Gains & Losses - My Take On Lenovo's 2018 Yoga Lineup

[GreaseMonkey255]

The full specs for Lenovo's new 2018 Yoga lineup have been released. In this thread, I will talk about what features are gained and lost from their 2017 models. I will start with the lowest priced models and work up from there.

Flex Series (Yoga 500 Series outside U.S.):

Lenovo Flex 6 (Yoga 530) 11":
https://www3.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/ideapad/flex-series/Lenovo-FLEX-6-11IGM/p/88IP8FX0889

• What is gained: a new 11" Yoga 500 series 2-in-1. Has extremely large bezels, Intel® Celeron® N4000 or Intel® Pentium® Silver N5000 processors (no Intel Core processors), 11.6” HD (1366 x 768) touchscreen, Intel® UHD Graphics 605 graphics, 4GB RAM (ouch), 128 GB eMMC storage (ouch again), 6 hour battery, HD webcam, USB-A 3.0 & 2.0 ports (why 2.0?), USB Type-C (DP & USB 3.0), HDMI, full-size SD card reader, combo headphone/microphone jack, starting at 2.6 lbs (1.25 kg).
  
• What is lost: the ability to run Windows 10 (basically). :unhappysweat:

Lenovo Flex 6 (Yoga 530) 14":
https://www3.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/ideapad/flex-series/Lenovo-ideapad-FLEX-6-14IKB/p/88IP8FX0980

• What is gained: A new chassis design with considerably slimmer bezels (especially the top bezel). Lenovo Swift Charge technology (a new name for a wall-wart?)
  
• What is lost: Intel Core i7 & 16GB RAM configuration (max Intel Core i5 & 8GB configuration at the moment). Discrete graphics. Fingerprint reader. Max dual storage configuration (1TB 5400RPM & 128GB SSD) replaced with single 256 GB SSD. The ability to play Forza Horizon 3 (why do the screenshots even show this? False advertising. :eck: )
  

What is also lost: 15" Yoga 500 series 2-in-1.

Yoga 700 Series:

Another unit lost: 12" Yoga 700 Series 2-in-1.

Yoga 730 13":
https://www3.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/yoga/700-series/Yoga-730-13-/p/88YG7000964

• What is gained: A new thinner and lighter chassis design (starting at 0.28 lbs lighter). 1 hour extra estimated battery life (from 10.5 hours to 11.5 hours).
  
• What is lost: UHD (3840 x 2160) screen configuration. 1TB SSD configuration (max 512GB).

Yoga 730 15":
https://www3.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/yoga/700-series/Yoga-730-15/p/88YG7000965

• What is gained: A new and considerably thinner and lighter chassis design (starting at 1.78 lbs lighter). An extra hour in estimated battery life (from 8 to 9 hours or from 10 to 11 hours). An Nvidia GTX 1050 4GB graphics card (rather than a 1050 2GB card).
• What is lost: Intel Core i5/i7 HQ Processors (until now, the 700 series 15" was on par with the Dell XPS 15. I guess Lenovo didn't jump on the Intel Core G w/ Radeon Vega graphics train). Instead, the 700 series 15" has 8th gen Intel Core i5/i7 U processors.

No updates to the Yoga 900 series yet.

In my opinion, some of these updates make the 2017 models look better. The only consistent update to every model was a thinner and lighter chassis, and even that's stretching it with the chunky Flex 6 11" model.

What do you think of my findings? Do you agree with my opinion on these updates? Would you have liked to see something else that I didn't touch upon? Please voice your opinion below.

 

[Henrik Becker]

Any word on screen brightness? I liked pretty much everything about the Yoga 720, I just found the screen unbearably dim. Like, constantly wanting to up the brightness and not being able to.