Design
The Yoga 3 Pro is an evolutionary jump forward from the previous iteration. The biggest change is the hinge, which leaves behind the dual-axle design seen on the Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 2 Pro$1,049.99 at Lenovo and the Lenovo Yoga 2 13$960.00 at Amazon, and instead uses a watchband-inspired hinge that runs the length of the device. You can still flip and fold the laptop as before, with different usage modes, like Stand, Tent, and Display, but now you can also lay the laptop out flat, 180 degrees, which you could not do on previous models. More importantly, the new hinge gives Lenovo a few more millimeters to shave off the device, and that makes the Yoga 3 Pro the thinnest Yoga yet. In the past, I've felt that the 13 inches is simply too large for tablet use, but the lighter, thinner Yoga 3 Pro has changed my mind.
There may also be some desire on Lenovo's part to further differentiate the Yoga line from other 2-in-1 offerings, especially now that several other manufacturers have offered systems that are very similar to the original Yoga folding design. The new watchband design will certainly be harder to copy, with more than 800 individual pieces in the hinge alone. The new design also makes for a sturdier hinge which holds up better to taps and touches. Regardless of the reasoning behind the watchband hinge, it's distinctive.
View all The laptop measures 0.5 by 12.99
by 8.98 inches (HWD), and weighs just 2.6 pounds. The chassis is molded plastic, with anodized aluminum on the lid and underside of the chassis, but the palm rest gets a soft-touch finish with a polka-dot texture. The laptop slims down even further with the new fanless chassis design, thanks to an Intel Core M processor, which doesn't need the cooling fans required by Intel's usual laptop CPUs.
The keyboard is also a bit thinner, but Lenovo has managed to retain most of the comfortable depth and smooth key movement seen on past iterations of the Yoga. That said, this might be as thin as a laptop can get while still having a regular keyboard, and even this one won't please all users—I know I was irritated by how shallow the key travel was. The keyboard does have backlighting, so typing in a dark room will be a little less difficult. The touchpad is also quite good, with all of the gesture controls and accurate tracking you might expect from a Lenovo product.
The 13.3-inch display, with its Quad-
HD (3,200-by-1,800) resolution, features Gorilla Glass, which should protect it from scratches and cracks. The edge-to-edge glass only enhances the gesture controls and the touch-capable display offers full 10-finger tracking. We've seen other laptops with better-than-HD resolution, like the Apple MacBook Pro 13-Inch, Retina Display (2014)$1,299.00 at Amazon, which has a 2,560-by-1,600-resolution Retina display, and the Toshiba Kirabook 13 i7s Touch$1,669.99 at Amazon, which has a 2,560-by-1,440 touch screen, but we haven't seen many in convertible systems. It's a gorgeous display, and it definitely helps justify the Yoga's premium price.
Features
In addition to the new look, Lenovo throws a couple of unexpected curveballs in terms of the port selection, like a power connector that doubles as a USB port. The standard USB port is modified with a slight bump on one side that makes sure the power cord is plugged in properly, and the port reverts back to standard USB whenever the DC power cable is disconnected. This has the dual effect of reducing by one the number of ports needed on the system without reducing total connectivity, and adds a new proprietary charger that you'll need to purchase through Lenovo. Additionally, the laptop offers micro HDMI for display output instead of the more commonly used full-size HDMI. The smaller port doesn't require the extra chassis thickness that a standard HDMI port does, but it will require some sort of adapter dongle or micro-to-full-size HDMI cable to run a connection out to a TV or projector.
The system comes with a few things preinstalled, like a free 30-day trial of McAfee LiveSafe, a 30-day trial of Microsoft Office 365, along with apps like Skype, Zinio, Amazon, Evernote, and others. Lenovo includes several proprietary apps, such as cloud storage through Hightail, Lenovo Phone Connection, and Lenovo Photo Master. There's also something called Yoga Chef, which includes a selection of recipes (regularly updated) presented in a series of full-screen cards that let you swipe through the steps of cooking as you go, with the option to use Lenovo's Webcam-enabled gestures to swipe through without touching the display. To better tie it all together and make everything work best with the Yoga's multimode design there's another app called Lenovo Harmony, which serves as a custom dashboard for your favorite apps and also serves as a bridge between the Metro interface and the desktop. Lenovo covers the Yoga 3 Pro with a one-year warranty that includes free depot and carry-in repairs.
Performance
The slim design of the Yoga 3 Pro is owed largely to the use of the new
Intel Core M 5Y70 processor, paired with 8GB of RAM. That 8GB is all
you get, by the way, because it's soldered directly to the motherboard,
instead of the usual So-DIMM slots, so there's no opportunity to upgrade
the memory. And while that processor is far more powerful than the
Intel Atom CPUs used on many Windows tablets, it doesn't favorably
compare to the Intel Core i5 and Core i7 processors used in other
convertible hybrids.In the PCMark 8 Work Conventional test, the Yoga 3 Pro scored 2,094 points. The considerably-less-expensive Toshiba Satellite Radius P55W-B5224$879.00 at Amazon, on the other hand, scored 2,757 points, thanks mostly to its Core i7 processor, while the Lenovo Flex 2$799.00 at Lenovo (2,693 points) and the HP Envy x360 15t£579.99 at PC World (2,682 points) both have Core i5 CPUs. Similar differences in performance were seen in the Photoshop CS6 and Handbrake tests.
The graphics processing is all done by the Intel HD Graphics 5300, the Core M chip's integrated solution. While integrated graphics are as a rule no competition for a discrete graphics processor, the performance is, again, lower overall than you would see with that of a standard Core i5 or Core i7 processor. For example, the Yoga 3 Pro scored 2,977 points in 3DMark Cloud Gate, and 202 points in Fire Strike Extreme. By comparison, the HP Envy x360 scored 4,012 points (Cloud Gate) and 227 points (Fire Strike), while the Toshiba Satellite Radius P55W-B5224 scored 5,089 points (Cloud Gate) and 295 points (Fire Strike). The graphics performance seen in the Yoga 3 Pro isn't bad, and will certainly be sufficient in tasks like Web browsing and streaming media, but if put side-by-side with one of these other systems, you would see it running a bit slower.
The Core M CPU is essentially running at a lower clock speed to reduce power consumption and generate less heat. As a result, the Yoga 3 Pro has an edge when it comes to battery life, lasting an impressive 8 hours 19 minutes on our battery rundown test. That's almost 30 minutes longer than the closest competitor, the Toshiba P55W-B5224 (7:51), and is all the more impressive when you note that other competing convertible systems didn't even reach the 6-hour mark.
Conclusion
If picking out the best system were purely about performance, I'd recommend that you opt for a much-less-expensive system with a full-size laptop CPU, like the Toshiba Satellite Radius P55W-B5224, our Editors' Choice for midrange convertible-hybrid laptops. The Toshiba offers much better performance, and it is far more affordable. However, if portability and battery life are primary concerns, the Yoga 3 Pro is well ahead, thanks to the Core M and the slimmer design it allows. Combine this with an excellent display, a solid feature set, and a striking design, and this is one of the best ultraportables we've seen. It's our Editors' Choice for high-end convertible-hybrid laptops.
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