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
Wi-Fi Performance
Most Ultrabooks are at the point where they are too thin to even include a standard Ethernet port, and the Yoga 2 Pro is no exception. As a consumer device, this is generally not an issue as most laptops are used over Wi-Fi anyway, so a high quality wireless card is important. Unfortunately the Intel Wireless-N 7260 (an M.2 card which integrates Bluetooth 4.0) has some major features missing for a $1099 laptop. The lack of 802.11ac support might be forgivable, since 802.11ac is fairly new, but the fact that this card has only 2x2 TX/RX stream support at 2.4GHz can be a deal breaker for many people. It’s somewhat sad that in 2014, a premium device can be sold without 5GHz Wi-Fi.
I understand there are margins to maintain, but for a device that lives entirely on Wi-Fi, a small amount spent here would help a lot. On Amazon.com, the price difference between the Intel Wireless-N 7260 ($10) and the Dual-Band Intel Wireless-N 7260, which supports 5GHz, is $10, and moving up to the AC version is only another $10. It would be unlikely Lenovo is paying that much per card. On a $1000 laptop, this isn't acceptable Wi-Fi.
Let’s take a look at the Wi-Fi performance:
When running these performance tests, I could not get the device to connect at anything higher than 144 Mbps, even on a router with just this device connected. Troubleshooting that led me to a newer driver version for the Intel wireless card (dated June 2014) and once installed I was immediately able to connect at the maximum of 300 Mbps. Keep in mind however that interference on 2.4GHz is pretty high for most areas, so this is very much a best-case scenario.
Even with a 300Mbps connection, maximum transfer speed was not great with the Yoga 2 Pro only achieving 141 Mbps. This is a real disappointment on a device with a price tag of around the thousand dollar mark. A 5GHz connection should be the minimum acceptable level here.
While doing research on the wireless card choice, I found several people who recently purchased a Yoga 2 Pro which they claim comes with the Intel Wireless AC 7260 card which would improve this result quite a bit. I've reached out to Lenovo to verify this information and will post an update if they confirm it.
Tablet Performance
Due to the dual nature of the Yoga 2 Pro, we can also compare it to other two-in-one devices and tablet performance. Being an i5-4200U, it should easily outperform Bay Trail equipped two-in-one devices and be more in line with the Surface Pro offerings. Compared to ARM based tablets, it will be significantly faster.
Sunspider is a light workload that tests single-threaded performance. The Core i5 in the Yoga 2 Pro comes out on top.
Kraken is similar to Sunspider, with the Core series pulling an even greater advantage over Bay Trail and ARM based tablets.
The more complex the javascript load gets, the further the Core series pull away from everything else. The Core i5 pulls a pretty substantial lead over the i3-4020Y of the Surface Pro 3 due to the lack of Turbo Boost on the i3 model, even though the base clock speeds are similar.
Graphics performance, while not spectacular as a laptop, is very good compared to tablet form factor devices.
As an outright tablet, the Yoga 2 Pro is plenty fast, but being based on a laptop it isn’t designed to imitate a pure tablet experience. For instance, it does not feature support for Connected Standby, so the standard sleep mode for this is to use S3 sleep instead, so wake from sleep can take several seconds.
These comparisons to tablets show that the Core series has a substantial performance lead over the competition, however it has to be noted that the ARM and Bay Trail competitors are in a completely different power envelope. These benchmarks show why you may want to use a device like the Yoga 2 Pro with touch. The performance is still quite a leap from the true tablet devices out there, making tasks like web browsing a better experience.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
103 Comments
View All Comments
Egg - Saturday, August 16, 2014 - link
It's fixed with a recent Windows update :Droom200 - Thursday, July 31, 2014 - link
You cannot upgrade the wireless card. Even though the card is a common Intel card, the card has to be on the "whitelist". Lenovo and HP have been doing that to ALL of their laptops. When you put in a card not sold by them, you will be met with "1802: Unauthorized network card is plugged in - Power off and remove the miniPCI network card." And you will find that the computer will not boot! Unless you buy the wireless card from them (even though it is the same as the card you can get on Amazon), they have hard-coded identification information into the bios of the card. Also, most times they don't carry an upgrade, and when they do it costs 4 to 7 times what the Ebay/Amazon/Tiger Direct card costs.Egg - Thursday, July 31, 2014 - link
Dude do you know how to read? I own a Yoga 2 Pro. I *typed* the comment on 5 Ghz Wi-Fi.All you need is the correct card. I bought mine at mfactors; it cost me $40. I can't guarantee that ones from eBay or amazon will work, for some reason FCC stickers are a good sign that it will work.
lolTyler - Thursday, July 31, 2014 - link
How much better is the AC card in your opinion? I'm still running the stock card and it's incredibly flaky. I tried updating my drivers using the Intel's latest and the wireless drivers broken my trackpad. (Shit you not) - I haven't checked up on it 2 months though, may of been fixed.I was a day -4 Yoga 2 Pro owner. I got my Yoga a couple days before release when Best Buy posted it for sale early.
Here's my list of things I've found wrong the device that hasn't been stated:
- Terrible driver support. The Yoga 2 Pro is "flagship" ultrabook from Lenovo, yet it hasn't seen a major driver update since November 2013, other than a "Lenovo Motion Control" update pushed out in April '14
- Mustard Yellow: (Already stated, but I really want to nail this one home) This still isn't fixed and Lenovo won't recognize it. I've done the fix and only in Daily (or High Performance) mode with the brightness on max is the yellow issue fixed. As a programmer who needs to also do a lot of design work, the lack of rgb accuracy in certain brightness modes is a huge problem.
- Shutdown problems: Ever so often I shutdown my Yoga and it just hangs on a black screen with the keyboard lit up and won't turn off without my holding the power button. Happens every 1 out of 10 times. Might be a program I installed, but this has happened since day one for me.
- Keys stuck/still enabled when switching modes: Sometimes when I switch my Yoga from laptop to stand/tent/tablet modem, Windows detects keys as being pressed and won't stopped repeating the key press until I switch my Yoga back to laptop. ~(1 out of 30 chance) Also, on rare occasions, the keyboard and trackpad aren't disabled in tablet mode. ~(1 out of 100 chance)
- Wireless: The stock wireless card is abysmal, but this isn't just a Yoga problem. I get better reception on my phone sometimes and other times my Yoga fails to connect or drops connection. Depends on the router. The lack of 5GHz dual-band and AC is a joke.
- Rubberized material: Apparently they fixed this on the lower end Yoga 2 (non pro), but the rubberized texture on the lid is a massive blemish magnet. I just went on vacation and something in my backpack rubbed up against my Yoga which was in a black case and left a dark smear across the lid of my Yoga. I tried cleaning it with Alcohol and also baking soda; but because of the material, it won't come out. http://i.imgur.com/x8fxa7t.jpg
- Yoga is cooking itself?: I noticed this right before my vacation. The corners of my Yoga by the heat vents are slowly turning brown: http://i.imgur.com/FlrPWiB.jpg & http://i.imgur.com/OTHQ37J.jpg - Notice these are opposite sides by the yellow AC jack in the first picture. I've never owned a silver laptop before, so I don't know if this is common. But for a device that's less than a year old and "premium," this is a let down. This might just be a lack of material experience on my part. I don't do anything too intense on my Yoga, most gaming I've done is for ~18h total over the live of my Yoga.
- Windows 8.1 Hidpi: (Everyone's saying this, but again, huge deal) Not Lenovo's fault, but Hidpi mode is a mess. Sure, it's gotten better, but it still sucks. Chrome, my primary browser is also a mess.
Papa - Thursday, July 31, 2014 - link
There is a bios fix for the mustard yellow issue. No need to fiddle with modes anymore.I think this is it:
http://mobilesupport.lenovo.com/us/en/downloads/DS...
lolTyler - Friday, August 1, 2014 - link
Oh wow, that's a new BIOs fix, less than a month old. I'll check it out, thanks!lolTyler - Saturday, August 2, 2014 - link
Just did this "fix," and it's still a no go. Yellows are as mustardary as ever.I also tried locating the "new" Energy Manager that was released recently, which is suppose to help. I couldn't find a legit download. Only users posting random fileshare sites on Lenovo's forums with 60 minute download times and questionable package names.
I tried updating my current install of Energy Manager and I get a network error. Lenovo is really dropping the ball on their customer service.
I have a huge love/hate relationship with this laptop. My feelings for it are bio-polar, changing on a dime. When it works, it's great. When it doesn't, it fails hard.
KingGheedora - Friday, August 1, 2014 - link
The shutdown/restart problems will only get worse. BEWARE THIS LAPTOP. I have owned the Y2Pro since February, and at first the shutdown problem happened once every few weeks, but then I started getting random reboots and lockups with corrupt screen image while watching XBMC, which seemed like they were happening due to heat. Once that started happening everything went downhill. The laptop wouldn't boot up, it just kept trying to boot, the keyboard backlight would flash, and then it would try to boot up again. That just keeps happening over and over.Initially I could leave the laptop alone for a while and then it would eventually boot. But the problem got worse and worse until 3 weeks ago. I haven't been able to boot it up at all. I even opened it and disconnected the battery and then tried booting, still not working.
This is a common problem with this model. There are many users in the Lenovo support forums who have had this issue, had their laptop replaced, and had the issue again with the replacement model they got back. Some users eventually got a full refund. I just got the RMA set up and will be sending mine in for the first time this week.
lolTyler - Friday, August 1, 2014 - link
Wow, mine hasn't been that bad. I got my first lock up two weeks ago. The funniest part about it is someone was admiring my Yoga when it completely seized up. I'm sure it's a software issue, but like I said, the drivers haven't been updated in forever, so go figure.I've thought about trying to RMA or get a refund, but I'm still "partially" satisfied with my Yoga and there's nothing else on the market that intrigues me outside of a MBA.
Egg - Saturday, August 16, 2014 - link
Sorry for late reply.I haven't experienced the mustard yellow problems, shutdown problems, key sticking problems, or the wireless problems. I've used stock wireless on other Yoga 2 Pros and haven't noticed anything out of the ordinary, but not for too long.
I haven't really bothered to update the drivers, but I think you're right that there aren't many new ones. I probably don't mind any but the graphics drivers. I guess I got lucky; a friend had the boot issues out of box, sent it back, and got a perfect one.
I just switched back to Chrome after discovering Chrome 37 (on the beta channel) has HiDPI support and fixes the kerning issue :)