Lenovo Yoga 910 - Detailed Review & Parts

Yoga 910

Model:
- 4K
- 16g ram
- 512g storage

I have owned 2 of these machines. Review covers both

Summary

This is an excellent laptop if you can handle the loud fan noise

Pros include: Insanely fast both the Kaby Lake processor and the top of the line NVME SSD. Plus it is very lightweight, additional screen real estate, a USB type C charger which is also incredibly lightweight

OKs include: Travel on the keyboard, lack of contrast on the screen

Cons include: Fan gets very loud at times (a little like a jet engine), no HDMI port, no Thunderbolt

I have attached many benchmark and hardware results in images to this review


CPU

Geek Bench 3 scores

Single-Core CPU: 3551
Multi-Core CPU: 7577


Storage

Samsung NVME model MZVLW512 . I believe this is the brand new Samsung 960 pro as Crystal Bench scores are inline with that model:

Seq Q32T1 Reads: 2,713mb
Seq Q32T1 Writes: 1,515mb

4K Q32T1 Reads: 561mb
4K Q32T1 Writes: 464mb

Seq Reads: 1,560mb
Seq Writes: 1,489mb

4K Reads: 53mb
4K Writes: 190mb


CPU Temperatures

Idle: 47c
Under Load: 89c with a max of 91c

It runs slightly warm, definitely not warm enough to be a concern though. The fans aren't totally quiet but aren't loud enough to be a bother.


Graphics Performance Intel HD 620

On League of Legends at 1920 X 1080 resolution on Ultra settings with Anti Aliasing I get between 37fps and 60 fps depending on what is going on on screen. It is easily playable at a solid 60 fps on Medium to High settings


Display

Photos of the 910 4k side by side with some Dell laptops including the 4K XPS 15
https://goo.gl/photos/4wjSa8Lb3qkSF15u7

Photos of the 910 4k side by side with the HP Spectre 15 4k
https://goo.gl/photos/S5eN1NT8tusfj2WF6

Please note in the above the Dell 13 XPS is a 1920 screen not their 4k one.

Display is sharp but it is very glossy and the blacks are grey unfortunately. This is the main down side of this laptop unfortunately. You will see above the Dell XPS 15 has a much better contrast. The white's are whiter as well

The good is the 13.9 inch display is noticeably larger than a 13.3 inch display.

It is a decently bright display but not as much so as the Dell XPS 15


Battery Life

I get around 5+ hours easily without dimming the screen. Dimming the screen 7+ should be possible


Keyboard & Trackpad

Keyboard is backlit with several different brightness settings
Travel is not great but the larger keys kind of make up for it
Trackpad is close to the best you can get on a PC. It still isn't quite as good as on the Macbook or on an Alienware but it is still very good for a PC


Weight & Power Adaptor

The laptop feels very lightweight
The power adapter is amazing. It is extremely lightweight and similar to the Macbook, comes with a shorter version and a cable to extend it.

 

Just wondering if I can use a power bank to charge the 910? How big is the power adapter?

 

Its a USB Type-C 45w charger. Any charger with that specs will work.

This model is the size of the Macbook Air charger but lighter in weight. It is small and lightweight. The best charger i've ever seen.

 

Would you say the contrast is a deal killer for Photoshop work?

 

I would get an IGZO panel or an OLED for that. I would be nervous about using this laptop for Photoshop BUT.....

I'm actually taking it around to Best Buy and also the Microsoft store today to compare it side by side with other well known machines like the Dell XPS, Microsoft Surface, and Razer Blade. So hang tight and i'll post an answer


btw I personally have changed the gamma to make the blacks more distinct

 

Awesome, thanks.. I'll look forward to your results. I have narrowed my choices down to this or the XPS 15. I prefer this smaller 2-in-1 form factor and would actually use it as a tablet quite a bit. It's also about $500 cheaper than a comparably equipped XPS.

Do you happen to know if your Yoga has a pentile screen like the past models?

 

I took some side by side photos and will post them for you later this evening. Morale of the story.... if you can handle the weight.... XPS 15 is MUCH better. Significantly better screen, better keyboard, quad core processor and graphics card

 

Darn... not what I wanted to hear. But better to hear it now than have regret later. Thank you sir!

 

The Lenovo would be a great buy if it were $200 cheaper

Display section of the review has been updated with the side by side screen shots

I've included both Dell XPS and HP Spectre comparisons

 

I will have more comparison pictures up tomorrow. The laptop is almost unusable when watching Youtube on either Edge or Chrome, although the processor says 35% the fans are like a jet airplane. Ridiculous loud. If I can't solve this, it is going back

 

So I have the 910 for the last week and I think there must be something wrong with your revision. I have not had any issues playing Youtube and I also ran the battery down to it's 7% shutdown and I got 10.5 hours using a local 1080p looped video clip. As for the blacks, they are very similar to the Surface Pro 4, I am not sure why you have such poor contrast, I have multiple laptops including the MSI GS60 Ghost 4k and the 910 is very comparable to the MSI screen, albeit the 910 is glossy.

I bought the 910 for travel purposes and I am more than happy with the battery life for local video playback. It also plays WoW and Guild Wars 2 at low settings which is sufficient to keep up on daily quests in these games.

 

So if you watch a Youtube 1080 video. Do you hear the fan going top right of the machine? I hear mine going and its reasonably high pitched

 

Nope, Youtube 1080 video does not seem to put any strain on the machine at all. Which browser are you using? Have you tried Firefox? I read somewhere the Chrome does not use hardware acceleration and so it would be the cpu doing all the work. Also maybe worth pulling up the task manager and looking at what is using the cpu when the fans are on.

 

I've tried both Edge and the newest Chrome. Edge is far better. In terms of course load . I do have that manager up and I'm less than 35% CPU. So fans shouldn't be going but they are.

 

Actually could you do me a favor? Install hwinfo. Add the 2 CPU core temperatures to your task bar, then run Geekbench3 and let me know what temps you see? My temperature is pretty good but the fan is still quite audible and high pitched. Do you hear a noticeable higher pitched fan?

 

So I just checked and using Youtube 1080p in Firefox has the cpu running around 10%. I ran a 4k 60fps and it did run the cpu up to around 40% which did indeed have the fans kick in. For me the fan noise is average, as I said in my original comment, I have multiple laptops and in my living room I also have a NUC for streaming video and the NUC fans can be heard just as loud as the 910s fans, even thought the 910 is on my lap and the NUC is 10 feet away.
I suppose if I was in a completely quiet environment and sat listening to the fans it might annoy me but in my daily life it is rare to be in a completely quiet room and if I watch Youtube, it is normally on headphones and as stated, in firefox the cpu does not work very hard when replaying 1080p Youtube content.

One other point, I often run the 910 at FH instead of QHD as some of my apps do not scale correctly and so it can be easier to leave the screen on FHD. To be honest the only way to determine which it is running at is to go to the settings as it is really hard to tell the difference on screens so small. Running at FHD instead of QHD gives a little more battery life and also (not sure why) takes a little less cpu to run Youtube 1080p video. I ran my tests above in both resolution and there was a 5% cpu hit when running in QHD.

 

Thanks for that. I went to Best Buy to do a comparison. They didn't have the 4k on display but they did have the FHD version. I ran mine side by side with theirs on a couple of 1080*60fps videos on Youtube. The instore model was very quiet even with fan running and mine was super loud. Its the kind of sound mine makes, its quite high pitched. I think there is something wrong with mine. I'm going to buy a second to compare it

 

Always hard to judge sound in a store but it does sound like the fan might have a bad bearing or some such. If you are not married to Lenovo and want a Kaby Lake laptop, the new HP Spectre x360 is also worth a look, slightly smaller screen, but it has thunderbolt.

 

Guess what.... on Lenovo community site someone else says they also have the same issue with my model. I wonder if it happens with the FHD model?

I really was looking forward to the 14 inch screen on the Lenovo and I really like the track pad on it, super smooth. The HP Spectre doesn't have the retina (4K) screen which is annoying

 

So I just ran Geekbench 4 and my temps were at 45c during the tests, fans were running and with someone talking in the room I had to lift the laptop closer to my ear, so no whining fan noise on my unit.

 

Btw, do you actually see a difference between the QHD vs. FHD? I find it really hard to see the difference. Remember you would get better battery life on an FHD unit vs. the QHD.
Something I did notice today when I got a USB C hub, the power USB C port seems to be pretty slow for transfers, the other USB C port runs as expected (300mb with an SSD USB enclosure)

 

I did compare the panels side by side for some time. I definitely think the 4k looks nicer if you have sensitive eyes. Here are the differences:

1) The blacks are deeper on the 4k screen
2) The 4K screen looks sharper

The FHD is a very very good screen. One of the best i've seen ever, but side by side the 4k wins

 

Well being a little older my eyes are not as good as the used to be lol

 

Stick with the 4k

btw i'm reinstalling windows the non Lenovo edition to see if it fixes it. There are quite a few people reporting it now

 

From my previous experience with Lenovo (I owned the Yoga Pro and also the Yoga 2 Pro) Lenovo will most likely release a firmware update that will fix the issue. It could be a simple issue of changing the speed the fans run at, i,e, slightly slower or even slightly faster could resolve the whining noise people are experiencing.
I think the thing I am so happy about with the 910 is battery life, it really is head and shoulders over both my older Yoga 2 Pro or the older Yoga Pro and also the Surface Pro 4 I tested last year.

 

In my instance i feel like something may be wrong with the fan itself as the sound is a little high pitched. Its like a quiet whistle almost.

I agree, everything else is really nice on the machine. Its a shame. I want to try a different unit same model.

Does yours sound a little high pitched?

btw I just clean installed and the problem remains although the fans don't come on quiet as much

 

I do not hear a high pitched whine from my fan, it is quieter than my MSI GS60 Ghost when it is running on it's Intel GPU. I suppose it could also be possible that you might have a sensitivity to the frequency that the fan is making.
I will be very interested to hear if a replacement has the same issue. Did you buy in Best Buy or direct from Lenovo?

 

From BestBuy. You?

 

Yup, Best Buy.

 

Any chance you can look what SSD they are using? Belarc or other software should be able to see that.
SSD speed read/write? Not sure what they use for testing that in reviews.

 

I just bought mine last night. I'm out, but I'll check when I get home if no one else has responded.

 

It's a samsung MZVLW512 PCIe drive. I have attached the results below from Crystal DiskMark.

 

PatrickMcCabe you're my hero. Thanks man!!

http://www.laptopmag.com/reviews/laptops/lenovo-yoga-910 says:
"When we duplicated 4.97GB of mixed media files, the Yoga 910's SSD posted a transfer speed of 195.7 MBps.
Although that's fast enough to top the 171.1-MBps average for ultraportables, other premium 2-in-1s, such as the HP Spectre x360 and the Microsoft Surface Book, which both posted even faster speeds of 318 MBps."

The 4k test is the closest to laptopmag findings.
Now I have to find what HP Spectre x360 (i7 7th-gen) are using so can compare them.

 

Please let me know if anyone else has the high pitched fan noise under load

 

None here, I watched several 4k videos on YouTube (in Chrome) and installed several apps, all while syncing my Dropbox and Google Drive for the first time.

 

Wow, mine is like a whistle

 

Do you think Lenovo are using differnt disks in different setups? laptopmag tested a 256GB and you the 512. I don
t don't get the numbers right when compare yours and laptopmags.

Anyone with a 256GB that can test?
Thanks
/BG

 

I haven't yet

 

What have you decided to do Josh?

 

I went to Best Buy yesterday and tried yet another Yoga 910. Their model also had the issue of a high pitched fan noise when watching Youtube. Was really annoying.

I had to leave a meeting today because my laptop was too loud. Its just not possible to keep this.

I will either return and try another without the issue or I will get the Samsung Ativ 9 Spin - which is last generation i.e. Skylake CPU but does not get hot and is still super lightweight

 

So weird how you keep finding this problem and I'm unable to replicate it after several days. Guess I got lucky...

 

I think so, across the net there are some other who have replied to my posts who have it as well

 

josh, i've been following your post over there on the lenovo forums as well I just don't think there's a lot out in the wild yet for people to really respond. Its a great looking machine on paper, with reviews, and in looks. But definitely more customer feedback is needed.

 

Josh, any idea if this supports an active stylus?

 

It does not.

 

neither the spectre nor the yoga does. bummer

 

You don't like the HP x360? That's the one I'm thinking about, if I don't get thet 910.

 

I like it very much. I personally only buy retina screens. So because of that didn't get it. I tested it thoroughly btw, it is pretty good other than the screen which is a very decent screen but not a retina. Btw like all Kaby Lake's right now it gets quite warm

 

Btw everyone I returned the 910 and bought a Samsung Ativ 9 Spin. it is last generations hardware i.e. Skylake non PCIE SSD but it works really well and the screen is amazing. Battery life is short though.

I figured that since it was 2/3rds the price of the 4k Yoga 910.... if they solve the heat issues from the 7th Gen Kaby Lakes or release a 4K screen for the HP Spectre etc. i'll sell this one and upgrade

 

sorry to hear that man