Yoga 2 Owners Thread (11 and 13 Inch)

I didn't see an official owners thread for the Yoga 2 non pro so I figured I might as well.

I was eyeballing a Yoga 2 pro a week ago but went against it, 1 because of scaling issues, and 2 because the 1080p IPS in the yoga 2 has better color reproduction then the ridiculous 1800p display on the Y2P.

So, I have a 13 inch Yoga 2 with the 4200U, 4gb, and 256gb SSD on its way here, got it for $999 with a 2 year depot warranty from Lenovo with coupon codes.

Anyone who already has one care to share any tips, tricks, problems, solutions, etc here?

 

This is to let Yoga 2 13 owners know that they can upgrade their Yogas to create a faster system than the Y2 Pros with I5 CPUs. I got my Yoga 2 13 (non-Pro) from BestBuy for $799.

I added the Crucial M550 128GB M.2 card from Newegg for $99 to the free M.2 slot in my Yoga 2 13. I now have over 600GB of storage in my notebook for a total cost of $899.

For Passmark Performance Test version 8, I got a overall rating of 2071 and a disk rating of 3880. That disk rating is higher than any Yoga 2 Pro with the Samsung SSD.

The CrystalDiskMark numbers of this SSD are great. Only the two top Write numbers were 20 percent lower than the numbers in one review of the Y2P. All of the other numbers were higher than the Y2P. This SSD only came out early this year and is a big improvement over the M500 series. For some reason, the 128GB version has higher Passmark ratings over the larger 550 drives.

The CrystalDiskMark numbers:

1000MB Read Write
Seq 479.5 369.9
512K 439.7 369.4
4K 27.17 68.44
4KQD32 339.3 265.6

500MB Read Write
Seq 501.5 370.6
512K 436.9 369.0
4K 29.26 76.77
4KQD32 340.3 268.8

BTW, PCMark 7 score 4912.

My Yoga now boots in less than 13 seconds to the desktop.

And now browsing uses only about 5.5W according to BatteryBar. That works out to over 8 hours of browsing time per charge.

 

Makes me wish I didn't opt for the 256gb ssd model for $1050, however with coupons I got it down to $950. I have no use for that much storage though.

Edit: battery bar is a power hog, I used it on my old 17 inch pavilion and would normally get 2 hours of battery, I uninstalled it and it jumped to 3:15

 

Hey thanks for the tip about BatteryBar. I will run some battery life tests with and without.

BTW, I updated the CrystalDiskMarks with 500MB numbers, too. Those are even higher than the ones I saw on NoteBookReview for the Yoga 2 Pro, particularly the Write numbers are great in comparison.

 

Did 31 windows updates, device now has an explorer error on shutdown and battery info reports the battery at 0% with a max capacity of 9wh for 18% wear, battery won't charge at all and battery info shows current capacity as blank, PC shuts off when unplugged....... Sigh I guess I'm calling lenovo

 

Here is an interesting collection of pictures of a Yoga 2 13 (non-Pro) disassembly.

Lenovo Yoga 2 13 Disassembly | MyFixGuide.com

This reviewer scores the Yoga 2 13 better than the Yoga 2 Pro.

Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 2 (13.3"): Review

 

Did you try a Lenovo OneKey Recovery?
From shutdown, press the Novo button. It should boot into a bios and boot manager and recovery menu.

Choose recovery and go back to factory specs.

 

I never took an image before it happened. Oddly enough the next day the battery was detected, but it would randomly disappear from the PC and the laptop would lose battery power. It was intermittent when it would lose power, so I popped off the cover to check the connection, it was solid, no bad wires or anything.

Lenovo had me uninstalling the battery drivers from device manager and messing with energy manager. It changed nothing.
On Friday my yoga was working fine for about 5 hours then all of a sudden it started losing the battery again. I said the hell with it, called support for the 3rd time and started the return process.
I loved this device but having battery issues like that is not confidence inspiring.

 

You should be able to do a complete factory reset but flaky batteries seem more like a hardware problem.

 

It was definitely a hardware problem. I loved the device, the scaling was iffy so I can't imagine what the pro owners are going through but it booted stupid fast and was a nice device. I didn't really like the trackpad though.

Makes me wonder though, my company is debating on switching from dell to lenovo ultra books, and today one of the lipos in our testing units puffed and actually vented on the think pad

 

I was checking out the operation of the OneKey Recovery after I cloned the SSHD to the SSD. I got the error message (current system can not support back up).

I determined that having two recovery partitions with the same name caused the problem. I renamed one of them by adding a "2" to the name PBR_DRV. OneKey then worked when booted to either driver.

Eventually, I expect to remove the duplicate partitions.

 

Here is a big advantage of the Yoga 2 13. When you add a Crucial M550 M.2 SSD drive as the boot drive, you have excellent performance and possibly more uptime.

What do I mean by more uptime? If you leave the 500GB bootable, you have the option of booting to the other Windows to do restores and partition work on the other drive and have the possibility of doing other work (browsing, email and so) while you are waiting for a drive restore or partition resizing and so on. Also, it is much easier to troubleshoot a drive with a full Windows environment than the alternative.

BTW, I have not run into any battery life problems using BatteryBar. With BatteryBar measuring watt usage, I see as low as 3.0W with the CPU idling and screen brightness turned down. That works out to over 16 hours of battery life doing nothing. With the SSD as my boot drive, I am seeing powercfg /batteryreport battery life times of 7:48 hours to 8:46 hours.

 

Hate to sound stupid, but what is the syntax of the powercfg /batteryreport command. I got an "invalid syntax" when I entered it just as you typed it. Thanks

 

What computer did you try it on? I have a Win 7 desktop that gives the same message. But, my Win 8 laptop running on battery gives the battery life information.

Good luck, Jim

 

On my Yoga 2 13, I have a BAT file with the contents:
powercfg /batteryreport /output %tmp%\battery-report.html
explorer %tmp%\battery-report.html

Windows 8 powercfg has a lot of command line options.

 

If anyone is looking for a nice deal on the Yoga 2 13 59408081, PM me ... have a really nice special on this system for forum users.

Brian

 

Has anyone tried to change the crappy 7260 with the 7260 AC? I see some success between the Y2P owners but I don't know if I should risk buying one.

 

Hi. I'm one of the Y2P owners that had "some success" with replacing the standard N 7260 with a 7260 AC. By "success," I mean that I got a pretty good price for it on Amazon, and paid a guy I like $30 to replace it for me.

This morning, while I was cruising the web on my Y2P, with a Bluetooth mouse connected, and a wireless keyboard connected to a USB transmitter, my Internet connection cut out several times. So I can't personally guarantee that the upgrade is worth the effort.

Disclaimers:

My router is only an N, although I heard that upgrading the card would help even if all you have is an N router.

I realized that sometime after the upgrade, the device Manager checkbox for "allow the computer to turn off this device to save power" had become checked again. I unchecked it, and can't remember if my Internet cut out again after that.

Unless you actually have an AC router, you might want to try just making sure you have the latest Intel drivers, and have unchecked the power savings type checkboxes in Device Manager. I think some people have had success with doing just that.

 

I know there are people with the Y213P who had success but is it the same thing for Y213 non pro? Is the AC card working on it as well?

 

Thanks. I was trying it on one of my W7 laptops, not knowing it was only W8 that had all the cmd options.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using Tapatalk

 

Hello everyone-

Thinking of the Y_2_13 over the Y2Pro. Am I missing something? It seems like, although you don't get the high res screen (the one with color issues), you get a 1080p screen and basically the same exterior? I was looking at some of the beefed up option (i7, 8gb ram - assuming its not replaceable).

I used to run a laptop in 1080p anyway to save on battery, so I know that resolution is easily sufficient. Therefore, the resolution isn't really an issue.

It just seems like there is a catch. Because, as someone else posted, the reviews are much better for this machine than the pro. The only gripe seems to be the performance, but add a SSD yourself and bingo bango there goes that issue.

So- is there anything a potential owner should know going into it? Because, at least on my end, it really seems like this is a better machine given the lack of a screen producing inaccurate colors.

Has anyone tried this for gaming? I exclusively play a simulation game called Football Manager 14. So, trying to figure out if it will run that and how well.

Any advice is appreciated!

 

I don't know about the game you mentioned, but the Yoga 2 13 has the same i7 cpu as many other Windows 8 laptops, including the Yoga 2 Pro. I know of no "gotchas" for the Yoga 2 13. I think it is superior ti the Yoga 2 Pro. No yellow color issues, no battery issues caused by the yellow color "fix", no wifi issues (at least on mine) and no scaling issues because of the ridiculous resolution . The build quality is excellent. I have had mine since June 2nd and it is definitely a keeper.

Regards, Jim

 

Okay so I picked up a Yoga 2 13 from Best Buy tonight.. It's on sale for $779 plus I got $150 off Education discount.. $629 + tax out the door.. What an incredible steal for such a high end device.

I previously had a open-box Yoga 2 Pro and returned it because the fan was buzzing/hitting something and the left USB port was broken.. Combined with the 1800p screen would flicker at low brightness it all just plainly upset me.

Glad I waited for the Yoga2-13 to go on sale plus massive discounted price..

So here's the deal people since i've had both and have scrutinized both very well...

The Yoga2-13 is certainly heavier and slightly thicker than the Y2P but it's not enough to make you get cranky over it.. Especially at the price differences.

Next up is the 1800p screen vs the 1080p screen.. The Yoga2-13 1080p IPS panel is FAR NICER AND FAR SUPERIOR than the 1800p Pentile IPS on the Y2P.. Combined with the fact 1080p suites Windows8 much better than higher resolutions.. I think 1440p is probably the highest i'd ever consider for Windows8 until they learn how to scale better. Colors on the 1080p panel beat out the Y2P panel by far and it's just much cleaner and crisp screen.. In fact, i'm shocked at the level of panel quality we have here versus what they decided to put on the Y2P for 40% more cost.

Edit: Apprently the panel is PLS, not IPS not that it matters it's still gorgeous with equally fantastic viewing angles.

The Y2P from Best Buy has a i7/8gb/256ssd.. This one has a i5/4gb/500gb Hybrid SSD.

I removed the back panel from both the Y2P and Yoga2-13.. The Yoga2-13 has a razer thin Hybrid HDD made by Western Digital and has a 16GB NAND partition built in. I find performance to be very adequate especially after Windows settles down and learns to cache the things you use most.

There's an OPEN m22 m-SATA slot inside the Yoga2-13! Amazing! You could seriously add some crazy nice SSD storage and HDD options together if you wanted and carry around over 1tb of storage in this thing if you so desire.

There's two fans inside the Y2P and only ONE slightly larger one inside the Yoga2-13.. I'm not sure why it's designed like this, perhaps the Y2P being so thin, needed more airflow?

Lenovo crammed a lot in both chassis.. The Y2P's logic board area is very impressive but so is the Yoga2-13's.. No space was spared.. Everything is crammed and used properly for the footprint.

Outside of that, battery life is a little weaker compared to the Y2P... I'm sure its partly due to the Hybrid HDD and other factors.. I think the Y2P has a larger battery.

More things to compare soon.. Will update.

 

Hey dude, I remember your advice from the Y2P thread.. I'm so glad I picked this up after much deliberation.. It's a far superior machine to the Y2P in my opinion and agree with all your points here and tricks. I'm looking into getting an SSD for the mSata slot.

 

Another tip.. Best Buy currently has $150 off the $779 price = $629.99 for the Yoga2-13 .. All you need is an .EDU email address. I won't divulge how easy this is to do if you're an Exchange admin (which I am for my job) but they e-mail you the coupons you print out so Best Buy can scan them at the register.

Right now there's NOTHING out there that can compete with the Yoga2-13's quality for the price of 629.. Amazing!

 

Does the Y213 have that rubbery-type material around the the keyboard like the Y2p? And differences in build quality?

 

Yes the keyboard area i'd say is identical to Y2P.. Feels fantastic.. Same exact keyboard.. There isn't many differences at all between the two devices.. The build quality is just the same between the two.

 

By the way - the Yoga 2 Pro throttles it's CPU to unbearable levels when you take it out of Laptop mode.. The Yoga2-13 does not have this issue.

The Y2P can be forced to not throttle by disabling a feature in the BIOS (I can't remember what it was called, it's been a while).

 

Yoga 2 Pro speakers sound far better than the Yoga2-13.. :/ I was surprised how good sounding the Y2P was.. it's cheaper sounding but still loud on Y213.

 

Thanks for the feedback! Glad you're enjoying your device. So BestBuy gives the student discount? Is that with all their Windows machines or just an isolated sale? I've never seen that advertised.

 

Isolated to the Macbooks and Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro and Yoga 2 13..

 

I know you've praised the Y213 and it seems like a great device. I'm thinking about the Y2P- at $150 off thats not bad at all for $1050. I want the 8gb RAM and 256. There's been enough issues with the Y2P that I really don't trust a second hand, and even on eBay they are going for mid/high $900s with Newegg offering refurbs for $950. However, the extra $100 + tax for a new device seems worth it imo.

 

Did you miss the part where I had the Y2P? The Y213 is better for half the price 629 or 1050..

 

Install Intel XTU and see how far you can underbolt both CPU core and Cache .. I can get to about -65 before I get a random reboot.. It helped my battery and temps quite significantly though! This thing idles really well.. Average usage seems to be 8ish hours so far. Left it running over night (screen off) and it only lost about 30% battery for 6 hours of run time. Mixed usage seems decent.. Trying to get used to "Stable" mode but it seems to lock the CPU down to 800mhz.. it feels like a Atom based notebook at this speed but I can deal with it for average tasks.

 

I only recently noticed that there is no hard drive LED status light.

I installed DiskLED by Klein. I have been using that on a Acer Aspire for a long time. It provides a HD status led in the system tray.

 

Don't think the Y2P had one either from what I remember.. Almost seems unnecessary these days (Macs don't use them either). It used to be nice to know why your computer was frozen and if it was just the HDD churning.

On a side note, digging my forum browsing/chatting time on the Yoga2-13:

 

Thinking about repasting (I have Artic silver on hand) and seeing if I can get the fan to stop spinning up so often.. It seems very sensitive. Or we need fan control to keep it turned off until it hits a certain degree.

 

I can't get NBFC (Notebook Fan Control) to work on the Yoga2-13 .. Ugh. . The fan registers must be different than the Y2P/Yoga1-13.

 

Surprised by the lack of owners for this model.. still no luck on Fan control, Notebook Fan Control isn't doing anything.. The fan registers in the EC must be different than the Yoga1 and Y2P.

 

I just purchased a Yoga 2 11 (i3 variant) and quite like it. I have a question about logging into Windows and the on-screen keyboard. If I boot into the computer from a full shut down, the on-screen keyboard pops up and allows me to log in to Windows in tablet mode. However, once the computer goes to sleep and I try to log in, the on-screen keyboard will not stay up. It pops up when I touch the password box, but immediately goes away. It will come back when I touch the password box, but will immediately go back down. The only way to log in is to touch the Ease of Access button and pull up the keyboard from there. It works, but is annoying. Is anyone else having this problem, and/or does anyone know how to fix it?

 

Anyone who says the Y2p is an inferior machine, is just lying to themselves. LOL....I know you want to think of yourself as thrifty, but paying less for a lesser product does not make it a "far superior machine". There are reasons why the Y2P is the best selling convertible. There are also reasons why it costs more. Think about it.

The Y2P is a half pound lighter, is thinner, has a metal casing, a bigger and better trackpad, has a better cooling system, comes standard with an SSD, and has one of the best screens on the market. There is no "yellow color issue" any longer. I have also never experienced any Wi-Fi problems. I paid $1,099 for the i7/8GB/256GB model brand new. I'm not saying the non-pro model is a bad machine, but it is definitely not "superior" in any way, shape, or form.

 

Or you're just trying to justify spending double the cost for marginally more performance. I'll agree for 1099 for a i7, ssd, and 8gb ram is still the cheapest loaded Ultrabook in existence. I'd still rather have a MBA over it though, way more battery life and ultra-silent. I find both Yoga2 and Y2P loud and fans always running.

 

That is not double the cost. You're right about the fans always running, but they are far from loud. You would rather the MBA? Really? For a machine with 4GB RAM, and an i5 processor? Also a non-touch screen that isn't even full HD. Not to mention the fact it isn't a convertible. No thank you. But everyone is entitled to their opinion.

 

I had been salivating over the Yoga 2 Pro in the looong owners thread, but then found out about the Yoga 2 (non-Pro) and think it better suits my needs. (I like buying a higher-performance SSD to use along side the 500GB hard drive.) However, on the Best Buy site all the Yoga 2 13 models say "This item is no longer available." Does that truly mean they will no longer stock it, or do they also use that stock phrase when something is out of stock now, but might be available in the future?

Was an i7 non-Pro model ever offered at Best Buy?

I'm visiting the USA starting on August 20, and would like to know if I've missed my chance on the Yoga 2 13 and should just buy the first Yoga 12 Pro that I see.

 

Lenovo Yoga 2 2in1 13.3" TouchScreen Laptop Intel Core i5 8GB Memory 128GB Solid State Drive LENOVO YOGA 2 13 - 59424666 - Best Buy
Get this and put your own hard drive in. It comes with a fast Samsung 128GB XP941 drive.

 

I would really like to get more performance out of this ultrabook.

You can already download Intel Extreme Tuning Utility to undervolt the CPU. Undervolting will reduce the amount of heat generated and increase your laptop's performance if you're hitting the thermal limits. Unfortunately, if you reboot right now, the settings reset.

I would also like to increase the TDP above 15W to 25W. But this doesn't seem to work despite the option being there in Intel's XTU.

Yoga 2 Pro owners can do both.

 

Are the 5mm z-height hard drives available to consumers? I thought they were only available to OEM. And, isn't some proprietary connector needed to put one in a Yoga 2?

 

You're right.
https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/Idea-Windows-based-Tablets-and/Yoga-2-13-Internals/td-p/1472366/page/12

 

anyone else having battery drain even with system turned off. I lose about 16 % in 24 hours that is with going to shutdown not standby.
The only thing I have changed is I installed crucial 256gb ssd

 

Wow, this yoga 2 13 is a nice little machine...typing on it now. I was at microcenter and they had a refurb for $549. i5 500gb HD, 4gb ram etc. but this screen is fantastic! I was also looking at the yoga2 pro but for 700 more could not justify the cost especially since this refurb also came with a 1 year warranty.