Yoga 2 Pro Release Thread

I can only answer for yesterday when I was sitting around with it, but it was probably around 5 hours with intense use, music playing, web browsing, uninstalling bloatware (damnit Lenovo!!), installing Office etc. Screen brightness is intense and 50% is quite sufficient really. I didn't put it in power savings mode, but I would probably expect about 6-7 hours with a little more casual use (I deliberately tried to discharge the battery, which may be why it only lasted 5 hours).

In regards to the mini-review, I am probably too biased due to the great anticipation, but to say it briefly: it is perfect.
The screen is insane, with possibility for a very strong brightness, and colors are great as well. I believe 3200 x 1800px speak for themselves, and the only problem about this resolution is that a few applications execute with a strange layout e.g. a very small window (I think this problem will become less and less common, since a new "era" in regards to screen resolutions is on its way, IMO).
The trackpad and keyboard are great as well, although I would have preferred more feedback on the keyboard (not an issue at all, just takes a couple of days getting used to).
Naturally, it is lightning fast. The SSD combined with i7 and 8GB RAM makes everything run smooth, and with a cold-boot time of 7.5 seconds, there is really nothing to complain about.

In regards to form and shape, it is out of this world. Never have I seen such a combination of sturdiness, flexibility, (light)weight and "thinness". Combined with the price and performance (a combination that may be subject to actual errors) this outperforms every rival Ultrabook in its class.

 

It's still too much for a tablet without an active digitizer.

 

I just ordered the core i7/256GB version because I think it’s a real good value for $1200, but I’m really worried about the high screen resolution on this laptop. For those of you who have it, how do iTunes, Outlook & Excel look, especially the menu and buttons at the top? Is there a way to decrease the screen resolution when using those programs without it looking bad?

 

Hi Aamadi,

Don't worry about the more "clever" application that have already been prepared for these HiDPI Resolutions. Microsoft Office works perfect, and the only thing that catches the eye is how damn clear the layout is. Basically, these applications has a layout like on any other resolution.

 

Congrats on the early pickups!

How's the i7 holding up with heat and fan noise? My wife's current Vaio Pro with an i7 gets louder than a 747 ready for takeoff sometimes, so that's a factor on her deciding if this will be her new home business laptop. No way I'd recommend she get anything less than 8GB for her business computer, so i7 it is with the new Yogas. While the Yoga 2 Pro wins hands-down as sexiest, slimmest, and best monitor IF you plan to mostly use 3200 x 1800, I'm also debating whether she should consider the Thinkpad Yoga since it seems to improve somewhat on the minor negatives pointed out in the mobilegeeks review: 3200 x 1800 may be overkill with business app scaling, glare & smudges in sunlight, and touchpad smallish. Plus, the Thinkpad Yoga's keys look slightly better laid out without that extra right side column and it definitely works with the OneLink Dock that I think she might like, and I'm pretty sure that the Yoga 2 Pro doesn't. Thoughts?

 

No noticeable fan noise until now. I'm not even sure I've heard it yet.. I haven't been playing games, but I have 10 tabs open in Chrome, 4 Word documents, Excel sheets, Outlook and Spotify running at the same time. I placed it on the comforter of my bed yesterday, and even after an hour, it didn't really get hot, just warm. The abundance of vent holes in the back, surely seems to do their job fine.

I am almost certain that I saw the possibility to connect the Ideapad-version of the OneLink Dock, but I can't say for sure. Although if your wife will primarily be using it for business, I'd go for the ThinkPad version as well. I am a grad student, and it is absolutely perfect for my needs (ULTRAportable, decent battery life, good resolution etc.)

 

Were you able to order for store pickup? None near me have it. I'm in Dallas.

 

I was told via Lenovo chat that the dock works. Hopefully the person was right. I'll be getting one.

 

I picked up an i7 version today, I can't believe it! And what an excellent price!

Even though the website said no stores had it in stock within 50 miles, I went to mine and asked them to look up the SKU for the i7 version. Turns out they had one in inventory and allowed me to purchase it since there was no street date on it.

I'm loving it so far!

For those who are using Chrome - does touch input act wonky for you in desktop mode? When I relaunch Chrome in Win8 mode touch input works fine but then everything is super tiny because of QHD+.

 

So, I've loaded Office and this old farts eyes can still use the App with out of the box settings, which is 3200x1800 at 200%. Something I was really worried would keep me from keeping this beauty.

There has only been one problem with resolution so far. When I loaded Flash, the window that comes up after installation giving you update options was insanely small. I simply hit "magnify", clicked the option I wanted and returned to normal view. Hopefully there aren't a lot of apps I use that have this problem. Staying in Magnify view while using an app is not something I want to live with.

Also, you can get the mouse pointer to go from left to right with one swipe, which is something I worried about after watching the mobilegeeks review.

 

So, I'm from Brazil and was looking to buy an ultrabook next week when I'm heading to DC for a course. I researched online and came to the conclusion that the Yoga 13 was the perfect one for me (even checked one out at my local store, here it costs US$2500), even though I wish I could get a Yoga 2. On Sunday, by chance, I decided to search "Yoga 2" on Best Buy's site and to my surprise there was the i5 model available for purchase for $999. Even though I wanted 8GB of RAM I bought it. Earlier today I got the confirmation e-mail saying it was going to be available at a Best Buy store next to my Hotel in a few days. But then I searched the Best Buy store again and suddenly the i7 with 8GB appeared, so I bought that one too. Lol! There was only one Best Buy that has it in DC, and it's pretty far from the Hotel I'll be staying but I think I'll make the trip there with pleasure (Best Buy states they hold the item for 8 days, I hope it's true!). I just don't won't to risk getting to the US and the Yoga 2 not being available, then I'll end up buying the Yoga original for US$899 because I'm not staying in the US a long time. That would suck...
So from the feedback here it seems like this is TRULY the Yoga 2 and not some mixup by BestBuy. Wooo!!!! Can't wait to get to DC on Sunday and pick-up my Yoga 2. With i7,8GB and 256GB, 3200 x 1900 and Windows 8.1 it kicks MBA ...

 

Careful, my Brazilian buddy had to pay ~40% tax bring a new laptop purchased in the US back to Brazil. Make sure it looks used and don't bring the box back with you.

 

Fully aware of this! Not my first time in the US. I will definitely make it look "used", and the boxes always stay in the Hotel's trash can.
Thanks for the heads up! Can't wait to get my hands on this puppy...

So has any of the new owners confirmed a RAM upgrade would be possible (!soldered)?

 

Does the Best Buy model with Windows 8 (easily upgradeable to 8.1. next week) include the new Yoga 2 software, including Yoga Chef? Also does the Best Buy model have crazy partitioning, like the Yoga 13 did, or is it just one nice partition and no wasted space? I'm wondering if I should get it now from Best Buy or if it would save me a lot of hassle to wait for the Microsoft Store. I know with the Yoga 13 it was impossible to download some of that Lenovo software so I want to be sure to get their new Chef application, motion control, and voice control. Thanks.

 

This comes with 8.1 and yes Yoga Chef is there. It is not a best buy special, so it should come with everything a standard unit comes with, though I haven't checked everything.

 

Wow, thanks Led Zappa. I had thought this was coming with 8.0 since it is early. What about partitions? Are they a mess like the Yoga 13 was? That's the big advantage I saw for buying the Yoga 13 from the Microsoft Store. Seems like the bloatware is pretty easy to remove, or am I missing something? If it's a pain and leaves residue or if the partitions are a mess I may cancel my BB order and wait for the MS Store. But I would rather not wait especially since that risks a higher price.

 

Is it common for prices to be lower on a release date and then rise?

 

take 2...

is everyone buying the silver??

i want the orange....any idea if there will be any colors available....??

thx!

 

These aren't supposed to be out yet because they have 8.1, we just got lucky with BB having them/selling them before the release date.

As far as partitions, mine seems different than Led Zappa's - my C partition shows 196GB free out of 220GB total. There is also a 4GB D partiion with Lenovo drivers loaded on it. Then, there are the following partitions:

Recovery: 11.54GB
Recovery: 1GB
OEM Partition: 1GB
EFI Partition: 250MB

That totals up to about 238GB, with 220GB "usable" in the default state with roughly 195GB of that free with Windows installed. I am not sure how this compares to the older Yoga 13.

It's interesting that the recovery partition is completely empty. It shows 100% free space. Not sure how recovery works on this.

Right now silver is the only one that my Best Buy had in stock. The website shows an Orange version as "coming soon" for the i5, but not the i7. You will be able to get it in orange eventually.

No, it isn't. I think people were wondering if the Best Buy pricing on the website was a mistake since it's really low compared to the competition. Also, it was reported that MSRP was $1,099 for the base version (i3, 128gb SSD). When they popped up on BB the price's seemed too good to be true so it's possible that the price when it is officially for sale is higher.

 

I read my drive wrong. The C: Is a total of 220. I've copied most of my files over so not sure what was free. I only see a C: Windows and a D: Lenovo in Explorer. There are more in Disk Management and it looks like abbyev89 noted them correctly.

 

I hope it isn't too good to be true. The Lenovo reps in the Q&A have been acting like the pricing was still being determined. And if you think about it, $1099 is right in the middle of the two models, and that was supposedly for the i5. Maybe they were thinking i3: $999, i5: $1099, and i7: $1199? Also there has been some conflicting information as to whether the "base model" has an i3 or i5 (also the RAM in the base model is 4GB but the site lists 2GB), and I have a feeling that the i3 (2GB) model is only going to be available in other countries outside the US (this has happened with other laptops), or maybe will come later and a cheaper price point.

The only thing that is strange to me is that the i5/4GB/128GB upgrade to i7/8GB/256GB is only $200. That's almost every upgrade save the 512GB SSD, I wonder how much each upgrade will cost individually on Lenovo's site, for example if someone only wants to upgrade the RAM from 4GB to 8GB, the only thing that would make sense to me is to make each upgrade like $80-100. Then if you do two or more upgrades (i7/8GB/128GB, or i5/8GB/256GB or i7/4GB/256GB etc.), you are better off with the i7 model which includes those upgrades for a better price. I see the savings in sticking with the base model which are still very good specs, I just don't see many people choosing the i5 and adding upgrades, as opposed to getting the $1199 i7 model.

 

I personally went for the i5 at $1k because I don't need the i7 power. I need a terrific screen, in a lightweight, go all day package, with the tablet form factor. The extra 20% isn't worth it for my purposes because the i5 and 4gb of ram do just fine.

As for pricing, it seems erroneously low and that is why several of us jumped on it as soon as the BB ordering opened. That is based on what we see in the market for competition. Sony Flip 13 is likely going to be $1400 w/ i5; Samsung ativ book 9 plus is $1400 w/ i5, 4gb ram, 128gb ssd; Dell XPS 11 will start at $1000 (and we don't know the base specs); Lenovo's own Yoga 11s Haswell is $800 w/ i5 -Y processor (not U), 4gb ram, 128gb ssd, 768p screen. Take all of that together and Yoga 2 Pro is a screaming deal at $1000 for the i5.

 

For sure, it was already a great deal in my opinion for the i5/4GB/128GB at $1099 (3200x1800 in the base model is just crazy), the prices that Best Buy listed for both models makes it an amazing deal. I won't be able to buy one for at least a few months, and if it turns out to be a mistake, I will be extremely jealous of the few of you in this thread that were able to get one.

 

I agree. The price isn't coherent, it seems someone made a mistake. Maybe not. I was also going for the i5 but for 200 more you get 3 upgrades: i7, +4GB Ram and +128GB SSD, that's a good deal. I don't need the i7 but the extra memory and SDD will be great for running multiple virtual machines.

 

Well, looking for a dock is driving me crazy. One chat person says the Onelink will work. One says they won't know for sure until the Yoga Pro is released. Everything I can find online says the Onelink is for the Thinkpad version, but if I look at the Onelink page on Lenovo it has the exact same port as the power port on the Yoga Pro 2, which is a rectangular yellow port. Nothing in the documentation I got with the laptop refers to Onelink

Oh, well. I don't need it right away, but this thing is official Sunday and Lenovo still doesn't seem to know what's what.

 

You could always use the Lenovo USB3.0 dock. It is a failsafe option.

 

I think that's going to be the only option. Looking at the pics, I am now fairly convinced that the Yoga Pro 2 does not have the Onelink connection. But that still means 2 or 3 connections instead of one and $60 more.

http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/...m.detail?GroupID=460&Code=4X10A06077#overview

 

anyone else know where i can get this ultrabook from besides going to best buy. they dont ship to Australia.

does amazon or newegg have it as yet.?

 

Just got mine after trying multiple Best Buys! Now on to opening it...

Sent from my LG-D800 using Tapatalk now Free

 

Hey everyone.

Two random queries for everyone:

1. Looking at the CPU-Z report from http://forum.notebookreview.com/ide...yoga-2-pro-release-thread-15.html#post9405831 I see:

DMI Physical Memory Array
location Motherboard
usage System Memory
correction None
max capacity 32768 MBytes
max# of devices 4

and it shows DIMM0 and DIMM2 each populated with a 4gb dimm and DIMM1 and DIMM3 empty.

Is this likely just an artifact of the MB, or does that mean there's another memory slot and/or that the max mem is 32GB?

2. Anyone who's managed to pick up one of these and is bored want to grab a linux media (say: http://download.fedoraproject.org/p...x86_64/Fedora-Live-XFCE-x86_64-20-Alpha-4.iso ) and stick it on a usb key ( How to create and use Live USB - FedoraProject ) and boot from it and see how well things work in general? Any linux compatibility news on it would be great. I'm likely to pick up one next week and would be running Linux on it unless there are show stoppers.

Thanks.

 

I was planning on using a family member's Lenovo employee discount to get the price down, but I don't think that can come even close to this price if the Lenovo reps on the Yoga 2 pro page are anywhere near correct.

In the QA Randall quoted $1,300-$1,500 for the i7 model, and another rep quoted $1449 to $1499 USD for i7/8G/256GB.

Just pulled the trigger and I'm going to try to pick it up in store tomorrow afternoon. Worst case scenario they don't let me pick it up until the 18th or the 21st, but they would have to honor the price either way. If I find out I can get a better deal through the employee discount, I can return it (if I can resist opening it). However, I'm skeptical that this is the correct price given the above information. Also, the current gen i7/8GB/256GB model is still going for $1,350 on Lenovo's site, so I doubt they'd sell the upgraded version with the same specs for less.

 

Anyone know if this is coming to Amazon or NewEgg anytime this week?
Also, any reviews of this out?
Lastly, where is the 512gb version?

 

i am also awaiting on amazon and newegg to stock this.

as for review check out youtube. there are reviews from last months IFA

 

Hopefully this price sticks long enough for the best buy near my uncle to stock it. I'll just have him ship it too me.

For all you lucky users who got it early please post some pics vids as soon as you have the time.

 

Just joined the forums. I stumbled into here looking for more info on the Yoga 2 Pro and you guys led me into picking one up from Best Buy today. Thank you guys. I seem to have one issue with mine. I think it has to do with scaling in the personalize menu. Google Chrome doesn't seem to work with the touch screen at first, but if I re size the scaling of windows to the lowest setting (everything is tiny) Chrome works fine. The problem with that is everything is really small. Anyone have this issue? Internet Explorer and Firefox works fine with scaling.

 

Yeah, Google Chrome's scaling is pretty bad for HDPI displays. We're sort of early adopters when it comes to this resolution so we just have to wait for them to be updated.

As for the touch issue, I had the same thing! Touch is all wonky in desktop mode of normal Chrome. I ended up installing Chrome Canary. It's been stable for me and touch input works fine in desktop mode. Still has the same scaling issue though, so you either have to deal with lower-res text or turn off scaling for Chrome (you can do that by right clicking the Chrome icon, selecting properties, and then choosing the Compatibility tab). Turning off scaling just for chrome allows Windows and everything else to still be scaled but then Chrome itself will have super tiny buttons and address bar.

Hopefully Chrome gets updates soon!

 

By the way, I did a few tests last night:

I ran a web browsing test on the Yoga 2 using the same script that notebook check uses in their reviews that loads a new page every 40 seconds. At the same time I ran the Battery Eater "idle" test so I could have it track the time.

I had the laptop set to Power Saver mode. Brightness was at 30% (105 nits) and the keyboard backlight was off.

For some reason the test stopped at 7% instead of fully draining, but when it stopped it was at 7h55m. So if it were fully drained it would be roughly 8.5 hours.

As for the display, here is the brightness/black level data at the 10 different presets:



Brightness is pretty great, but as you can see the black levels could be better.

I also have some noticeable backlight bleed at the bottom left corner. Noticeable enough that I might exchange it at some point.

 

As far as I know, we haven't heard anything about Amazon or Newegg's availability. If they do show up this week, it would likely be on the 18th. Best Buy has been telling some people they can't sell it to the 21st though, so that is also a possibility.

From the first post in this thread:
Gizmodo's Hands-On (shows size comparison with Yoga 13)
MobileGeeks Yoga 2 Pro in-depth Video Review (with comparisons to Yoga 13)
(special thanks to B3RL1N for finding and posting it!)

Not sure why Best Buy doesn't have the 512GB model on their site, but it's likely just that they don't have any yet or they opted to only carry these models.

 

I just chatted with a rep and they said no. Suggested the Thinkpad USB 3.0 Dock. Anyone have other recommendations? If I hook up two monitors to the 3.0 dock, will it show two different displays or the same?

I ordered my Yoga 2 Pro (i7) on Sunday and had to have them ship it. UPS says it's getting to the Best Buy tomorrow, so I'll see if I can pick it up before the 18th...

 

Does anyone know what type of SSD drive it uses and whether it's replaceable? Also any more feedback on battery life, 6 hours is a bit short...

Thanks!

 

Ordered the i7 / 256 model this morning from a local BestBuy. Status says "preparing order". But now the site shows they are unavailable in that store. So now I wait to see how their inventory control is. Did they take too many orders and they're gonna make me wait? Or did they hold one for me? Hoping for the latter, but knowing how BestBuy operates, I fear the former. At any rate, I've locked the price in, so if they don't deliver the goods today, I'll wait to see what Lenovo is selling the same model for. If it's still a bargain, I'll wait and let BestBuy figure it out.

 

Okay, on to cases now

This slip cover looks terrific, but it's for the 11s. Anyone know if Lenovo has plans to do the same for the Yoga 2 Pro?

Lenovo SlotIn Case for Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 11S Laptops IDEAPAD YOGA 11S SLOT IN CASE - Best Buy

EDIT: Okay, I see they have one for the outgoing Yoga 13 (with a 4 week wait time on Lenovo's site). Wondering if they will do one for the 2 Pro or if the size difference isn't significant enough to make it worthwhile to create a separate cover.

 

According to crilleg's CPU-Z report, it's a SAMSUNG MZMTD256HAGM-000L1 for the 256GB model. I believe a Lenovo rep reported that the Yoga 2 Pro would feature a second mSATA bay like the original Yoga, though I don't think anyone has opened it up to find out yet.

A couple posts above abbyev89 reported about 8.5 hours at 30% brightness.

I just got the email saying mine is ready for in store pickup, so I'll be stopping by after work.

Does anyone have experience with bluetooth mice? I'm considering picking one up to save a USB port from my typical travel mouse. How's battery life? Are any particular mice clear winners?
Also, have any of the lucky Yoga 2 Pro owners tried it out with the old sleeve yet? Is the sleeve indeed the same, as the Lenovo reps have been reporting? I can see the sleeve has a hole in one corner, but I'm not sure what it's for. Presumably a button or a port (charging?), so I'm not sure if they still line up.

Only two of the numerous stores near me had it available. I'm guessing that they ran out of stock after you ordered, but I'm not sure. If you have the confirmation, you should be good to go.

 

On the Lenovo forum they say the case for the 2 Pro will be the same as for the 13. So even though the new version is a little thinner they won't be making a new case for it. They claim it fits very well. However, I suggest you look at the Amazon reviews where a lot of people complain about the shoddy quality of that sleeve.

The computer is so small and light that I don't think it needs a case. While that sleeve is light it doesn't add much at all and just makes it less convenient to open the computer. Skip the sleeve and you'll be better off and save $35.

 

I placed an order with my local BestBuy this morning. Though when I checked the availability after placing my order an hour or so later it showed it as out of stock; which was a bit concerning. My order was still on my account and was had it marked as order received, so I still had hope. Got a call about 30 minutes ago from BestBuy asking for account verification. After that my order continued being processed and is now ready for pickup. I'm going to swing by after work and will hopefully be able to pick it up before the street-date.

So for those who placed an order and it now shows out of stock, don't be too freaked out by it. You probably got the last one that store had in stock; consider yourself lucky!

 

Good to hear. Mine is still processing so I'm waiting patiently.

Sent from my LG-D800 using Tapatalk

 

I've been using the MS bluetooth sculpt mouse for the last year with my Surface. I like it just fine. Picks up a signal quickly and I'm still on the original batteries.

Sent from my LG-D800 using Tapatalk

 

The biggest reason I'm looking at the case is that I've heard it really helps alleviate the problems people have with the exposed keyboard in tablet mode. When I played with the old Yoga for 20 minutes at the Microsoft store, it didn't bother me all that much though. I may just use it for a while and see if it bothers me.

The Yoga will be in a bag with a padded laptop pocket whenever it travels anyway, so I'm not worried about the protection factor.

That it great to hear! I was looking at that mouse last night and it was one of my leading candidates. Thanks!

 

Thanks for the Canary suggestion it really works a lot better now. Haven't ran into anymore problems or scaling issues using Canary yet. How is everyone's light bleed? I have slight bleeding at the bottom middle but it seems to have been greater when I first powered it on. Really loving the Yoga 2 Pro nonetheless.

 

I've been using a Amazon.com: Connectland CL-MOU23014 Bluetooth Wireless Optical Mouse: Electronics bluetooth mouse. It was on sale for $10 at the time. It's been working great used it on a previous dell laptop for a month without the battery dying. This is a lower end bluetooth model, so I would assume other brand names would work just as well if not better. FYI if your using a bluetooth device with your yoga connected to a TV through hdmi, there seems to be slight lag input but that is to be expected at different resolutions and range from the yoga.