Just got me a Lenovo Yoga 13....what to do now?

[stephen_az]

Congrats! I am seriously interested in the 11 inch Yoga. What kind of apps are you looking for? In all honesty, I haven't used a Facebook app. I have just used the browser for that

Do you mean 11 or 11S? The 11 runs RT and the 11S runs Windows 8. I only point that out because it isn't always clear in some vendors' advertising. If you are looking at the 11, Surface RT is cheaper (even with purchase of a type cover). If you want the 11S they are nice machines but you might want to look at my hardware comments above. Lenovo has made some compromises in the design. They are still well made, mid-range, performers but do have limitations.

 

[ajst222]

Do you mean 11 or 11S? The 11 runs RT and the 11S runs Windows 8. I only point that out because it isn't always clear in some vendors' advertising. If you are looking at the 11, Surface RT is cheaper (even with purchase of a type cover). If you want the 11S they are nice machines but you might want to look at my hardware comments above. Lenovo has made some compromises in the design. They are still well made, mid-range, performers but do have limitations.

The 11S. I believe that Lenovo stopped producing the 11 (the RT device). I am just interested in a portable Windows 8 convertible. The 11S and Surface Pro seem to be the most appealing to me.

 

[coip]

The Yoga 11S was only recently introduced and is still a Lenovo.com and Best Buy exclusive. Personally, I would not expect to see a new model too soon. Given the XPS 12 is still the only convertible machine available with a 4th generation processor, my bet is the other manufactures are still working on designs or are waiting on optimized hardware, and are closer to a holiday season release than Labor Day. The fact that Lenovo's initial 4th gen machines in their other lines barely match battery life for 3rd gen, and they released the Helix with 3rd gen technology, makes me think the new processor versions are still on the drawing board. With respect to the current generation Yoga's keep in mind that while they use I series processors, performance is a bit lower than Surface Pro or Dell's XPS 12. For some reason that only makes sense to Lenovo, they used single channel RAM in the systems instead of dual channel. In addition the 11S i5 version uses a hamstrung version of the processor with lower turbo boost speeds. That is a difference I found very noticeable under heavy load tests. In spite of using a much lower resolution screen, the 11S also barely matches Surface Pro and falls short of bother the 3rd and 4th generation processor XPS 12s for battery life. Finally, although Lenovo improved the storage usage a bit, they still take too much of a 128GB drive for their system partitions. It is still a good mid range performer but those are the key limitations in my experience. BTW, you can get good deals on the Lenovo 13 from their outlet but regardless of outlet of Lenovo.com main online store, they have a really lousy return policy (15% restocking fee unless they made a mistake in the order).

They just announced a bunch of new ThinkPads with 4th gen Intels in them. Yoga can't be that far behind, can it? I understand that the 11S just launched in June, but the 13 was launched in November 2012. It's quite outdated now and I'd prefer getting a more powerful 13" one (as I already have a Surface RT so I'm good on that screen size). The only think holding me back right now are the age of the Yoga 13, the fact that it's a little heavy for an ultrabook, the 3rd-gen chips (not so much because of power but because of battery life--you say their initial 4th gen machines didn't do much better in battery life, though, so that worries me), and the RAM issue you talk about. That seems like a lot of concerns to ignore just to buy an overpriced ultrabook from last year. If I want to get the Clemetine Orange model (and I do), with 8GB of RAM and 256GB SSD, that's nearly $1300-1400 right now. Yikes.

Edit: I'm so glad I didn't bite and buy the Yoga over the past weekend like I planned. Lenovo announced today the new Yoga 2 Pro, launching on October 18 in line with Windows 8.1 and it looks ridiculously awesome. I just hope the price is fair (the base model is already at $1099, which has me worried).