***Yoga 2 Pro Owners Thread***

I had that problem in the stable version of Chrome and the forums suggested trying Canary so I did, and still had the same problem.. I tried the suggestions with changing flags and things but that ended up causing me more problems so I left it as default settings and just lived in a bit of misery with squashed tabs. That persisted for the first several weeks but I just noticed this week (don't know if it was after the BIOS/EnergyMgmt update or perhaps an automatic update of Canary, but the tabs now use the full screen and I am happy.

 

What amazes me is that despite how broken many folks seem to think the Yoga 2 Pro is, it is so popular that no one seems to be able too keep it in stock.

Despite the few glitches here and there, this screen resolution is pure eyegasm and that's why people want it. Yeah it makes using external monitors a challenge and yeah it destroys battery life but it is just so damned pretty to look at. No one dumps a supermodel because she snores.

 

There is also some kind of screen-dimming utility in the Intel properties. I don't have it with me at the moment so I'm going from memory, but go into Properties, find Power, and then look for something that sounds like it might control your screen brightness.

 

I agree man, I love my Y2P. Best laptop I've ever bought. Of course, my last personal laptop purchase was in 2009....man how things have changed.

 

Thanks for the reply, but I can only see the Display Power Saving Technology there. And I had turned it off previously. Flickering is still there. If there is some other setting You know of, would be great if You could tell me more precisely where it is when You have access to the laptop. Thanks.

 

Sorry, I re-read your original question and see that I missed where you had already turned off the Intel power savings. That's the extent of where I know to look.

 

I have a few questions about the Yoga 2 before I purchase one (hopefully this weekend)

1) Durability: I am going abroad to Copenhagen next semester for schooling, and want a portable laptop with a good battery life. With that said, I will be transporting the Y2P in my backpack. I am afraid that, because of its slim profile, it may break easily under the weight/pressure of my other school supplies. Has anyone transported their Y2P in their bag, or had any experience that speaks to the strength and durability of the Y2P?

2) Heating: I am an avid gamer, and would like to be able to play League on the Y2P, but am completely understanding if it is unable to handle the stresses of the game. I am more concerned about whether or not it heats up when watching livestreams and netflix. I will probably be spending a lot of time watching both of these. I know that on my old laptop, after about an hour of livestreams, temps would get quite high. Is this going to be a problem with the Y2P? I would prefer to avoid it.

3) Trackpad: I know the trackpad is small, but how is it?

P.S. - if anyone here is from or has been to Copenhagen, are there gaming pc cafes?

 

^ Answered in the quote

 

Here do this:
I had the same issue with the screen brightness/backlighting. The first thing I did was to make sure that the automatic brightness control that uses an ambient light sensor to adjust the brightness was turned off. I did this by going into the control panel on the desktop and selecting Power Options. It will display the different power modes and on the right is an option to "change plan settings." Click on that for the power mode that you are in and then click "change advanced power settings" at the bottom of the window. Scroll down and click "Display" and then "Enable adaptive brightness" and turn it off.



Doing that kept the display from changing due to the ambient light but the backlighting would still change by itself, especially when switching between light and dark images, which sounds like what might be happening to you. I found a fix for the Yoga 13 that seems to fix this problem. Right click on the desktop and select "intel graphics properties." Select the "on battery" tab and turn off "Display Power Saving Technology." It seems like this attempts to reduce power consumption by adjusting the backlighting depending on what's being displayed but I found it extremely irritating.

 

LOL. Whatever machine you got it's going to be missing something!

 

Yeah, I guess that would be a temporary fix to my problem, but I tend to use the machine most when on my lap so using a mouse wouldn't be the best setup for me. Ideally, it would be great if I didn't have the issue at all. Hopefully the Yoga 13 trackpad driver install will fix the issue. (Fingers crossed)

 

Thanks, these are the steps I had already taken, but it was still flickering... I reinstalled the power manager, turned the settings on and off again and it stopped... probably some system error, as it started doing it suddenly as I switched to tablet mode, but then continued doing it in other modes as well, even after a computer restart... I'm glad it fixed itself and hopefully won't happen again.

 

Macros,
That's pretty much the same with my testing except for me it's the right side.
I didn't have time yesterday to install the new driver but will tonight and let you know how it goes, TWhiteInCo mentioned going into the Windows Start menu, type Corner and then select Corner and Edge Settings. I think this was one of the two settings I already tweaked (the other being in the Synaptics settings) but I'll double check when I'm on my machine.

Thanks TWhiteInCo!

Hopefully we can figure this thing out and not end up returning the machine or throwing it out the window in frustration!

 

I posted about warranties a couple pages back and there is some discussion way way back in this thread but in both cases people stopped replying. I think it's still relevant for people who just bought the Y2P, so I'll post my question again:

There were a few posts earlier in this thread about buying Provantage warranties instead of direct from Lenovo because they were a little cheaper. Has anyone else followed up on that? I bought my laptop from Best Buy and wanted to keep my distance from Geek Squad. It looks like this is the relevant page from Provantage's website which lists options: PROVANTAGE: Lenovo Services Group
There are a couple options which weren't available when I build a fake order at the Lenovo website. It looks like the 3 yr in home + accidental damage (ADP) is $196 instead of $239. Has anyone else gone through Provantage, and which warranty did you go with?

 

FWIW

With the screen in EM Daily Mode, screen at around 70% and mostly browsing only I am at 85% with an estimated 5hr 37min's remaining.

I have had the Yoga since right before official release and I believe that these batteries get better after 2-4 weeks as that has been my experience with the latest battery technologies in phones and laptops.

I7 256GB 8GB

 

Screen flicker after new bios/power manager update: I have flicker under low brightness despite all the 3 setting changes to prevent that, which had worked earlier. Tried reinstalling energy manager and turning settings on/off again with no use. When You turn the brightness to the lowest setting, do You have the brightness lower on stable mode compared to other energy manager modes? (I do) The flicker is highest in stable mode when brightness is turned to lowest.

 

Quick question, out of 128gb SSD how much is usable, assuming I dont want to install fresh windows? I am not sure if I should go with i7/256gb or i5/128gb. i5 will give better battery life that's why its a contender

 

If I'm correct, some people have been getting the same amount of battery with the I7 when compared to the I5.I was getting 6hrs of battery life of light use with the I7.

 

I agree with this. While I'm sure there is probably some kind of battery difference between the i7 and i5, I don't think it's worth considering when looking at battery life. I just don't think there's going to much appreciable difference between the two when looking at only battery life. Let cost be the driving factor when deciding between i7 and i5. Just my opinion.

 

I agree. 5 to 6 hrs of battery is what most people are reporting, regardless which specs the have . This is under light to moderate use. Everybody's settings are different, bat overall, it looks that if you are careful, and adjust power, Energy Manager, and brightness settings to create a balance between power consumption and a viewing experience that you find to be good for whatever your are doing on the machine, you can get some good juice out of the battery, especially when you compare it to the average battery life estimates for all the other convertibles ultrabooks on the market.

 

Some people are taking extra steps to get more battery time.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/ideapad-essential/736123-how-i-get-7-hrs-my-yoga-pro-2-a.html

 

Here is another general discussion thread regarding the Yoga 2 Pro battery life:

Yoga 2 Pro Battery Life? - Lenovo Community

 

Well, at least when there was the coupon EMAIL4YOGA2PRO, the only price difference between an I5 256GB 8G and the I7 256GB 8G was a mere $50, so I went with the I7 since I thought it was a no brainer there. I don't know about right now though.

 

I use this lapdesk, works great with a mouse -

Amazon.com: Logitech Portable Lapdesk N315: Computers & Accessories

 

Best Buy offers Intel Starter Pack with the Y2P - is any of that software worth downloading? Just wondering if I should bother with the stupid survey they require first...

 

Engadget posted their Y2P Review:
Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 2 Pro review: a high-end Ultrabook that's actually affordable

 

I agree with Shaker on this. I've been getting 6.5 hours with moderate (but constant) use with the Energy Manager off and brightness about 50% on my i7. From what I'm seeing on the i5s are getting really no better. You will never be sorry if you have more memory than you need but you will be sorry if you are having to constantly baby the memory. If you can get an i7 for a fair price more than the i5 I'd go for that. At Best Buy, I think there is a Discover Cash Back promotion or use Reward Points to lower the price and go through Ebates.com and you will earn $10-$12 more in cash back savings.

All the Best Buys in the Denver, CO area are showing ship to store only within 3-5 days for the i7 silver and the i5 Orange. Most of the stores are showing availability for the i5 SILVER. With the new holiday return policy you have until January 15th to return it if it doesn't meet your needs.

 

What do you mean EM off? What power setting are you using. Just curious as I seem to get about the same with EM daily Mode and 70% brightness.

 

I think I saw somewhere else an answer that referenced the Hardware Maintenance Manual (hmm) and the fact that it has detailed instructions on removing the back, battery, SSD, etc. It only shows a single SSD slot. Also if you go way back in the manual there is a parts list. It shows the following drives:

10 SSD, Samsung PM841 128GB mSATA SSD(TLC) 16200317
10 SSD, Toshiba THNSNH128GMCT 128GB mSATA 16200350
10 SSD, Samsung PM841-256GB mSATA SSD 16200318
10 SSD, Toshiba THNSNH256GMCT 256GB mSATA 16200351
10 SSD, Samsung PM841-512GB mSATA SSD 16200355

So I'm guessing you get one of these. I've actually found the Samsung 512GB one online for around $450. So I've toyed with the idead of buying a 256GB Y2P from BB and replacing the drive with one of these. About the same price but maybe better delivery as mine is still pushed out to mid-December.

The parts list also includes a part number for the battery which looks like it just unplugs as part of the teardown. It could be user replaceable but I'm sure any removal of the back will probably void the warranty. But this, at least, should be an option if the battery does die. Note that it might not be a task for someone who has never taken apart electronics but with the instructions looks pretty simple for the overall complexity of a densely packed device like this one.

 

I just mean that I exited EM (made sure closed in Task Manager too) and used the Windows Power Saver Mode in Power Settings instead. I haven't tried the EM Daily Mode since the update so I don't know what kind of battery life I would get with that. I was just doing a test to see what kind of battery life I would get after the BIOS update if I turned off EM just to make sure it had not impacted battery life itself (it did not). In the battery test with EM high performance mode I only got either 4.5 or 5 hours. I'll try the Daily Mode next time I'm unplugged and see what I get there. I'm going to be on the road a lot the next 10 days so it will give me a lot of time to try various settings.

Corrected: I said Windows Balanced Mode but should have said Power Saver Mode.

 

Gotcha. I seem to be doing fine in Daily Mode. I'm at 4hrs remaining @ 59% right now. It seems to fluctuate between 5.5 and 7 lol if you do the math for a full charge, but it's always reanalyzing what your doing lately so....

 

Thanks for the answers

I will probably get the case, just because I have always wanted one for a laptop of mine, but my current laptop is too big for one.

A couple more questions I was hoping people could answer:

1) Battery: I know this is asked a lot, so sorry. But, is the battery life really 9 hours, or is that just under the lowest settings and stress possible? Also, I know nobody has had it long enough, but does anyone know if the battery in the Y2P wears down quickly? Lastly, there isn't a way to change the battery on the Y2P, right? This kind of concerns me because I like to be able to get a new battery every year or so in order to keep the maximum battery life high.

2) Screen Protector: Does anyone have the screen protector that Lenovo sells, or know how it works? I see kids with iPads a year old and finger marks all over the screen. This is something I really want to avoid if at all possible. Are there any tips (other than wash your hands before using it) that I can apply to reduce the screen marks?

3) Which model to get? Is 128GB of SSD memory going to be enough for me? On my current laptop, I basically have filled 450GB, but this includes a variety of games and downloaded stuff. Would you recommend getting a USB HDD as an attachment or something? If so, which one? I want something cheap and portable. I really don't want to buy a more expensive model (unless they go on a big sale, which I doubt will happen).

4) Is there a benefit to waiting to buy? I am going to buy one as a Christmas present, so I technically am not supposed to open it until Christmas. However, I have been allowed to buy it now in order to ensure that they don't sell out and that I am unable to find one. My question is, is there some benefit to waiting until January to buy one? Some equipment update or thing of that nature?

Thanks again for the help!

 

Another review -

Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 2 Pro review: a high-end Ultrabook that’s actually affordable | Mobirolla

 

Dream,

I've made some progress. You can adjust the zone area in the registry.

For the Task Switch gesture (left side swipe)


[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Synaptics\SynTPEnh\ZoneConfig\TouchPadPS2\Left Edge Pull]
"HiXRel"=dword:000005dc

The above value is what I found seems to work well for me. I think the default was 6500 (decimal). I reduced it to 1500 and it's not firing anymore. Reduce it to shrink the zone area.

For the Charms gesture (Right Swipe) the registry entry is:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Synaptics\SynTPEnh\ZoneConfig\TouchPadPS2\Right Edge Pull]
"LoXRel"=dword:ffffff77

Again the above is what I used. On this one, you need to increase the value to shrink the zone area. On both gestures, I need to be deliberate to kick them off. So it seems to have made it more manageable. But, the trackpad is still annoying with random other issues, but at least I'm not bouncing all around programs.

Hope that helps you out!

 

Thanks! I'll check it out . . .

 

do you guys reckon the yoga 2 pro will be cheaper on black friday next week, or in january 2014?

 

Macros,

I'm glad you are making some headway! Thanks for the above suggestions, it's a bit more technical than I feel I am qualified to do but I'll have a friend look into your suggestions and see if she can apply everything you mentioned. I was going to install the Yoga 13 driver but when I got to the drivers page I noticed they have another updated driver. The one everyone originally suggested was for the one with the 22 Oct 2013 release date. Now there is another one with a release date of 15 Nov 2012 so I'm not sure which one to install.
Also, would people recommend that I still look to the Yoga 13 drivers instead of the updated driver for the Yoga 2 pro that released on 16 Oct 2013?

Sorry all, I'm kind of a novice when it comes to this stuff. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks,

 

Finally got a sleeve to fit going to Best Buy. You need to key in on MacBook pro 13" ones. The air ones are mostly too small. and the MacBook pro 13 are mostly too small....

This one fit nice: expensive at best buy at 39,95....I got it for 33 on open box. I didn't want to go back and forth on amazon to find one that fit so bought it.

Amazon.com: PKG - Laptop Sleeve for 13" Apple® MacBook® Pro & 13" Ultrabook Laptops - Black Faux Cow: Computers & Accessories

 

My i7/256GB clementine arrived today. I've just started it and opened a few things, updated Windows and that's about all. I am very happy with how it looks and it is lighter than expected it to be.

My question is what things do I need to do as a new owner that are specific to this notebook? That is I know to install programs and stuff like that.

But what things do I need to change from how it comes to me to make it work better?

I know there is some sort of Power management change to improve the color. What exactly do I need to do?
(I am not concerned about this affecting battery life as I expect to be using this on AC power about 95% of the time).

Is that it or do I need to do anything else? (I don't plan to change out any of the hardware).

 

I've had mine for just over 2 weeks now, still have a month or so before I have to make up my mind.

I love the weight - coming from a 15" Retina MacBook Pro it's an improvement. Love the feel. keyboard is fine for me. I'm hitting 7 hours consistently for battery life the few times I'm at clients where power isn't convenient, and still have 8 to 10% left at that point, so battery life for me is good.

I miss a digitizer, it's handy when I want to do something like scribble and draw notes in a meeting, but it's not a deal breaker.

My fan finally settled down after the BIOS upgrade, so it's not being so flakey anymore.

But I'm still not sold on the resolution. I do a TON of work in remote desktops, and while the Microsoft manager RDP program at least lets me use RDP sessions that are viewable, it's not ideal.

I keep a bunch of my most used things as shortcuts on the desktop - either to folders or to some files and a few programs as well. I like them along the left, right, and top edges, since I habitually do NOT run things maximized and this way I can pop things quickly that I need.

So my icons are what prevent me from switching resolutions back and forth as I may for a solution when needed. I did find an icon location saving program that works well and adds the feature to the right click context menu when I click the desktop. But I'd still rather find a program that will do some kind of monitor profile. Changing the resolution is only part of the issue, since then you have to adjust scaling and the rest as well. And when I want to flip to either 1920x1080 or go halfsies with 1600x900, it's usually not worth it to have to keep changing everything ELSE to make THAT usable for a short period of time.

Anyone know of any programs that will set up profiles that incorporate not just resolution but also the other bits and pieces like icon sizes, font scaling, etc?

If I could find a way to easily switch resolutions without suddenly having everything look like Duplo Blocks, then this could be the computer I keep. Otherwise I'm still on the fence of just returning it and getting some junk cheap little thing to tide me over until Lenovo releases the Thinkpad Yoga since that's about the only other thing I've found that would satisfy my wants / needs.

The resolution is sweet, but with so much of my work being RDP it would be nice if I could just flip to lower resolutions and back without a ton of control panel clicks for all the rest of the stuff you need to do as well.

Thanks for any suggestions if anyone knows of any such programs.

 

Is there any reason people are suggesting the i7 will have shorter battery life than the i5? The only real difference between the 2 processors I found were clock speed and cache. The both are rated at 15W. The i7 has better performance/watt ratio so if anything the i7 should last longer on battery than the i5 since it can get done quicker and back into a idle mode. Now again the i3 is also 15W, so in theory the i7 should have the best battery life? Unless the processors have different idle power consumption, which I have not found any data yet.

Feel free to beat my theory down but that's all I could find about the processor and power consumption.

 

from the mobirolla review, it shows the read/write speeds of the ssd. Yoga 2 Pro - 546 MB/s (reads); 139 MB/s (writes). the highest speeds on on the Sony Vaio-1.04 GB/s (reads); 479 MB/s (writes), and on the Acer S7, 975 MB/s (reads); 1.1GB/s (writes)....

does anybody know if the yoga 2 pros have the newer native sata m.2 pcie drive? i read about the differences between sata and sata m.2. on the ssdreview.com . i can't seem to find any technical info on the yoga 2 SSD anywhere.

 

@JDThird

Why are you concerned with switching resolutions on the Pro if you're considering the Thinkpad Yoga? Put the Pro on 1600x900 and be done with it. The Thinkpad has a lower resolution AND smaller screen. I don't get it.

 

I don't think you are being unrealistic, but you do need to do an apples-to-apples comparison. Dropping the resolution to 1920 x 1080 or less (which is what regular ultrabooks run at) will add an hour to the battery life. Disabling the touch functionality of the screen (if there is a way to do that on Yogas; it might mean uninstalling a driver ) might also also help the battery quite a bit. At that point it's a bit more comparable to mainstream ultrabooks.

 

For those of you running your Y2P in 1920x1080, when I changed my resolution(really just testing, I love full res) everything became crazy large on the screen because of scaling. Icons, everything look ridiculous. What other settings regarding scaling do I need to change in order to make this resolution usable? I mean it was seriously cartoonish how big everything was, clearly I am missing a setting.

 

As I said, some things I do don't scale well - if I'm going to use the computer with RDP I have no option but to drop resolution if I really want it to be usable. Screen size doesn't bother me, it's resolution I care about. A less than one inch diagonal loss won't bother me one bit. What's not to get? If I can find a way to easily change resolution on the Y2P that also changes font scaling and icon sizes as well (i.e. some kind of "profile" program that I can set for both ways and just change all the things that need to be changed in one shot) then I could keep the Y2P since I could use it for everything. If I can't find something like that, then I'll probably just return this for a Thinkpad Yoga that just runs natively at 1920x1080. I don't mind switching back and forth with the Y2P if I can find a quick one step program that deals with all the aspects. Otherwise the resolution for me isn't worth the hassle otherwise because what I do the most it turns out doesn't play well with it.

Not sure what's hard to get about it? Or else I'm just not explaining well. I'd like to keep this but I'm not going to stick with something I have to do a boatload of manual setting changes every time a client needs me to remote into their servers to resolve an issue. If I could do the changes I need to the GUI in an automated way that lets me work, it's worth me keeping. If I can't, it's not worth it and I'd just go with the Thinkpad Yoga instead. Why would I bother buying a computer with 3200x1800 if I'm going to retard it at half the resolution permanently? Then I gain absolutely nothing on this, and would've been better off with the Thinkpad Yoga to get the digitizer anyway.

 

Right click your desktop and you can get there choosing either personalize or screen resolution. If you click personalize, on the window that opens, look on the bottom of the left pane, hit "display" and the top part says "change the size for all items" - you can drop it to 100 and it'll look pretty normal. If you hit Screen Resolution in the first context menu when you right click, you can click "make text and items larger or smaller" and get to the same screen.

 

OK, I think your being unreasonable, but that's your right. I find it hard to believe you're really gonna let your mind convince you that since it goes that high you must use it. But this one goes to 11 lol. Different strokes for different folks. The smaller screen of the TP Yoga is a much bigger deal for me and why I didn't wait for it, though I like the sinking keyboard and digitizer and One Port option.

I mostly have mine connected to a monitor, but I've been using it in that resolution whenever I'm out and about and it appears like every computer I've ever used after I made a few adjustments, but if it bugs you it bugs you I guess. Personally I love the hell out of this computer and I've worked with probably hundreds of different types of laptops and desktops as I've been in IT for over 15 years.

 

What's years got to do with it? I've been in IT since 1981. Doesn't make me any more or less qualified than someone else. "My mind convince me"? Why buy something if I won't use it? I don't buy tampons either. It's got nothing to do with what my mind convinces me.

I see it the opposite of you I guess - if I would have to spend all that time at 1920x1080, what's the point in buying a screen without a digitizer if I can get one with a digitizer that works at that resolution?

Different strokes. If someone somewhere in the Windows world would make a remote desktop program that was half as good as CORD on the Mac, I'd be in heaven right now since I could scale it however I wanted completely independent of my resolution settings. Unfortunately, there is no such thing on the Windows side. Which, oddly enough since I'm trying to do something that comes natively with the Windows OS, is frustrating that the best way to do it is in the Mac OS. Of course, that's no worse than how frustrating it was for me when I switched to Macs in 2009, the computers everyone always purported to be the best for graphics work, and I couldn't find a photo program comparable to Thumbs Plus that I used in Windows...