Ideapad Yoga?

Thanks Shiftster for the suggestion , I don't know anybody with BB for business account. Let me wait for BB to have GA in their website.

 

Thanks for the link and thoughts!

 

Awesome! Thanks a lot!

 

Is there any possibility that Yoga will come with backlit keyboard in future? Then I want to wait for it. Can not accept an ultra portable book without backlighting where even in every Mobile set has backlight keyboard.

 

Anything is possible, but I seriously doubt they will come out with a backlit keyboard any time soon. Maybe in the Yoga 2 or whatever is next. I also wish it had the backlight, but it's not a deal breaker for me.

 

Anyone knows how to enter the bios settings? I have tried F1 to F12 and delete key, also with combination of Fn key, but didn't have any luck.

 

EDIT: Got it. You have to turn off completely(not in hibernate mode). And press the small hole left to the power button.

 

Anyone knows if there are any reviews of this laptop up yet? Also, are they planning a 15-inch version of this?

 

There is a few reviews up if you search around google.
no 15" model just 13" and soon to be 11" running Windows RT

 

OK, I am going to report a serious bug: Touchscreen does not work after rebooting, typically when some usb device is attached.

I saw others having the same issue too here:
Yoga touchscreen not working... - Page 3 - Lenovo Community

Fortunately there is a solution:
That is take out your usb device and hard reboot.
Or you can boot into BISO setting( by pressing the little button left to the power button), change something there and save and reboot.

BTW, if you don't like the idea that functions keys (F1-F12) becomes combination key, you can change the settings in BIOS too.

 

twist also has ips screen

 

I think the screen is a little to small for my use. The Yoga's 13" screen is kind of pushing it for my uses.

Also the swivle hinge kind of makes me nervice.

 

Yes, but it is not 1600x900.

 

I'd have to agree about the Twist, played with it in Staples today and I would definitely buy the Yoga instead.

 

Anybody know of any extended battery options for the yoga 13?

 

There are none, it has no docking port or area you could strap on a slice battery. The only solution I can think of for getting more power while out and away from an outlet is via a solar charger, but they're expensive at $300+

Voltaic Generator Solar Laptop Charger

 

How about upgrading the internal battery with something the same size, but with more power?

 

after much debate, I decided to best buy "rent" a yoga for 30 days to see if I like it. I really need more disk space as I am using it for a laptop replacement. ive thought about doing the SSD addition but don't know if that will void my warranty. so my question is this, is it an easy upgrade or should I have a professional do it, and will it void my warranty if I have someone do it?

 

I plan to use a 128 gig SDXC card until the warranty is up. For a little extra storage you could add a low profile USB key.

 

What'd you guys think about this:

"The SSD, mSATA, RAM on the Yoga are considered to be non-servicable by the end users, so removing/upgrading them will void your warranty... So technically we cant upgrade the RAM or add a 2nd SSD without voiding the warranty? ugh..."
"I know someone else stated that they didn't encounter any warrenty voiding stickers during the procress of reaching the RAM or SSD to upgrade it. But of course that is nothing official."
from the lenovo forums: Yoga 13 mSata storage limit? - Page 2 - Lenovo Community

Only reason I worry, is for the reliability of this beautiful touch screen. If it dies in 11 months, I'd like to know warranty is here to support me.

 

The Best Buy website says it has 4GB of memory expandable to 8GB, so I expanded. The closest thing to a warranty sticker is the double sided tape on the back of the keyboard, but you could argue that heat loosened it. There isn't any other way that anyone could tell that the laptop had ever been opened if I put the original RAM stick back in and pulled the 2nd SSD.

However, I'd say that if you are that concerned about things you should order one with the configuration you want when it becomes available. As I have repeatedly said, if you don't know what you are doing you risk breaking something on your own when you open it up, and that wouldn't be covered by warranty.

 

I'm not loving the positioning of the trackpad, it needs to be about 1/3" to the left. I keep brushing my right palm against it while typing and it repositions the cursor. Very annoying. I have adjusted the settings to supposedly make it so that it detects and ignores palm touches while typing but it has had no effect. I never had this problem with my Macbook Pro. I think Lenovo cramming the Home/End and PgUp/Down keys along the right side of the keyboard (in comparison to the MBP) makes the touch typing position be off center from the touchpad. I guess there is nothing to do except get used to it. I wish all companies put as much thought into these sorts of details as Apple.

 

Is is possible to purchase a yoga from bestbuy and extend the warranty through lenovo? If so, does anyone have any idea how much this would cost?

Thanks.

 

I've been able to make this better by turning off "tap to click", so now it will only a register a click if I actually depress the touchpad instead of just touching it. That is fine by me I think.

 

Yes:

2YR Depot $49.00
3YR Depot $99.00
1YR In-Home + Accidental Damage Protection $79.00
2YR In-Home $79.00
2YR Depot + Accidental Damage Protection $149.00
3YR In-Home $149.00
2YR In-Home + Accidental Damage Protection $159.00
3YR Depot + Accidental Damage Protection $229.00
3YR In-Home + Accidental Damage Protection $229.00

 

I checked my warranty status and it says my one year warranty on my week old computer only has 349 days left. It says the warranty period began on 10/9/2012, before the computer was even available for sale. ?

 

I am loving this thing. The first thing I did was image the entire disk to an external drive (boot gparted live, dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdd bs=1M). Once I had a complete disk back up (actually 2 because I am paranoid), I began removing and modifying partitions. Apart from losing Intel Rapid Start, everything worked great. I was just about to begin my first alternate OS install (ubuntu desktop 12.10 works great!), I stumbled upon a few posts about a "second SSD". There seems to be a lot of chatter about this, but I cannot find any pics or teardowns that identify (and verify) an actual second mSATA slot. Can someone verify this? I'd much prefer to leave the factory disk as-is (probably without the LENOVO partition to reclaim 25Gb).

I went with the i5 BB model. Crucial.com has the 8gb memory and an additional 128gb mSATA SSD, both for under $145. That's pretty cheap, all things considered. (Part numbers CT128M4SSD3 and CT3655897).

Any confirmation on a second mSATA channel would be appreciated.

 

Mine says 344 days! I bought it on Tuesday! I'm sure Lenovo support can resolve this.

I bought and extended my warranty for the Ideapad U300s several months after it was new, and that was no problem. Here's the link:
Lenovo - Services & Warranty - US

 

The Synaptic guide someone posted here made a lot of difference for me in Windows 8. More specifically the edge controls. I sometimes use the right hand to move cursor, left hand to click, but the slightest touch from the left finger would cause the cursor to bug out. Excluding these regions from controlling the cursor has restored my sanity -- at least in Windows 8. Linux is another story. The trackpad is a PITA. I'll invest time figuring that one out later.

 

Woolooloo and John566 both confirmed and posted screenshots in this very thread... quite a few pages back. Even pics of Windows disk management proving installation.

 

Thanks for the heads up. I scrolled back a few days and found pics from John566 ( http://forum.notebookreview.com/ideapad-essential/640537-ideapad-yoga-34.html#post8920253). Much appreciated!

 

Apply the Synaptics driver hack--it has SmartSense which does not activate the area that your palm goes over when typing.

Here you go:
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/55148962/Enabling Synaptics Touchpad Advanced Features v01 11012012.pdf

 

Thanks, but I'm already running that, in fact right now I'm only running the Synaptics driver so I can continue to tweak those settings. I tried adjusting the Smart Sense setting but it didn't appear to be that smart. Turning off "Tap to Click" does seem to have resolved it for me though. I'd say right now it is about 90% as effective as my old MBP touchpad (there are still a few hiccups/delays) but it does offer some gestures that the MBP didn't support (at least in Bootcamp) so I'm pretty happy with it.

 

Pretty much what I figured... I''ve been inside laptops for over 15 years, so I'm comfortable. I just placed an order for the 128 plus 8gb from Crucial.

I'm still a little curious about the double sided tape... it really does't stick right back after peeling it away? What about maybe applying new tape? Odd that tape would be what keeps our keyboard steady. Thanks for all your info

 

So is 1600x900 full HD resolution?
Secondly, do they plan to put up a better model/15" version of this in the next 6 months?
Thirdly, is anyone at all going to be putting up a review of this?

 

Just saw the status of my order in lenovo.com , the shipping date been updated as 2013/01/02 , Thats too much. I will be cancelling once the higher configs available in BestBuy. I cannot wait till Jan 2013.

 

May I ask to Woolooloo or anyone else how is their feeling with this new power plug (that has kind of the shape of a usb plug) ?
Does it seem to resist any unfortunate pull of the cable, in any direction?

Thanks again for all your feedback!

 

Not full HD but I had the same resolution on a 13.3 Sony Z series and found it very sharp. Full HD with this size screen leads to very small fonts - you can scale them up but even Windows 8 doesn't handle scaling perfectly and not all programs support it never mind the pinching and zooming you'd need to do for web pages most of which are designed for standard resolution screens.

I doubt there'll be a 15 inch model as it would be too big & heavy in tablet mode.

 

Once plugged in, the power plug looks identical to a USB cable. I have a USB travel monitor plugged into the USB port sitting next to it and it looks like a pair of USB cables plugged in. It is maybe a little more difficult to pull the power plug straight out than a USB plug, but otherwise very similar.

Coming from a Macbook Pro with a magsafe connection, the cable is a bit of a letdown. I had two magsafe power adapters die in 3 years, I think they are unreliable. But they are also very cool and it is great if someone trips over your cable it disengages rather than sends your laptop flying off the table. If someone trips over this cable, your laptop is definitely going for a ride. Also, the Apple store swapped out my two dead magsafe power adapters for free even though they were out of warranty. So unreliable or no, I'm going to miss them.

On the other hand, Apple is the only company with magsafe type connectors, so compared to any other laptop, I don't see any downsides to this connector compared to any other non-Apple ones that I've seen.

 

Ouch, i cancelled last week and they still havent refunded my card. I am going to try and get one from BB for Business as soon as they do and if they dont have it i have a friend in Texas that can get me one and ship it.

 

Thanks for the feedback woolooloo!

Can someone who deleted the partitions, to recover full size of the SSD, can tell how fast the lenovo yoga boot up? I've heard that by deleting one of the partition (actually, which one?), the intel fast boot does no longer work. My concerns are: is there a dramatic change in boot speed, and can we avoid deleting the partition needed by intel but still recover some SSD space.

Thanks in advance.

 

Here's a YouTube video of an 8 gig RAM upgrade - metal tools = ouch!

 

Now, That's a video I've been wanting to see!!! Had a little trouble with your link, so here's the non mobile link just in case it helps others: Lenovo Yoga 13 Memory (RAM) Upgrade / Replacement - YouTube

 

So im looking at Crucial.com and i noticed the 128gb ssd and the 256gb have different write speeds. Just thought i would point that out for people considering the upgrade.

Also regarding the SATA lll speed discussion i found this interesting bit of info in the Amazon comments section.

"Some other issues I see come up, the speed of the mSata being SATAIII. I talked with Lenovo tech support and did my own research. Best I can tell, mSata buses, at least in the Lenovo, only operate at SATA II speed. That said, be careful to look at the various read and write speeds of a given module within given brand. Depending on the number of chips and the controller used on the module, speeds will vary. In the case of crucial, their 256GB module is much faster then the smaller modules.

So, why worry about speed if it is really working at SATAII? Read speeds can quickly saturate the SATAII bus, so there, it is the bus that is the bottleneck. For write speeds, where SSDs are markedly slower, the additional speed in the 256GB module brings the write speed just about to saturation on a SATAII bus. Worth it for the work I do.

This is all the theory and research I have done. Formal tests have confirmed the different speeds of the various size modules, that is known. Less testing and less information seems to be available on the mSata bus speeds, despite the SATAIII marketing of these things."

p.s. he is not talking about the yoga specifically.

 

I want to join the partitions and do a full wipe on the hard drive. Before I dive in to any of this, do you guys know where I find the Windows 8 serial number? Not to mention, will the serial # work when I use the Windows 8 install ISO file that I bought for $14.99?

Either way, what is the best approach to do a clean install and wipe out the recovery partition?

 

to the owners: are you annoyed by the fact that the touchpad is centered on the laptop, and not centered in relation to the keyboard/spacebar?

 

Oh yeah, not to mention, I think it's too big. If you look at the Dell Vostro V131, it is the perfect size and centered the keyboard instead of the laptop.

The worst trend ever known to man is the lack of physical buttons on the touchpad. If they insist on it, they should make the bottom area non touch-click sensitive, that way when I use my thumb to left click, it doesn't impede with my cursor!

 

Has not been an impact for me. I actually chose the Yoga in part because the trackpad IS physically centered. I haven't had any trouble typing or navigating. I like the size of this trackpad... it functions really well for me, and has more settings and options that the U300s out of the box.

 

Ouch. Is there any chance you extend it through the Barnes and Noble thing to get a discount?

 

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