I made a very quick video showing how fast it is to log onto a Windows 10 PC that has a Fingerprint reader.
The laptop in use is a Lenovo ThinkPad P50 which I will be reviewing soon!
I log on all the time now doing this, you can actually put your finger on at startup before seeing the lock screen and it’s even quicker.
Side note – I need something better than the Samsung Galaxy S6 to make these videos on :)
A new 13.3″ laptop from Lenovo arrived for me, so I thought I’d put it through it’s paces and see how it compared. Don’t confuse this with the Yoga 900S which is due out soon
The laptop arrived in a simple plain white but stylish looking box:
Inside, was a silver Lenovo Yoga 900. It could have been gold, or orange like my older Yoga Pro 2 which I’m a huge fan of, but the silver is still very nice. The Yoga 900 follows on from the Yoga Pro 3, which I reviewed and compared to the Yoga Pro 2. The Yoga 900 is more of a refresh to the Yoga Pro 3, providing an i series Intel CPU rather than the M – (more power!) at the cost of a little more weight and thickness. Regardless of this, it’s still a really thin and light laptop, which I’d prefer to have the extra power of an i5 or i7 CPU in anyway.
It’s still a very slick looking consumer laptop, just like it’s predecessors. This has already ended up being my primary laptop to use at home on the couch!
Lenovo Yoga 900
Let’s have a look at the various hardware aspects:
Keyboard/Trackpad: Nothing much has changed with the keyboard, and that’s a good thing. One of the first settings I change in the BIOS is to toggle the top row of keys to be function keys primarily (F1-F12) as I tend to use these more than the other options such as screen brightness or volume. Personally, this style of keyboard I find very quick to type on – the keys aren’t very clicky, but are spaced out enough and still give enough tactile feedback to make typing smooth and fast for my style. Keyboard is backlit and has the normal high/low/off options.
The trackpad doesn’t have dedicated buttons, but is still nice enough to use. As you can tell from the picture below, my greasy mitts quickly left a mark on the trackpad, but that can be easily wiped off. Looking at someone with a more professional review and getting paid to do it, they had similar marks so I don’t feel as bad :) This is the case for most laptops these days anyway.
Keyboard and Trackpad
Screen: This is a very glossy screen. It was hard to take a picture of it on a good angle due to the reflection, but that was only while taking the photo. It wasn’t actually as bad while using it. The screen resolution is a very high 3200×1800, very clear, crisp and bright. My picture doesn’t really do it justice! Touch screen too, so if you flip the lid into tablet mode, you can easily navigate around or read an ebook.
Yoga 900 Screen
Yes, I do like what I see!
Ports: On the right side, there’s power, the setup/bios button, orientation lock, audio out and a USB 3 port:
Yoga 900 right side ports
On the left side, we have a power cable (same as Yoga 3) which doubles as a USB 2 port, a USB 3 port, a USB Type-C port and a SD Card slot:
Yoga 900 left side ports
It was at this stage I was wondering what happened to video out. This was the first laptop I’d had with the USB Type-C, so my suspicions were that this new port was the answer – and it is. USB Type-C is forming to be the new de facto standard USB port. Apple Macs already have it, Windows Lumia 950/950XL phones do too, along with a bunch of other new devices. It pushes though audio and video as well as data (I know, audio and video ARE a type of data) which means this single port can do a lot. Even better, a cable or device plugged into this port will work either way around, so no longer will you need to hope you’ve got that USB stick the right way around. To top it off, it’s twice as fast as USB 3 at 10Gbps.
Other Hardware: Of course there’s the watch style hinge, which still works as solidly as it did on the Yoga Pro 3, it’s hard not to notice it:
Yoga Pro 900 hinge
There’s also two JBL speakers on the base of the unit which provide some rather decent stereo sound, which end up behind the top of the screen when in tablet mode:
Yoga 900 speaker
As I mentioned before, this is still a very light and thin laptop at 324W x 225H x 14.9D mm – much thinner than the new SurfaceBook Pro as a comparison:
SurfaceBook vs Yoga 900
All the tech specs are available from Lenovo, but the model I have contains:
Quite decent specs! It is only $200AU more for the i7 which you should consider if you need the extra grunt, or want a bit more longevity out of the laptop.
Usage: I set up the laptop with my Microsoft account, and tried a little Hearthstone with both the touchpad and touch. Worked perfectly. Battery life seemed to be really good, as I had been carrying it around in my bag for a week before getting the chance to play, and it was at around half charge – and lasted about 3 hours. Hearthstone pushes the laptop a fair bit, so I wasn’t expecting to get that close to 4.5 hours.
From what I’d want from a regular use laptop (that’s not a gaming laptop, or crazy high specc’d with the matching size and weight), the Yoga 900 ticks all the boxes – but just make sure you invest in something like a USB Type-C to HDMI type connector if you need to do video out, so you can plug into everything else you have.
Should You Buy It? On this one, I’m going to say most likely “yes”. I’d suggest this over the Yoga Pro 3 due to the newer and better CPU. It’s at quite a reasonable price considering the US$ for Australians at $2199, and in the US it’s currently $1099. The screen doesn’t detatch, but to me this is unnecessary if you can fold it over into tablet mode and still have a powerful, light and thin device to use compared to the SurfaceBook. The upcoming Yoga 900S is going to be less powerful with the Core M cpu, so I’d only pick that if you had very basic requirements and really wanted a ridiculously thin laptop. Also Intel’s 7th gen CPU isn’t due until late 2016, and even then it’ll take a while to turn up in different devices – so you’re future proofed for a while.
Got any questions or comments? Ask and I’ll do my best to answer!
I managed to get my hands on a new Lenovo ThinkPad Yoga 260, so here’s my thoughts on the current Yoga situation and the Yoga 260:
Lenovo ThinkPad Yoga 260
Yoga History
The consumer series of Lenovo Yogas has been making leaps and bounds – from the Yoga Pro 2 I reviewed, up to the new Yoga 900S – many models have come out, all with their improvements from the previous, and attracting a lot of attention.
However, the Yoga 260 and 460 are the first ThinkPad series of Yoga laptops since the ThinkPad Yoga 14 (along with the 15 and 12 models) which were decent laptops, but didn’t get too much fanfare. It was a little on the hefty side for weight, and a little bit chunky which made other options such as the drool-worthy X1 Carbon more attractive, despite not having a tablet mode.
It was still an improvement however, over the earlier ThinkPad Yoga which was too weighty and thick to be a decent hybrid laptop. When I first saw one of these, it wasn’t really a consideration. At the time, the ThinkPad Helix seemed to make more sense with it’s proper tablet mode and crazy battery life, due to having a second battery in the keyboard base.
That has all changed – CES 2016 had a plethora of laptops launched, including the highly regarded ThinkPad X1 Yoga – but you can’t get those yet.
Before all those were launched, the ThinkPad Yoga 260 started coming out in Q3 2015 (not that I could get one until Q1 2016!) and were the first ThinkPad Yogas along with the larger ThinkPad Yoga 460 to feature Intel’s 6th Gen CPU, codenamed Skylake.
It is worth pointing out, that any Lenovo laptop under the ThinkPad name are incredibly robust, and have standards to Mil-SPEC and beyond Mil-SPEC, which is impressive that they now have such thin devices that still meet these standards.
ThinkPad Yoga 260
So here I am, with a Yoga 260 sitting next to me. First impressions of the device are that it’s not as small as I expected for a 12.5″ device, but it’s still reasonably light. I’ve spent some time playing around with it, so I’ll try to cover the bits and pieces I’ve found interesting about this particular model.
Hardware
I’ve put all the specs at the bottom of this post, as there’s a lot of them! Points of interest are:
Keyboard – it’s a nice keyboard, the standard I’d expect from a ThinkPad. Keys are nicely spaced and easy to type on. The trackpad is very clicky which I like – it’s a proper click when you press into it rather than a light click. It has the two proper left/right buttons for those who prefer it, but the standard gestures and left/right click work on the main trackpad too.
ThinkPad Yoga 260 Keyboard
Screen – I don’t like the lower end 1366 x 768 option, but love the 1920 x 1080. Perfect res without being over the top (I don’t think you need more than this on a 12.5″ screen). It doesn’t have a particularly thin bezel, comparing against a 3 year old X1 Carbon, the Carbon is a lot thinner. I’d be curious to know what reasons the engineers chose to not go thinner. At the same time it’s not too thick, but makes the laptop more of what I’d expect from a 13″ size overall.
ThinkPad Yoga 260 12.5″ Screen
Pen – The Yoga 260 comes with an inbuilt powered pen. It’s a supercapacitor stylus using Warcom technology. I calibrated it once after turning on the laptop to improve the accuracy, and it’s very accurate (video below). It’s compact, but personally I prefer the bigger Microsoft Surface Pen – but, I don’t know if that would actually fit inside the laptop. Lenovo’s pen fits snugly into the base of the laptop and you wouldn’t know it was there unless you looked. They’re different use cases I believe – Lenovo’s pen is better for ad-hoc use, where Microsoft’s pen is more designed as a mouse replacement. I also tested, you can’t use a Microsoft Pen on the Yoga 260 :)
The pen requires charge, but uses a super capacitor rather than a battery. Engadget has a great supercapacitor stylus of the technology. It will go for 2 – 4 hours and then need a charge; 15 seconds of charging will give you 80% of the life back, or full capacity in 5 minutes.
Yoga 260 vx Carbon X1 1st GenTech Specs
As taken from Lenovo’s website, here are all the specs. I’ve underlined the parts where there are options to show what I’m using:
| DESCRIPTION | THINKPAD YOGA 260 CONVERTIBLE ULTRABOOK |
|---|---|
| Processor |
|
| Operating System |
|
| Display |
|
| Digitiser pen (optional) |
ThinkPad Pen Pro, active pen for multi-touch display
|
| Hinge / mode |
Yoga hinge, 360 degree / Laptop, tent, stand and tablet
|
| Graphics |
Intel HD Graphics 520 in processor only, supports external digital monitor via HDMI, Mini DisplayPort;
Supports dual independent display Max resolution: 3840×2160 (Mini DisplayPort)@60Hz 4096×2160 (HDMI)@24Hz |
| Memory |
Up to 16GB, 2133MHz DDR4, one DDR4 SO-DIMM socket (8GB)
|
| Webcam |
Integrated, HD720p resolution, fixed focus
|
| Storage1 |
|
| Dimensions (W x D x H) |
309.9 x 220 x 17.8 mm
|
| Weight |
Starting at 1.32kg
|
| Case material |
Carbon-Fiber Hybrid
|
| Case colour |
Midnight black
|
| Battery |
4-cell Li-Polymer battery (44Wh)
|
| Battery Life2 |
Up to 10 hours3
|
| AC adaptor |
45W or 65W AC adapter
|
| Keyboard |
6-row, LED backlit, spill-resistant, multimedia Fn keys
|
| UltraNav™ |
TrackPoint® pointing device and multi-touch with 3+2 buttons click pad
|
| Fingerprint reader |
Touch style fingerprint reader on the keyboard bezel
|
| Audio support |
HD Audio, Conexant® CX11852 codec, Dolby® Home Theater® v4 / stereo speakers, 2W x 2 / dual array microphone, combo audio / microphone jack
|
| Security chip |
Trusted Platform Module, TCG 1.2-compliant and Software TPM 2.0
|
| Light sensor |
Ambient Light Sensor
|
| G-sensor |
3D accelerometer and 3D magnetometer, 3D compass, 3D gyrometer
|
| Wireless LAN |
Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 8260, 2×2, Wi-Fi + Bluetooth® 4.0, no vPro
|
| SIM card | Yes |
| Mil-Spec test |
MIL-STD-810G military certification
|
| Ports |
|
I was given the opportunity to attend the launch of Intel Asia Pacific’s 6th Generation CPU in Sydney, 14th October 2015.
The event was held in the Sydney Opera House, which I’d never been in before. Great building, but not so great for phone reception – luckily Wi-Fi was readily available. The event was also live streamed so people around the world could watch and see what Intel had to say. If you missed out, you can still watch a reply of it here.
Intel On Stage
The hashtag for the event was #Experience6thGen and you can check out what people were saying on Twitter – including myself as I live tweeted points I found interesting.
Take home messages from the event for me were:
Some of the devices were on display. To get to them, I had to sneak past a robot:
Intel Robot
…then I had to avoid detection of some Stormtroopers:
Looking for droids?
… and I finally managed to make my way to Lenovo’s showcase of devices, with Intel’s new CPU inside.
I spotted:
Sorry about the photo angles, it was very crowded! Personally, I’m most interested in the P50/P70 series of Lenovo laptops because they’re really a decent server in laptop form, go read about them! The ThinkPad Yoga 260 is also interesting for a business user, as a lot of the Yogas lately have been consumer. They all look like decent laptops though, and have their own target audience.
There was also a gaming desktop set up, but I only managed to snap a photo of the awesome red keyboard:
Lenovo Gaming Keyboard
It’s nice to see a focus from both Lenovo and Intel on the gaming community again, which combines with so many people wanting a grunty PC as rich media content creator and editor.
Hi from the event! (I’m 3rd from left)
Thanks for the invite Intel, had a great time and got to catch up with a variety of great people all with an interest in what Intel does. Hopefully I’ll have my hands on a 6th Gen CPU myself, so I can put it through the paces.
Below is a review written by Mason Baxter – his first review of a product, as well as his first article! He is a 14 year old student (at time of writing, now 15) in South Australia, interested in different technologies, games and sports.
Introduction
I had the chance to test Lenovo’s Y40-80 gaming laptop for a few days. This is my first gaming laptop experience, so I was really excited to see how it worked with it’s dedicated graphics card. Here’s what I thought about it.
Overhead photo comparing to size of a Surface Pro 3
Design
I loved the look of this gaming laptop at first sight. The carbon fibre look finish on the outer of this laptop not only feels great but it is appealing to the eye. This design makes the Lenovo badge stand out and give it a nice touch. When I opened the lid I saw very nice a clean look on the interior. The palm rest was made of a smooth material that was very comfortable when I typed.
Ports
For such a small and compact gaming notebook, the Y40 has lots of ports. On the left side there are a pair of USB 3.0 ports, an expandable gigabit Ethernet port, a full-sized HDMI port and a power port. On the right side there is a one USB 2.0 port, a 4 in 1 card reader, a S/PDIF jack, microphone/ headphone jack and a kensington lock. Having the full-size HDMI and Ethernet port were a welcome addition, so you don’t need additional adapter cables to connect the network or an external display, all other ports are well placed.
Left hand side – Power, Full size Ethernet and HDMI ports, 2 x USB 3.0
Right hand side – 4 in 1 card reader, an S/PDIF jack, microphone/ headphone jack, USB 2.0 port and Kensington lock
Keyboard and touch pad
I am currently using HP Pavilion X2 for school and I thought the keyboard was ok until I used the Y40. The keyboard on the Y40 was very comfortable and easy to type on. After about an hour of gaming I did notice that the keyboard was getting warm in the centre region, but it didn’t get too hot. My only disappointment was that the keyboard wasn’t backlit, as it is in the Y50 (which is another Lenovo gaming laptop with higher specs).
The touch pad was great to use and quite responsive, I also found it easy to use with the windows gestures for scrolling and pinch to zoom.
Display
The Y40 only has a 1080P resolution compared with the 4K resolution on the Y50. While it would be good to have the higher resolution at least all of the games rendered perfectly at 1080p. I believe that even though there is a webcam in the top of the screen, the bezel could have been thinner to maximize the screen size.
Battery
This battery lasts on average 5 – 6 hours if you are using it for everyday activities such as browsing the web, checking for emails or finding out the latest news. But if you are looking to use this laptop for gaming you are only going to get 1 – 2 hours of it, so make sure you have a charger at handy if you’re looking to game.
Graphics / gaming
This gaming laptop is fitted with AMD Radeon R9 M275 GPU with 2GB of ram and it also comes with an onboard Intel(R) HD Graphics 5500. After realising this laptop had two GPU’s I wanted to test which was more powerful. Using 3Dmark, I gathered the results shown in the table below:
Intel(R) HD Graphics 5500/ AMD Radeon R9 M275
As you can see from the results, the AMD Radeon outperformed the onboard GPU on all of the tests, which would make sense as it has 2GB of dedicated RAM. When I played games like CSGO (Counter Strike Global Offence) or Garry’s mod I could run those games using the highest settings. I didn’t notice any lag at all and the game play was very smooth. I played the same games with the AMD Radeon disabled and there was a noticeable reduction in the quality of the gaming experience.
Whilst having a SSD hard drive would have been great, the SATA 2.5″, Hybrid drive: (1TB 5400 rpm + integrated 8GB NAND flash) provided a great storage capacity and good speed when gaming.
Final results
In conclusion if you are looking to for an entry level gaming laptop that is compact and well-priced, then this laptop is the one for you. The Y40 has a fantastic keyboard, long lasting battery for everyday tasks and has a solid gaming performance. However I wish that the keyboard was backlight and that the bezel was smaller to maximize the screen size. But overall I would recommend this to people looking for a nice gaming laptop at an affordable price.
Open view – 14”FHD screen, 1.0-megapixel, 720p HD camera, fixed focus, with dual array microphone
Thanks Mason for the review!
The Y series of gaming laptops from Lenovo are available here.
