The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga Review: OLED and LCD Tested
by Brett Howse & Brandon Chester on September 29, 2016 11:30 AM ESTGPU Performance
Once again, since this is likely the last Skylake Ultrabook to be tested here, it’s also likely our last look at Intel’s HD 520 GPU. It’s been a nice improvement over Broadwell, even though the elusive Iris version has not made it’s way here. With 24 EUs in the GT2 GPU, it ends up being reasonable for low end games, and Intel seems to be promoting integrated GPU performance with more effort recently.
The X1 Yoga was run through the standard GPU suite, with a few synthetic tests, as well as Dota 2 for a low end game that can be played on an iGPU.
3DMark
Once again, there are no surprises with the HD 520, and the X1 Yoga falls in-line with the other Skylake GT2 units.
GFXBench
Much like 3DMark, the X1 Yoga scores similarly to the other Skylake devices tested.
Dota 2 Reborn
Valve recreated Dota 2 with a new gaming engine, which limits our selection of devices to compare against since the new Reborn version was launched. As an online game, it is also constantly updated.
The X1 Yoga outscored the Razer Blade Stealth in the lightest test, but was unable to pass it in the higher quality tests. Due to the nature of it being an online game, with frequent updates, this could be due to game engine changes as well as driver differences between the tests (typically notebooks are only short-term review units, so it can be difficult to maintain consistency). The margins are not huge though, and although the game is somewhat playable on our medium test, it really can only be played well at the lightest settings.
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Inteli - Thursday, September 29, 2016 - link
Control does have a default/standard location, though. Both the ANSI and ISO standard keyboard layouts put left control in the bottom left corner.lefenzy - Thursday, September 29, 2016 - link
Well looking at wiki, the layout doesn't have a Fn key placement specification, and so having a Fn key is in itself non-standard. There's no default choice here.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fn_key#Fn_and_Contro...
Thinkpads used to have an excuse that Fn + the top right key would activate the keyboard illumination, and so having Fn in the bottom left would facilitate finding that key combo in the dark.
BrokenCrayons - Thursday, September 29, 2016 - link
The ANSI and ISO standard layouts are shown in images here:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ANSI_Keyboard_L...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:KB_United_Kingd...
You can read the full article here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyboard_layout
Placing the Function key in the lower left corner and moving the control key that should be there to someplace else deviates from those standards. The language used in the article is indeed reasonable.
lefenzy - Thursday, September 29, 2016 - link
Well looking at wiki, the layout doesn't have a Fn key placement specification, and so having a Fn key is in itself non-standard. There's no default choice here.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fn_key#Fn_and_Contro...
Thinkpads used to have an excuse that Fn + the top right key would activate the keyboard illumination, and so having Fn in the bottom left would facilitate finding that key combo in the dark.
Brett Howse - Thursday, September 29, 2016 - link
If it wasn't an oddball placement on a Windows laptop, Lenovo wouldn't offer a switch in the BIOS to reverse their function. Even other Lenovo laptops have Ctrl on the outside. I don't think it's a big deal, and you can switch it if you do, but it's worth pointing out that it's not the same as what someone coming from a non-ThinkPad would be used to.Badelhas - Thursday, September 29, 2016 - link
Is there a real world difference between using the SSD or NVMe storage option?Brett Howse - Thursday, September 29, 2016 - link
It depends what you are doing I guess. It's not anywhere near as big of a difference as when we first got SSDs though. If you work with large files though, the read and write of something like a 950 Pro is kind of mind-boggling.cptcolo - Saturday, November 12, 2016 - link
Yes. The difference is huge. I have the X1 Yoga with the 1TB PM961 NVMe. It is simply amazing how fast it is with the supercharged SDD. It is definitely worth the price difference over the SATA SSD.fanofanand - Thursday, September 29, 2016 - link
I recently received a new laptop at work, replacing an old thinkpad. It's weight is similar but is half the thickness. Battery life increased from 95 minutes to 8 hours. I was a believer in battery life over thin, but it seems like they can finally match the two together, assuming you aren't trying to game on battery. This is a really cool device with a really high price. They will sell plenty, but not to me. If they had a version around $1,000 with a few less bells and whistles, it would be a game changer.snakyjake - Thursday, September 29, 2016 - link
Is the camera an Intel RealSense camera for biometric facial recognition?