Life with the Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro
by Brett Howse on July 30, 2014 2:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Notebooks
- Lenovo
- Windows 8.1
- Yoga
General Performance
With an Intel Core i5 4200U, 4GB of DDR3L-1600, and a 256GB Samsung SSD inside, we are right in the middle of the road as far as the Yoga 2 configurations available. It is standard fare for an Ultrabook, though the 4GB models are thankfully being phased out by most OEMs now. Being that this device can pull double duty as a laptop or a tablet, we will also do some comparisons on the tablet side.
Performance Graphs
We’ll start with general performance. PCMark gives us an evaluation of several scenarios, as well as storage performance. Being designed as a laptop, the Yoga 2 Pro does not suffer as harshly from throttling as something like the Surface Pro 3 does, although the SP3 does have the slightly faster i5-4300U.
Performance is right where we’d expect it to be for the 4200U. There were no signs of throttling during normal operation.
For storage, the Yoga 2 Pro comes equipped with a Samsung OEM SSD. This is likely the same drive used in other devices such as the Surface Pro 3, and the performance is similar. We'll likely need to wait for the next generation Yoga before we see M.2 PCIe SSDs improve storage performance.
Gaming Performance
While the Yoga 2 Pro is certainly not considered a gaming machine, a user may want to play the odd game on it. With Intel HD 4400 graphics though, it would be practically impossible to game at the native resolution of this panel.
With the Intel HD 4400, the Yoga 2 Pro does fine in low demand benchmarks such as Ice Storm, but it is quickly taxed to the point of being unusable on titles with more graphically intensive workloads. Tomb Raider and Bioshock, even at the value settings, are almost unplayable on the Yoga 2 Pro. You'll want to either drop to minimum detail settings or stick to older/less demanding titles (and thankfully there are plenty of those available).
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room200 - Thursday, July 31, 2014 - link
Who did you get it from? This is why I ended up getting rid of my Lenovo.scott1729 - Thursday, July 31, 2014 - link
I also appreciate the review timing. I'm considering buying the Y2P in August.Has anyone here considered the ThinkPad Yoga? It costs more than other Yoga devices or even other similar portable laptops, but I read that the display is brighter and at only 1080p perhaps it may be higher contrast and less of a battery drain as well. (and less prone to DPI scaling issues even at 12.5inches?) I would be willing to pay a premium for a laptop-first-convertible with an excellent display that may be somewhat sunlight readable. At the $1200-$1500 price point are there other laptop-first convertibles I should be considering with excellent displays and overall build quality? I think stand mode will be very enjoyable. Does anyone here know if the ThinkPad Yoga display is also RGBW pentile? Thanks for your insight!
Rdmkr - Friday, August 1, 2014 - link
One minor complaint about the Y2P I have that I don't hear anyone else about is the fairly large screen bezels. The device is larger than it could have been in an ideal world. On the whole, though, it is still nice and compact.QHD+ is pretty awesome, but probably a step too far in the direction of overambition and specs war bravado. Regular QHD with fewer concessions to other quality aspects would have been the sweet spot afaic. FHD doesn't cut it for me.
The good thing about having complaints, though, is that we still have something to look forward to when the Y3P rolls around.
jdrch - Friday, August 1, 2014 - link
140 Mbps max network bandwidth? Yikes. Pass.SirPerro - Monday, August 4, 2014 - link
Make this thing dualboot into Android and it'd be the perfect machineProper productive OS and proper tablet OS
Trying to make this work as a tablet ignoring the "useless tablet OS" part of it sounds a bit stupid
7heF - Wednesday, August 6, 2014 - link
Havn't checked if Lenovo have come with new updates the last four months or so. But they had some updates when I tried the Yoga 2 Pro, and the color quality was just terrible - and some power saving features had to be turned off to have something that slightly resembeled yellow.In my opinion it was just horrible and the fix Lenovo had wasn't a good one.
Example on how the Yoga 2 Pro screen can look - even with fixes installed: http://www.idg.no/multimedia/archive/00074/y2p-skj...
mitchellvii - Tuesday, September 9, 2014 - link
Juts bought a Y2P i7 model and as far as I'm concerned, ALL of the old issues, color, wifi, etc have been solved. I owned a release date 15 and now the brand new BestBuy exclusive i7 and this one is MUCH better.underseaglider - Wednesday, August 6, 2014 - link
Lenovo laptops are gaining great success in the market and have launched various models of laptops. And with increasing competition, manufacturers are adding more features and functionalities in their effort to lure the consumers.GraphicDesign - Thursday, August 7, 2014 - link
May be this is a great notebook for me to work in my website. I 'm adding new designs, I like to work in photoshop cs, indesign, illustrator cs6. Please suggest me if this is perfect for my design profession.GraphicDesign - Thursday, August 7, 2014 - link
You can contact me www [dot] tunaman [dot] me. In my website you will find lots of Graphic design tutorial. Thank you!