Lenovo Yoga 13 - first impressions

digitaldr · 16-11-2012 02:55PM #1

My sister picked up a Lenovo Yoga for me in Best Buy in Chicago a couple of days ago - i5, 128 GB SSD (mSATA) and 4gb RAM. Long thread on it here. They allow international customers to pay in advance and then you can either pick it up yourself or nominate someone else. For the most part I'm very pleased with it. It's thin and reasonably light and covered all over with a soft touch rubberised material (feels a bit like a silicon skin). The display is bright, has great viewing angles and is reasonably sharp - not up to Macbook retina standards but it's a hell of a lot cheaper. Boot up/wake from sleep is incredibly fast and applications open instantly.

Predictably it's a little bit big and heavy in tablet mode but I bought it primarily for use as a laptop as I already have an iPad 3. I think the main transforming mode I'll use regularly is stand mode (keyboard folded behind the screen) for watching videos in bed.

Windows 8 is definitely not to my liking - there's a serious lack of modern UI (or whatever they're calling it now) apps. For instance there’s no Facebook or pop 3 mail app. Also hate the fact that if you're not careful with your mouse pointer in desktop mode you can end up opening charm bars/modernUI etc just by moving to one of the top corners of the screen. This is something I might get used to (probably never get to like) but it would drive my wife and kids mad. Fortunately a little program called classic shell gives you the old familiar windows 7 experience back.

Keyboard is lovely but is not back lit. However the screen is so bright that it lights up the keys well and the white lettering on them seems to catch the light particularly well.

Sound is a bit better than I expected (for an ultrabook) - plenty loud but a bit lacking in bass.

Support seems to be good - they listen to customer feedback on their forum and even come up with solutions! There is also the option of a very good value extended warranty with or without accidental damage cover.

Now for the downsides and how to overcome most of them.

- Lack of available disc space

For some reason Lenovo ship the Yoga with crazy SSD partitioning that leaves only 43GB free. This guy came up with a great step by step guide to rationalising the partitions and freeing up quite a bit of space - not in front of laptop at the moment but from memory about 89 gb free. Lenovo themselves are working on their own fix.

If you want more RAM and/or SSD space upgrades are relatively easy (there's an extra slot) and a lot cheaper than buying the higher spec models or you could just use a SDXC card. The SD card is full depth too.

- Touchpad Bug

Bizarrely installing Office messes up the touchpad driver and leads to the loss of most gestures eg 2 fingered scrolling. Again Lenovo are near to a solution but in the meantime this method works well.

- No Ethernet port

Not a big deal for me but you can always pick up a USB to Ethernet adapter - there are even USB 3.0 gigbit ones available.

Wifi problems

There have been some reports of poor range but it seems grand to me. No 5GHZ support at all. Sometimes fails to reconnect after reboot but I expect a driver update will fix this.

And now to my major gripe - fan noise. It's not super load or high pitched but it's there all the time. However it's much less noticeable in tablet mode due to the processor being throttled. It's really only annoying in a quiet room. I think I've maybe become a bit more sensitivite to fan noise in general as I've only been using an iPad for the past few months. There's a thread on it in the Lenovo forum and their techies are looking into it. It doesn't run very hot at all so hopefully they can do some tweaking.

All in all I'm happy with it but if you are looking for a tablet experience first and a laptop second then it's probably not for you. Buying it in the US meant that I was getting it for the price of a similarly specced non-transforming ultrabook here. Not sure it will be such great value when it comes out here - I've seen £999 (€1244 according to www.xe.com) mentioned for the base model (mine worked out at €870 including US sales tax).

freestyla · 16-11-2012 03:11PM

At €870 that must be good purchase. You get US keyboard?

Thanks for review. Yoga is interesting laptop for sure.

holla · 16-11-2012 03:14PM

You may expect a few more questions from me soon enough. Planning on doing the very same closer to Christmas. Brother is over in Chicago for the holidays.

Have looked around and seems €1225 is going to be the base price, so even if it does get released here a pick up from the US would probably be best.

http://komplett.ie/Komplett/product/tablets/80008355/lenovo_yoga13_mam2gmh_13_3hd%2b_i5_3317u_4_128ssd_w8/details.aspx

Really dont think it is quite worth that despite being slightly obsessed with getting my hands on it.

Is Best Buy the best place to pick it up? He will be staying at the girlfriends family home so will have an address to get it delivered.

digitaldr · 16-11-2012 03:27PM

Yeah US keyboard but that's no biggie for me. It's exclusive to Best Buy at the moment (not sure when this will change) apart from ordering direct from Lenovo but from what I read on the net their delivery estimates are really long.

digitaldr · 19-11-2012 04:54PM

Just a quick update - Lenovo released a new otuchpad driver that works perfectly, good to a see a company listening to feedback on their forum.
Fan noise issue still not resolved but only really noticable in bed at night where I only tend to use the Yoga in stand mode for watching video so it's not really an issue for me.

holla · 17-12-2012 05:19PM

Hi Digitalr,

Me gain, so my brother is over in chicago for christmas and trying to get him to pick up a Yoga 13 (stock dependent)

First question - How much did it cost in total and is it worth it??

Second question - how should I go about it? Is there anything you need to do in terms of warranty? Can you just pick it up in best buy? Apart from just picking it up is there anything in particular you would advise?

I am looking to upgrade RAM myself and will look into SSD later. Should I buy that over there or do you know much about it?

digitaldr · 17-12-2012 05:44PM

It cost $1090 including sales tax. I'm very pleased with it and would say that it's worth the money. There's a new touchpad driver and an official fix for the partitioning that frees up plenty of space. I haven't seen the need to upgrade the ram/SSD but from what I've seen on forums it's pretty easy especially the RAM upgrade. Wifi has worked grand for me. I did however get a 128 gig SDXC card off Amazon which works fine although the card slot seems to run at usb 2 speeds as it's much faster with a usb 3 reader. There were some complaints about the rubberised coating being prone to chipping but again I haven't noticed this but I do treat it well!

The fan noise continues to be a little annoying but only in a very quiet room. I find that the only non laptop mode I use regularly is the stand one - great for watching stuff in bed on cold winter nights!

I should have done about more research prior to purchasing re the warranty - it is in fact not international. Fortunately when I phoned Lenovo Ireland and they said that this is very likely to change in the near future as it has now launched in Europe.
Have you checked one out in PC World yet? I see they're only stocking the i7 version.

holla · 17-12-2012 06:24PM

Thanks for the info. PC world doing the i7, 4GB and 128GB SSD for €1299. Think the i5 will do me so $1090 its a steal. Looked into RAM upgrade and seems fine. Only worry now is the 128 SSD, how much was your SDXC card?

Everything sounds great, I can get over the fan noise. My current Dell sounds like a hairdryer constantly (although it used to be great). I will phone lenovo again but from what I gather once they have a store set up here do deal with the yoga its all good.

digitaldr · 17-12-2012 07:31PM

Got the card from amazon. RAM/SSD would probably be cheaper in the US but only if you order online. I've opened a few laptops and from what I've seen on the net ssd upgrade should be fairly easy if you're comfortable with ribbon cables. You'll need to pick up a screw to secure it though.

Forgot to say that the Lenovo guy said that it will appear on the idea pad list on this page if/when it's covered by an international warranty.

Overheal · 19-12-2012 01:07AM

Im getting one of these at the end of the month for free, because I actually work in such a Best Buy and am the designated Microsoft expert. Microsoft has a lot of money to make sure I am happy with their products

- Lack of available disc space

For some reason Lenovo ship the Yoga with crazy SSD partitioning that leaves only 43GB free. This guy came up with a great step by step guide to rationalising the partitions and freeing up quite a bit of space - not in front of laptop at the moment but from memory about 89 gb free. Lenovo themselves are working on their own fix.

YES, we did spot this issue on a customer laptop, and it took us a minute to crack down on. Odd to say the least.

kobyaia · 19-01-2013 06:22PM

thanks for the review I am trying to buy one from the state as well with i7 and 8 gig RAM 256 gig SSD
my question would it work in Ireland as I know in the state they have 110 volts electricity and here we have 220 v so did u need any adapter or did u need to buy any electrical plug for it or it just worked straight away from the box?

regards

digitaldr wrote: »

My sister picked up a Lenovo Yoga for me in Best Buy in Chicago a couple of days ago - i5, 128 GB SSD (mSATA) and 4gb RAM. Long thread on it here. They allow international customers to pay in advance and then you can either pick it up yourself or nominate someone else. For the most part I'm very pleased with it. It's thin and reasonably light and covered all over with a soft touch rubberised material (feels a bit like a silicon skin). The display is bright, has great viewing angles and is reasonably sharp - not up to Macbook retina standards but it's a hell of a lot cheaper. Boot up/wake from sleep is incredibly fast and applications open instantly.

Predictably it's a little bit big and heavy in tablet mode but I bought it primarily for use as a laptop as I already have an iPad 3. I think the main transforming mode I'll use regularly is stand mode (keyboard folded behind the screen) for watching videos in bed.

Windows 8 is definitely not to my liking - there's a serious lack of modern UI (or whatever they're calling it now) apps. For instance there’s no Facebook or pop 3 mail app. Also hate the fact that if you're not careful with your mouse pointer in desktop mode you can end up opening charm bars/modernUI etc just by moving to one of the top corners of the screen. This is something I might get used to (probably never get to like) but it would drive my wife and kids mad. Fortunately a little program called classic shell gives you the old familiar windows 7 experience back.

Keyboard is lovely but is not back lit. However the screen is so bright that it lights up the keys well and the white lettering on them seems to catch the light particularly well.

Sound is a bit better than I expected (for an ultrabook) - plenty loud but a bit lacking in bass.

Support seems to be good - they listen to customer feedback on their forum and even come up with solutions! There is also the option of a very good value extended warranty with or without accidental damage cover.

Now for the downsides and how to overcome most of them.

- Lack of available disc space

For some reason Lenovo ship the Yoga with crazy SSD partitioning that leaves only 43GB free. This guy came up with a great step by step guide to rationalising the partitions and freeing up quite a bit of space - not in front of laptop at the moment but from memory about 89 gb free. Lenovo themselves are working on their own fix.

If you want more RAM and/or SSD space upgrades are relatively easy (there's an extra slot) and a lot cheaper than buying the higher spec models or you could just use a SDXC card. The SD card is full depth too.

- Touchpad Bug

Bizarrely installing Office messes up the touchpad driver and leads to the loss of most gestures eg 2 fingered scrolling. Again Lenovo are near to a solution but in the meantime this method works well.

- No Ethernet port

Not a big deal for me but you can always pick up a USB to Ethernet adapter - there are even USB 3.0 gigbit ones available.

Wifi problems

There have been some reports of poor range but it seems grand to me. No 5GHZ support at all. Sometimes fails to reconnect after reboot but I expect a driver update will fix this.

And now to my major gripe - fan noise. It's not super load or high pitched but it's there all the time. However it's much less noticeable in tablet mode due to the processor being throttled. It's really only annoying in a quiet room. I think I've maybe become a bit more sensitivite to fan noise in general as I've only been using an iPad for the past few months. There's a thread on it in the Lenovo forum and their techies are looking into it. It doesn't run very hot at all so hopefully they can do some tweaking.

All in all I'm happy with it but if you are looking for a tablet experience first and a laptop second then it's probably not for you. Buying it in the US meant that I was getting it for the price of a similarly specced non-transforming ultrabook here. Not sure it will be such great value when it comes out here - I've seen £999 (€1244 according to www.xe.com) mentioned for the base model (mine worked out at €870 including US sales tax).

Lenovo Yoga 13 - first impressions

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