and powerful - good for movies whilst on the go.

Performance and Benchmarking

One of the main characteristics of an Ultrabook, is supposed to be speed. In order to qualify as an Ultrabook, it’s got to have fast boot up and resume times. To do that, it needs an SSD in either a supporting role (as a cache for hybrid drives), or in the lead role as the machine's main storage drive.

Ultrabooks that have SSDs are almost always positioned as premium products, like how Lenovo chose to position the Ideapad Yoga. To help gauge the performance of the Yoga, we’ve included some Ultrabooks with almost identical specifications, and a couple with hybrid drives.

PCMark 7

PCMark 7 is our primary benchmark, which puts the notebook through several usage tasks, and allocates scores accordingly. In this benchmark, Ultrabooks with SSDs usually have a distinct advantage because an SSD’s higher throughput and speedier seek times allows notebooks to perform certain tasks much faster.

In this line-up, the Yoga’s scores are consistent with those achieved by other SSD sporting notebooks. Its performance scores are almost on par with the Toshiba U920t, which also sports an SSD, and is expectedly much better than the Samsung Series 5 Ultra Touch with its hybrid drive. However, the HP Envy 4 Touchsmart Ultra seems to keep up, likely due to the excellent implementation of its SSD cache and double the memory capacity.

While the Yoga’s PCMark 7 score is a fair bit behind that of the Intel reference Ultrabook (which uses a speedier and higher capacity SSD), it is consistent with other premium Ultrabooks (with SSD) that have been tested before. This means that the Yoga is definitely capable of handling all your daily tasks, just as long as they aren’t heavily related to gaming.

3DMark 11

Ultrabooks, especially the 13-inch units, always utilize the onboard Intel HD Graphics 4000 engine that come with the 3rd generation processors. This is the main reason why the Lenovo Ideapad Yoga has 3DMark 11 scores that are very similar to that of the other Ultrabooks. To be considered worthy for light gaming, the scores need to be at least two times higher (such as the results seen with AMD's Trinity platform for notebooks). You could still play a number of games on Intel's integrated graphics, but at very low settings. If you only indulge in flash games, Facebook games and other such games embedded online, those are not an issue for any modern notebook.

Far Cry 2

The benchmark tool from Far Cry 2 is used to gauge the Ultrabooks’ true gaming performance. Scores from each of the Ultrabooks are very similar to each other due to the fact that they utilize the same Intel HD 4000 onboard graphics. Here, the Yoga fell slightly behind the rest of the Ultrabooks, likely because it’s tweaked to consume less energy, which would also explain its excellent battery life as reported in our next page.

Battery Life and Portability Index

A measure of an Ultrabook’s worth these days is siding more towards its battery life as its raw compute performance doesn't really change a whole lot as seen on the previous page. That’s because many Ultrabooks have the similar hardware components. Once you factor that along with the reason why Ultrabooks were introduced in the first place (which is to promote highly portable computing), you'll realize that battery life and weight play a huge role. So on this page of our review, we put the Yoga against some of the latest Windows 8 Ultrabooks in the market (including another convertible variant from Toshiba), as well as an Intel (Ivy Bridge) reference Ultrabook, which runs on Windows 7.

Battery Life

As you can see, the Yoga triumphs over all the other Ultrabooks, even the Intel reference Ultrabook, which is supposed to be the ideal Ultrabook, put together with some of the best parts that Intel can get their hands on.

A large part of the Yoga’s dominance here, could be attributed to its much larger battery capacity. This brings the Yoga’s weight up to a little over 1.5kg, which makes it just a tad heavier than the usual 13.3-inch Ultrabook (usually about 1.4kg). In comparison, the Samsung Series 5 Ultra Touch is the heaviest of the lot by quite a margin (the HP unit in this comparison is a 14-inch laptop). As such, we’d gladly take on the extra 100 grams or so for the Yoga’s extra battery life that helped it pull through nearly an hour longer than most others in this comparison.

For users who require an even lighter and portable machine, they should consider other more compact convertible Ultrabooks such as the Sony Vaio Duo 11. However, not all convertible Ultrabooks are created equally and their design purposes would differ. The Sony is designed to promote tablet-like usability that transforms into a notebook mode (and so does the Toshiba Satellite U920t to a certain extent), whereas Lenovo Yoga's primary purpose is for notebook-like usage but doubles up as a tablet. As such, it's important to figure out what you intend to do with your mobile device before splurging on just any convertible Ultrabook.

Power Consumption

Even though the Yoga has the best battery life out of the bunch of Ultrabooks, its power consumption is hardly the lowest. It’s marginally worse off than the U920t, but that's because the U920t has a smaller screen and is of a lower resolution. The Yoga on the other hand had an impressive IPS display panel, is brighter and sharper (more power-hungry) than the usual 1366 x 768 pixels resolution panels found on less premium notebooks. The extra battery juice required for a much better screen is a compromise we’re sure plenty of consumers wouldn’t mind making - especially in the Yoga's case, its configuration actually yielded top-notch battery life as well.

Portability Index

Our portability index ratio basically takes into consideration a few elements like a notebook’s size, mass and battery life, and gives you a ratio that tells you whether or not it’s worth your time to carry it around. The ratios are best compared within a similar class of products since the mentioned factors will vary greatly for each class of notebooks.

Due to the Yoga’s slightly heavier weight (just above 1.5kg), its portability index isn’t as high as its battery life would suggest. However, it’s still way ahead of some of the latest Ultrabooks out in the market. But, like we mentioned before, there are those who would gladly sacrifice some portability for much better battery life, making the Yoga perfect for these folks. Even if not for that fact, for a convertible Ultrabook, the Yoga has a good portability index.

Bend it Right

We’ve concluded in our initial hands-on review of the Lenovo Ideapad Yoga, that at S$1899, is a pretty good value deal when compared against other convertible Ultrabooks out in the market. After using it for a couple of weeks, we still stand by our original conclusion. If anything, we find that it’s actually one of the best Windows 8 convertible notebooks out there right now.

Simply comparing it against its predecessor shows that Lenovo took into consideration all of the complaints against the U300s to produce the Yoga. Instead of the standard 1366 x 768 pixels resolution found on more affordable machines, the Yoga has a more adequate 1600 x 900 pixels resolution, multi-touch IPS panel which looks great.

Lenovo didn’t add a much needed third USB 3.0 port onto the Yoga, but at the very least, there’s now an SD card reader, which makes it more convenient to transfer photos off digital cameras.

And like its name suggests, the Yoga is able to bend and flip into multiple modes. It can easily switch from laptop mode, to its "tent", "stand" and "tablet" mode in one fluid motion. We found that the two extra modes (three if you count the unofficial portrait mode) make it very adaptable and lend the machine extra usability that's not yet found in other convertible notebooks made primarily for notebook usage. The "tent" mode is good for interaction, while the "stand" mode is ideal for movie watching.

As for usage in its tablet mode, it does what it’s supposed to. However, because it’s bigger and heavier than the usual 10-inch tablets, it’s quite unwieldy in tablet mode. We’d actually recommend that you use it in "tent" mode if you’d want to interact with the Yoga primarily with touch input. But if you need to doodle or draw something, as long as the Yoga is placed flat on the table, you could use it just like any other tablet and you wouldn't be bothered by its weight. As such, it's ideal to note that the Lenovo Yoga was designed primarily for notebook usage while providing tablet-like functionality when required.

At S$1899, it’s much pricier than other tablet-only devices, and pricier than non-touch Ultrabooks. However with the Yoga being a convertible Ultrabook, you get a very capable touch-equipped laptop, and a very powerful tablet - all in one package that's manageable, relatively portable and is well built to serve various usage needs. So instead of questioning what the Yoga can do for you, ask yourself, what will be the first fun thing you want to with the Yoga! 

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