Ideapad Yoga?

grisjuan, this is an outstanding response to my question. Thanks so much for the help (exactly what I needed to know).

Thanks so much.

 

Any news on Backlited Keyboard Yoga 13 any time soon? I need that feature.

 

Easy... turn on the classic keyboard: Settings -> Change PC Settings -> General -> Make the standard keyboard layout available. Then choose the 4th keyboard on the on-screen keyboard selection button.

Sorry... didn't see the solution was already posted.

 

If you get a USB hub with Ethernet.. can you use wired internet on a yoga?

 

Yes, absolutely! I bought this one for my U300s and use it regularly on my Yoga with no problem at all:
4-port USB hub with LAN port H415 | Lenovo | (US)

edit: It's $40 now... I found it for $11 about a year ago. You might be better off with a cheaper one from Amazon... any will work I'm sure.

 

Thanks for letting us know about that.

What kind of speeds do you see using the hub you linked to (which according to the link you provided is USB 2.0)?

I myself bought a USB 3.0 ethernet adapter. It works great in a wired connection off of my home router, but for some reason it is really hit or miss in public or office locations, to the point where it is basically unusable. (Which is probably a networking issue completely different than the adapter itself of the Yoga.)

I was wondering if you found the USB 2.0 ethernet adapter to be fast enough for normal use?

 

Absolutely! My experience has been it's just as fast as any other ethernet connection. It's not gigabit, only 100mb, but I've never had an issue (no ping loss or anything like that, if that's what you mean).

I rarely use my adapter though, just around, in and out of offices here and there when I'm working to resolve a network problem and need lan access on my laptop where there's no wifi or I can't use another machine. I've probably only logged > 10 hours on it in the year I've had it.

 

I just dropped my Yoga 13 off at UPS for return to Lenovo. I bought it during their "30-day no-questions-asked return" special.

I really liked the screen and the overall looks, but there were just too many things that didn't quite work for me to keep it. For example:

• wireless consistently slower than my old ThinkPad x220, I put them side-by-side in my home and tested from a few locations
• fan much louder than the x220
• Control/Alt/Shift keys did not repeat when held down, this is the first laptop I've owned that did not repeat the command keys
• magnets in base stuck to my metal desk which made it annoyingly clumsy to move around
• keyboard / touchpad did not turn off at 190 degrees as advertised
• touchpad buttons randomly stopped responding for about a minute...then started working again
• no backlit keys, I found that I really missed the thinklight from my thinkpad (yes I knew this when I bought it)
• large footprint for screen size, for comparison, the ThinkPad X1 fits a 14.1" screen into the same footprint (yes I knew this when I bought it)
• the sensors seem a bit strange, for example, the compass was sometimes wrong by about 180 degrees (it told me north was south)...this wasn't all the time, maybe 10-20% of the time. the data from the accelerometer seemed noisy as well. also, the compass was not capable of reporting true north (it only did magnetic north).

The three big ones for me were the TouchPad responsiveness, the fan noise, and the slow wireless. If these items are addressed in a future update, I'd reconsider.

 

I love using my Yoga and really like the form factor and convertible capability. Although, like you I wish it had a backlite keyboard. If a backlite keyboard would become available as a servicable upgrade I would purchase and install it right away. My wireless is fast and works great (I wonder how you measure your wireless speed - I simply use Speakeasy Speakeasy Speed Test ). I connect on the Yoga with a WiFi speed of 50Mbps and on my other computer with cable 76Mbps. For home use I thought those were pretty good speeds. As far as fan noise in my room with other ambient noise I rarely even notice it. In the future things I will be looking for in a machine of this form factor are: 1) quad core processor, 2) better graphics than the Intel HD 4000 (I some times connect with HDMI to a large monitor and the Intel HD 4000 does not provide the resolution I desire), 3) more USB ports (at least three or maybe four). Thanks for your list of concerns (I wonder if there are differences, machine-to-machine for the same model)?

 

I just used speedtest.net to test wireless speeds. It wasn't so much that the absolute speeds were bad, they weren't terrible. However, in every test the Yoga was slower than my 1.5 year-old ThinkPad. And the Yoga ($1600) cost more than the ThinkPad ($900). The combination of high price and large number of glitches pushed me over my tolerance limit for the Yoga.

 

This is an aspect of the Yoga that I would like to ask others about. How has your experience been connected the Yoga to other displays?

So far, I have only connected my Yoga to my TV (55" LED), and so I was not expecting that great of a picture anyway. But I would hope that on a regular computer monitor (say 24" or 27") that the resulting picture would be fairly good.

If anyone has used the Yoga on an external monitor, what has your experience been?

 

I use another laptop (3 1/2 year old Dell Studio XPS 1645) that has a 1GB graphics card and connected to a Dell 24" 2407WFP LCD with native resolution of 1920 x 1200 and it is sharp, bright whites, great colors (great resolution). I use this for doing editing with Photoshop CS6.

I have also connected my Yoga 13 to the same external monitor with HDMI (not a fair comparison because the Yoga does not support the native resolution of the external monitor). My expectations were limited because of the integrated Intel HD 4000 graphics. Results and comparison were as expected with the Yoga giving slightly less sharpness (does not support the native resolution of the external monitor). It is usable for photo editing but not like having a computer with a separate on board graphics card. When running the "Windows Experience" index my machine with the on board graphics gives me 6.2 as compared to 4.7 of the Yoga (this is typical for ultrabooks with Intel HD 4000 integrated graphics). I love my Yoga but would not normally use it with this setup for editing Photoshop images unless in a pinch (that's not what I bought it for).

 

Can someone run PassMark and let me know what the CPU and 3D Graphics rate on the Yoga 13?

PassMark PerformanceTest - PC benchmark software


I know it has a Core i5 w/ HD4000, but various factors like cooling and memory speed can affect it.

Right now I have an Asus VivoBook S200E that I was thinking about returning. I really like the concept of the Yoga, but if it's not much of an upgrade.... then there's no point.

 

Sorry but I am not familiar with PassMark but I did download an evaluation copy and ran a test. Below are some screen shots of test run on my Lenovo Yoga 13 (hope this is helpful):



I have to admit the PassMark 3D test is a bit confusing because on the first chart shows the 3D Graphics Mark, line #4 (Intel HD 4000 at 462 which is 22% higher than this computer - shows this computer at 378). Well this computer has the Intel HD 4000 so why is the data as shown. We should also note that a huge portion of the ultrabooks currently on the market use the integrated Intel HD 4000 Graphics (not unique to Yoga 13).

 

Thank you so much for responding. I really appreciate it. I will be buying a monitor sometime down the road, and although it may not be the ideal solution I think it will work good enough for my purposes. If it is that bad, I may look into putting together a cheap home built gaming desktop for those programs that really need a GPU. Thanks again.

 

Has anyone tried running autocad or solidworks on this machine? I know for massive rendering this machine won't cut it, however for normal operations...would it perform?

 

Thank you.

I understand the confusion. The difference between the Yoga 13 and the HD4000 on the chart is the HD4000 shown is an average of all user-reported scores.


The problem is, the Yoga 13 only implements a single-channel DDR interface (1 memory stick), effectively neutering the Intel Core processor + graphics system with half the bandwidth. So that's why it's slower. I was curious how it compares to the Asus Vivobook which I briefly used and returned to Staples, which scored a 290.

 

If of value to some below I have attached my entire set of PassMark data charts (run a second time this morning):

 

The CPU score is much faster than the Vivobook I tested..... that only got 2500.


It's not the best or most modern benchmark, but it gives a fair way to assess relative measure between processors/upgrades, since you can see all the databased parts.

PassMark Software - CPU Benchmark Charts
and
PassMark Software - Video Card Benchmark Charts

 

Wow, I was at Best Buy today looking at the Surface Pro and just for curiosity I looked at the "Windows Experience Index" for Desktop Graphics and was I surprised. The Surface Pro has an i5 processor and 4GB RAM and had a Windows Experience Index of 5.6 for Desktop Graphics while my Yoga has an i7 processor and 8GB Ram and a Desktop Graphics index of 4.7 (both machines have the integrated Intel HD 4000 Graphics, so what has Microsoft done to optimize the Desktop Graphics index). I went to the Intel site and tried to update my HD 4000 drivers (showed that it did do an update but is still 4.7). I would really be excited if I could get 5.6 Desktop Graphics index on my Yoga 13.

If anyone knows how to improve the Desktop Graphics index number on the Yoga, please share info. Thanks

My Graphics HD 4000 Driver version is: 9.17.10.2932
I also just updated my Bios from 66CN51WW to 66CN52WW

 

I have a Surface Pro as well and when I first started using it I quickly did notice it was snappier than my Yoga. I looked at the experience index as you did and saw the increased graphics rating. Definitely odd considering it's also an Intel HD 4000 and a Core i5 with LESS RAM than my Yoga. I really wonder how they did it - it's not just a fake Index number - it's noticeably quicker and snappier when scrolling web pages or switching windows, etc.

 

Dual channel ram... if you look at the iFixIt tear down there's 2 banks of 2gb of ram making 4 total. The Yoga uses single channel memory with one bank.

 

I went to a Best Buy store on Thursday and talked with a person from Microsoft for an hour about the Surface Pro. It was a great demonstration and discussion (I was really impressed). Although, I had a question the Microsoft person could not answer (how did the Surface have such a good "Windows Experience Index" for Graphics Desktop Performance of 5.6 as compared to 4.7 for others with the same processor and HD 4000?).

After it was identified the the Surface Pro performance was a result of having two slots for RAM (two 2GB sticks for a total of 4GB) I went back to Best Buy to again talk with the Microsoft person. Many other Ultrabooks have one slot (mine has one slot with 8GB). Two RAM sticks apparently process graphics data faster and result in a higher WEI.

When I stopped back into the Best Buy store the Microsoft person was there and I share what I had found about the WEI. To my surprise the Microsoft person was working with customers on other computers and holding a Yoga 13 folded as a tablet. When I got a chance to talk with her I asked about the Yoga and she said it was her personal computer and her favorite machine. Obviously she was there to sell the Surface Pro so that's what we mainly talked about but this makes an interesting story about users liking the Yoga 13.

 

That's a really great story! Glad to hear a MS staff member prefers and enjoys the Yoga so much. Maybe we'll find her later in this forum!

Interesting stuff, by the way, on the Surface Pro and relative WEI ratings; I didn't realize that. Thanks

 

Interesting story

I am thinking to buy an ultrabook/tablet after some search I come up with 3 options: Lenovo Ideapad Yoga 13, Lenovo Thinkpad T430U and Microsoft Surface Pro. I could not find the Lenovo Thinkpad T430U thread so I can not really ask about that.I feel that Surface Pro is a little bit overpriced and the internal memory is small and not upgradable. So the best option might be the Yoga.

But I read the last pages of this forum, some people said that the Yoga is easily getting hot and sometimes the fan noise is too loud. Is there any solution for that? Maybe we need to repaste?
Anyway, is the SSD upgradable using the normal SSD (2.5" form factor) on the market ?
If I were to play full HD movies on Yoga 13,would Yoga be able to play smoothly considering only having HD4000? I know that the resolution will be turned down to the native resolution 1600*900.
I would not play games on Yoga and I only expect the dedicated GPU to be able to play Full HD movies

Thanks

 

Full HD movies work fine, no problems at all.

 

I returned the Yoga to get an Asus Zenbook. It's not perfect (none are!), but I've been pleased with the switch. Not very upgradeable, but definitely cool and quiet, with a nice backlit keyboard.

Sent from my Incredible 4G using Tapatalk 2

 

Backlit keyboard? seriously? I read some review online and they mentioned no such backlit keyboard

 

Yes, the Zenbook (UX31A-BHI5T11) has a backlit keyboard. The Yoga does not.

Sent from my Incredible 4G using Tapatalk 2

 

oh you meant the Zenbook. I see

 

I enjoy using my Yoga 13 (including the package / form factor, extra internal slot for a second mSATA, convertible capability and touch screen).

If Lenovo views this forum I would like to share what I hope to find in a future Yoga (keep current form factor):
1) Two RAM slots (two sticks will increase Desktop Graphics Performance on the HD 4000 - like Surface Pro).
2) Backlite keyboard (like ZenBook)
3) At least two more USB ports (total of four)
4) 400 NIT brightness screen (like Surface Pro)
5) Grid integrated with screen to support Wacom stylus (like Surface Pro)
6) At least 3MP camera for video calls (like many other Ultrabooks)

All of the above capabilities / technologies are available (as demonstrated on other computers - but not one computer has it all). It's just a matter of time and which manufacture will incorporate all this stuff into one beautiful machine. It would be nice if size, weight and cost didn't also increase with these enhancements.

What would others like to see?

 

New Yoga 13, Drivers, SSD Space, Battery and Fan questions.

I bought it yesterday and I love it but there are a few questions and a couple of issues that are bothering and making think about possible return to the store to get a refund or a new device.

1. Noisy fan at all times, all I did last night was to play around getting my device ready (at night, alone in a quite room) and it ended up annoying to the point that I started researching about it, and that's how I've arrived here. Is the problem with all devices? Or if I go back and as for a replacement should fix it? (I know theres a patch coming out soon, but I'd great if could get fix without it).

2. I've seen here complaining about the SSD free space, I am not an expert but I saw a fix available. Do I have to use it? How do I know that I am getting the right amount of free space? Right now by going to Computer I see that I have a C partition with 187GB free out of 223 and a partition called Lenovo (D) with 2.34GB out of 3.99.

3. The laptop has so many apps I don't really need. Is there a way to get a clean installation with my windows 8 copy (the one that came with the laptop).

4. Battery Life, I have seen a video the unboxing video in here where the guy says that with this device I should be able to get about 8 hours battery on Balanced mode. Yesterday I have only played around getting my Yoga ready and the battery only lasted about 5 hours or 5 hours and 30 minutes. That's almost 3 hours less. I have seen a few reviews only where they said that were getting about the same amount of time I did, but they were doing a playback test. I assuming that a much consuming thing than what I was doing last night (play around with a few aps and internet). Any tips to get a similar battery life when using the laptop for such basic things?

5. Drivers do I have to install anything else to get the best performance possible? I have updated my windows 8 but I am wondering if theres something else coming from Lenovos side. Secondly, I am not really sure where and how.


My device has an i7, 8gb ram and 256 SSD. Bought in Cologne Germany (Media Markt).


Thanks guys.

 

Yes, the fan on the Yoga is very noisy (if you have good hearing and are in a quiet room). Unfortunately I do not know of any fix. I hadn't to return the Yoga because of this problem.

Sent from my Incredible 4G using Tapatalk 2

 

I have three other laptops and I have to say my Yoga 13 is the quietest of them all by far. My other three machines are at least a year old and I know the newer machines have made improvements in this area. The sound on my Yoga is like a very quite whisper air flow (no motor noise or rattle from the fan). While in the laptop form I generally don't hear it unless I consciously listen for it but if I have it converted to a tablet and the vents facing me or close to my face it becomes noticeable (but not an issue for me).

 

Slickdeals has the BestBuy i5 Yoga for sale at $899 on special... FYI:
Lenovo IdeaPad Convertible Ultrabook 13.3" TouchScreen Laptop 4GB Memory 128GB Solid State Drive Yoga 13 - 59359567 - Best Buy

 

There's a very long thread on the fan noise issue here. To save you reading it all there's basically two problems:

A grinding noise from the fan. This is caused by the blades hitting the fan housing and was confirmed and fixed by a guy who took his Yoga apart and bent up the housing a little bit. I'd imagine this should be a straight forward warranty return.

The second problem is probably the one you're talking about i.e the fan being on all the time. A Lenovo employee posted to say the are working on a BIOS update to change the fan behaviour and the hoped to release it by the end of February but there's been no recent update from him. I have yet to see any other solution.

Probably best to hold out for the patch if you can. Even if the patch helps I'd imagine the fan would still be noisy under load. I guess it depends what you use your Yoga for. I mainly use mine for surfing so hopefully the patch would make it silent. Other than that I watch video on it so fan noise tends to get drowned out.

 

Getting mine from Best Buy on Monday 3/14 @899

Silver i5/128GB/4GB

I already have the 8GB DDR3 memory, Yoga sleeve, Sekisui tape and USB 3 Ethernet adapter on the way.

I am going to hold off on getting a 2nd mSATA SSD for a bit until i get my configuration decided in my mind, hoping a good sale on the drives presents itself.

I am very excited to get it and I appreciate all the knowledge shared in this long but informative thread.

 

Folks, I got my Yoga a little over a week ago. I will spare you my details of woe with the Auto Rotate function, but have been looking for an extra AC adapter. Initially the Lenovo site claimed not to even offer such, but now has it listed with a delivery time of "more than 4 weeks". On Amazon your two choices are a listing that say none are available, and another that links you to the Lenovo listing. On Ebay, the only one that claims to actually have it in stock has a price of $999 - implying they are buying the Yoga, throwing away (probably selling seperately - although without a charger?) the Yoga, and then just selling the adapter.

Does anyone know of a place that has them in stock, that can deliver one in a week or less, and costs less than $100?

 

New Official Lenovo 0C19868 65W Slim AC Power Adapter for IdeaPad Yoga 13 | eBay

Give that guy a shot.

 

For a reasonably priced $1000!

Lenovo has it for $50
Lenovo 65W Slim AC Adapter | Lenovo | (US)

Bestbuy has it for $60
Lenovo Yoga Power Adapter 0C19868 - Best Buy

 

BestBuy says it can't be ordered online, and Lenovo says it ships in more than 4 weeks. Maybe buying another Yoga for the charger isn't such a bad idea after all...

 

Sorry, when I looked it up, it was $59.99

 

I think that the word is getting out that these are in short supply.

However (and I'm surprised this isn't listed on the Lenovo site) the 90W charger works perfectly fine with the Yoga and is in stock everywhere. Given how warm the 65W box gets sometime, I'm almost tempted to think they are wanting folks to go with the 90W for safety reasons.

In any event, I now use the 90W at home, and travel with the 65W. Of course I still have my list of items I'd like for the next generation of these ( A1E1: My Wishlist for the Yoga 2), but having this I should be fine until I get my bonus again next year

 

I recently acquired an Ideapad Yoga 13 and am loving it so far. I'm glad there is a long thread dedicated to it.

 

Yoga 13 out put to VGA projector.

Some time ago there were questions about what adaptor works with Yoga 13 to support out put to a VGA projector. I recently purchased the Startech USB32VGAE and it has performed perfectly for me when connected to a VGA LCD projector. It is a little pricey but works: StarTech USB 3.0 to VGA External Video Card Multi Monitor Adapter – 2048x1152 - Newegg.com

I also use HDMI when connecting to a newer higher end projector.

 

WEI isn't the most accurate of benchmarking tools so comparing the Surface Pro to the Yoga using it doesn't mean a whole lot. Benchmarks for gaming fps or program run times are much more accurate. I completely ignore the WEI. I'm not saying that the Surface Pro is faster or slower but using WEI to do so isn't accurate.

Also, dual channel ram has little to no performance gain over single channel, at least nothing you'll notice. This Tom's Hardware article is excellent at explaining and testing this.

If the Surface Pro does in fact perform slightly faster than the Yoga it might have slightly faster ram (1600 vs 1333). Integrated graphics are definitely affected by ram speed. I thought I saw that the Yoga came with 1333 ram, but when I upgraded mine to 8gb I pulled 1600 ram out of it. I'm not sure if they initially came with the slower ram and switched or if it was always 1600.

 

A funny guy explains how to upgrade graphic card driver (in order to run Call of Duty MW2) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeWd2n4TCkc

 

If you want another power adapter, why not just get this:

MacMall | Lenovo ThinkPad Slim Power Conversion Cable - power cable 0B47046

And use any Lenovo power adapter w/a round barrel? I have like 8 Lenovo power adapters around the house and just ordered this part. Got it from here for $33 shipped:

Lenovo 0B47046 - PWR CNVRSN CBL FOR THINKPAD SLIM

 

Yoga 13 Bios.

For several weeks you could download bios 52 (dated January 28, 2013) which was an upgrade from 51 that was on my machine as purchased. I downloaded and updated bios to 52 from the Lenovo site Lenovo Support Express - Home . Does anybody know why the bios is no longer shown for download?

 

Would someone by chance have a handy link for some of the more basic, useful alterations that you can do to the Yoga to make it better? For example, repartitioning, reinstalling windows from media, ram and/or SSD upgrades, etc.? Sort of a wiki for this machine? I thought there would be some sort of OP post to an "official owners' thread", but can't seem to find a good one.

Thanks!