The Yoga wasn’t my favorite Ultrabook of 2012 but it was incredibly popular when we wrote about it. Over on YouTube it was our most-watched video of 2012. We got hands-on with the Lenovo Yoga at CES 2012 and exactly one year later it’s in our hands for review. [Follow closely for teasers of 3rd generation Ultrabooks next week as we cover CES 2013.] Here’s a quick unboxing video just to prove it’s here in the studio. We’ll produce a first impressions, detailed review and for those on the cusp of buying one, a live review session where you can ask your own questions. Feel free to start listing those below.
Full specifications, links to existing reviews, images and videos can already be found in our database.
Haw do you feel feel about the keyboard? Mine is a bit uneven, wavy, but it’s probably due to the fact that I manually upgraed RAM and bent it a little… Just curoious haw much did I damaged it….
Otherwise I love it so far ;)
So far i’m putting the keyboard in my top 5 of Ultrabook keyboards.
Glad to hear you have a review unit! Excited to hear what you think.
I have the i5 128gb 4gbRAM model…. which I’ve added a second 128gb SSD and 8gb RAM stick.
It’s pretty awesome, I love it! …although, I will say the build quality is not as good as the U300s Ultrabook.
What do you think of the always-on fan? At least out of the box it never turns off. I’ll look to remove some of the crapware.
There has been a lot of criticism on the fan… It honestly does not bother me at all. I hardly notice it. I’ve heard in the Lenovo forums that some fans are louder than others… I may have a more quiet model than others. My fan noise is only of air blowing; no metal on metal, scratching, or plastic-y sounds… just wind.
The main problem I have with too much fan activity is power consumption (it’s a noticeable difference in battery life) and fan wear.
I just had my one-month old Samsung Series 9 15″ stolen from my apartment… sadness. Anyways I’m back in the market for a laptop and this is a prime candidate. Questions:
-Keyboard: How is key travel? This was one of my main issues with the Samsung
-Build quality: Sturdy, no flex?
-Tablet: I know what I’d be getting with this… a massive tablet unlike the iPads and Nexus 7s of mainstream tablet. But for what it is… does it work? How’s the responsiveness/accuracy of the touchscreen? Would it be good for, say, reading PDFs?
-Shipping: Do you happen to know if Lenovo or Bestbuy have improved their shipping speeds? When I checked on this in December they were taking weeks.
I’ve been curious about the Series 9 15″ keyboard… so sorry to hear about your loss!
As for the Yoga:
-Keyboard: One of the best (if not The best) of all Ultrabooks. Lenovo has built a reputation of great keyboards and keep that tradition true in their Ultrabooks.
-Build quality – It’s certainly sturdy with no flex. The palm rest with its faux leather is wonderful. The outside has been getting reports of paint chipping though. Although there is no flex, the build quality is no where near as solid as their fully aluminum U300s.
-Tablet – Awesome! The screen is imho the best feature of the Yoga. Responsiveness is great, 10 point multitouch. There have been a few reports that disabling the screen “power save” feature makes it more responsive; I haven’t had any trouble. For those new to Win8, IE10 is the only browser with pinch-to-zoom. Most users have Chrome or FF installed, but leave IE10 the default for tablet/touch use. IE10 is pretty amazing, so it’s really no loss. Sure, it’s big and heavy, but you get more display; I think that’s a good thing!
-Shipping – Lenovo must be the worst at shipping of all manufacturers. I’ve heard BestBuy is still out of stock everywhere, and Lenovo.com is getting better about shipping. They do at least tell you before you order how long it will be. I picked mine up at BB on release date.
-Upgradeability – This is huge and should be mentioned.. there is an extra EMPTY SSD Slot! You can also buy a 4gb and upgrade it to 8gb; I did both. Almost no other Ultrabooks have upgrade options by the end user.
I hope that helps!
Good feedback. I agree the keyboard is at least in the top 5 although there’s no backlight, am I right?
Tablet is, ok, incredibly huge and heavy though. Not a mobile tablet, portable with strong wrists. Touchscreen is useful though in scenarios where it is supported. Agree on IE10 although it has no text re-flow on zoom. Still, I leave it default.
Let me add my condolences on your Series 9 loss too. Argh what a great Ultrabook. Only 54Wh on the Yoga though and it’s not as efficient as the series 9 IMO.
If you have a Best Buy in your neighborhood check it out there. At least they used to have one on display. Few stores had couple in stock but sold out quickly. I see now a few stores have it in stock again (otherwise 3-5 days it seems).
Touchscreen seemed to me very responsive and keyboard was fine (key travel seems to be getting shorter in all recent keyboard but I thought it was fine).
Also one thing to add: for some reason Best Buy seems to be $100 cheaper since they offer for $999 Core i5 CPU while Lenovo offers for that price Core i3. Not sure if there are other differences.
Thanks Chippy, I agree… not having backlight is a bummer. It wasn’t a dealbreaker for me though. I do wish the yoga had it though.
I know the remark could seem mundane, but in the tests, i hardly read, if any comments on the practicality of printing a document, playing a DVD, CD or burning a Blu-ray on a “tabbook” I would be happy to have your feedback on the connectivity to an external blu ray player through the USB 3.0 port and the set up of VLC regarding windows 8 and the vanishing of wmp.
The size of the screen is quite sufficient to enjoy a movie on the go without the trouble to have to streaming it.
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