The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga Review: OLED and LCD Tested
by Brett Howse & Brandon Chester on September 29, 2016 11:30 AM ESTPerformance
The X1 Yoga we have for review is likely going to be the last of the Skylake-U models to come across my desk. With the recent launch of Kaby Lake, many machines are going to be available with the updated CPU soon. But that doesn’t discount Skylake, which still offers some nice performance gains especially with Speed Shift coming with Windows 10, and a big update to the integrated graphics.
The review model came with the Core i7-6500U processor, while Lenovo also offers the Core i5-6200U, i5-6300U, and i7-6600U models. 8 GB of RAM is standard, and 16 GB is available as well, but on the Lenovo page, 16 GB appears to be only available with the most expensive CPU, which is unfortunate.
The X1 Yoga was run through the standard notebook lineup for tests, and will be compared against other Ultrabooks and 2-in-1s. The X1 Carbon from last year is a nice comparison because it’s the Broadwell version with the i7-5600U, so you will be able to see the progress with Skylake.
PCMark
Futuremark’s PCMark tests attempt to replicate real-world workloads, with lots of burst work and some sustained work with gaming and such. The Skylake X1 Yoga shows a nice performance gain over Broadwell here.
Cinebench
Unlike PCMark, Cinebench is a pure CPU task, with 100% CPU load for the duration of the test. There are both single-thread and multi-thread options as well. Here Skylake’s improved features like Speed Shift have less of an impact, and the overall performance is similar to Broadwell in the X1 Carbon, but remember the X1 Carbon is the i7-5600U as well, offering a tiny bit more MHz than the i7-6500U in the X1 Yoga.
x264
Like Cinebench, this test is a CPU bound test, where higher frequencies and more cores make a big difference. Unlike Cinebench though, Skylake does a bit better here and pulls a nice gap over Broadwell.
Web Tests
Although web benchmarks are an imperfect test, in the end we spend a lot of our digital time using the web, so it’s still important. With the launch of Windows 10, we switched from Chrome to Edge for our browser tests, and the different browsers will be pointed out in the graphs.
Once again, performance is pretty much in-line with other Ultrabooks, and the i7-6500U has the benefits of Speed Shift which can help out quite a bit on the bursty workloads of Javascript. It’s not a huge gain over the last generation, but it’s still an improvement.
Storage Performance
Storage is now a key selling point on laptops again. Most manufacturers are proud to say they offer PCIe storage, even if they tend to ship the cheaper TLC based drives. In the case of the X1 Yoga, we have both an LCD model and the OLED one to test, and they didn’t come with the same SSDs. The LCD model was outfitted with the Samsung PM871 which is a SATA TLC drive, and in this case 512 GB. The OLED one was a Samsung PM951, which is a NVMe TLC drive. On a premium device, it would be nice to see NVMe across the board, and preferably MLC storage, but margins tend to trump this and Samsung's TLC drives are a step above the rest. Lenovo also offers some drives with OPAL 2.0 certification, and NVMe drives up to 1 TB.
512GB SATA-based PM871 (left) vs 512GB NVMe-based PM951 (right)
The PM871 shows its SATA roots, capping out at less than 600 MB/s. The PM951 is pretty much the standard NVMe drive for the last year, and its read performance shows the big benefit of getting off SATA, although the write speeds are somewhat lower due to the TLC flash.
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overzealot - Wednesday, October 5, 2016 - link
Awesome, thanks Brett!ikjadoon - Friday, September 30, 2016 - link
I think there's a little error on battery capacity. IIRC, the OLED version actually uses a 56Wh battery, while the LCD uses 52Wh.http://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-ThinkPad-X1-Yo...
So, then, the battery life for the OLED is actually even worse. :(
Lolimaster - Friday, September 30, 2016 - link
Not even my 7 years old Cowon S9 pmp shows that type of ghosting on his amoled display (pretty much zero ghosting).FXi - Saturday, October 1, 2016 - link
Interesting cross product implications from this review. Btw a very detailed review which is needed in this new type of product, kudos for not just glossing through the details but taking it head on.I note that power draw (with light screens which we knew about but good to note) being so much higher may well be a challenge to Apple going OLED. That may well cause them to implement a dark interface.
I bet Windows 10 with it's continuous approach to a dark interface may be ready for the move to OLED in more device types - though even using it you still had a severe drop in battery life.
If the gamut (which is going to be a big deal moving forward a couple years as 4k content all goes to wide gamut) had been wide on the LCD too, it would have been a fairer contrast. Wide gamut backlights on LCD's draw more power so then the comparison would have been more like to like in capability.
Often overlooked is that Nvidia (and possibly others but NV is the ones who discussed it) has for years made 10 bit wide gamut color accessible through DirectX which has supported wide gamut where the receiver (panel) could understand it. Now that would then need another culling of any actual games that have a wide gamut setting (even if invisible to the user) that activates on a wide gamut monitor, but be aware that taking advantage of wide gamut may not be restricted to just Adobe type programs. In fact the Nvidia driver has a checkbox for outputting 10 bit by force. This isn't color managed, but it begins to bridge the gap in the triple match you need of software/interface/hardware that would need to be aligned for high gamut impact.
If you'd tried a 4k HDR stream play on these devices I suspect you'd be pretty impressed at the differences.
Awesome job detecting the blur. That relates the the draw and hold driving of current panels that creates blur from the driving circuit in spite of OLED pixel draws. Yes it needs both hardware and driver level software to fix. Black frame insertion is the way to trick the brain and represents one first approach to curing this artifact. But it will come as no shock to you that the driver circuits in small devices are weak vs desktop or TV, but also that any special way of doing things now new to OLED and different from LCD is the weakest area of all. Very few houses make these kinds of chips needed for TV, fewer that can then be integrated for desktop and for mobile of laptop size, almost none. So it's going to take time and expansion of the entire market to drive new solutions as available.
Well done :)
cditty - Tuesday, October 4, 2016 - link
Easier for Apple to do OLED on the smaller screen. I'm really glad I read this article. The ghosting would have driven me crazy. I've used the FHD version of this laptop and liked it a lot (fingerprint login in particular). Makes sense to me why Apple is supposedly only using OLED on the Macbook Pro for a smaller touchpad. They won't trade off battery life. With processor and SSD technology constant now, it seems like the display (on a laptop) is the next battle point. I'm still relatively happy on a 5.5 inch phone with a 1080 screen. It's worth the extra battery life to me. A killer, accurate 1080 screen is better (to me) than a Q or UHD screen that kills the battery.I apologize for my 'all over the place' intermingling of phone and laptop discussion.
Erin Adreno - Sunday, October 2, 2016 - link
The nvme ssd speed doesn't seem right. That speed should come from a 950 pro instead of pm951.cptcolo - Saturday, November 12, 2016 - link
I am pretty sure it is a PM961 not a PM951cptcolo - Saturday, November 12, 2016 - link
I took apart mine, it indeed has a Samsung PM961 1TB SSD. I ordered mine back in June 2016.Ro_Ja - Monday, October 3, 2016 - link
It's also a good thing this laptop has the RAM in dual-channel mode. It greatly affects performance for onboard GPUs.amosbatto - Wednesday, October 5, 2016 - link
Let's talk about the longevity of this device. How hard is it to open the case and replace the parts? You didn't even bother to mention in the review that the battery is sealed in the case, which is very important when it dies after 2 years of use. Is it soldered or glued inside, or is it designed to be replaced? Is the keyboard a user replaceable part? Is the RAM soldered on the motherboard? Does the SSD use a standard connector? This is the essential information that determines whether a laptop lasts 5 years or 2 years and it is never included in any review.I just bought a Thinkpad T450s and I replaced the screen and added more RAM. The lid of the T450s is too thin to protect the screen in a fall in my opinion. The case is extremely hard to open without a plastic spudger and I marred the plastic because I only had a flat-head screw driver. Reviews used to open up laptops, but now we seem to live in a world where every device is designed for planned obsolescence.
These are important questions because the fabrication of a new laptop emits between 200 and 400 kg of CO2-equivalent. Between 60%-80% of the total energy of a laptop lies in its initial fabrication and the majority of its greenhouse gas emissions and other types of pollution are also caused by the fabrication. The best way to reduce the environmental impact is to use a device as long as possible and avoid new fabrication. I would appreciate reviews which at least give me some idea of the longevity of a device.
Another think that I would appreciate is some mention of the environmental hazards of its contents. Does it use PVC plastic and phthalates? Does it contain brominated flame retardants in the casing and motherboard? Does the screen contain arsenic? Does the manufacturer have a take-back policy, so the device can be easily recycled? For me, these are far more important questions when I buy a laptop than whether this device scores 5% better on some CPU test. I will never notice the incremental difference in the speed of the CPU, but I care whether I am being exposed to chemicals that may effect my hormones and could give my child a birth defect. Why do review sites like Anandtech never talk about whether the power cord on a laptop contains phthalates or not?