Yoga 3 11

I placed an order for a Yoga 3 11 from Best Buy on Sunday February 22nd. Tracking information indicates delivery is scheduled for Wednesday February 25th. Shipment originated from Fresno, Ca. This model has 8 GB of RAM and 256 GB SSD. It has an M-5y71 processor, which has a higher turbo speed than the M-5y10c specified on the Lenovo store models. This Yoga will replace my aging Yoga 11s Haswell, which I use mostly for travel and as backup for my Asus ux303la. I also use it for running a flight simulator, F18 Carrier Landing.

I will report on my impressions later this week. If it doesn't turn out to be an improvement over the 11s, I will return it to Best Buy.

Best regards, Jim

 

Here are my first impressions.

Very nice looks. Although mine was listed as Black, the only black area is the keyboard, the surrounding panel and the screen bezel. The rest is a silver color.

Build is very good. Slight flex on top and bottom panels and keyboard. Not enough to bother me.

The keyboard is good. I am a hunt and peck typist, so I am not picky about keyboards. I think the Yoga 3 11 keyboard has a better feel than the 11s.

I use a personal benchmark to test CPU performance. The Yoga 3 11 (M-5y71) takes 12.2 milliseconds to complete the test. My Yoga 11s (i5-4210Y) takes 18.2 milliseconds and my Asus UX303LA (i5-4210U) takes 12.8 milliseconds.

Wifi is excellent. I get the same up/down on the Yoga 3 11 wireless as I do on my wired desktop. And I get the same 30 Mbps down, 6 Mbps up 15 feet from my AP or 35 feet away through 4 walls.

I believe battery life will be fair to poor, probably less than five hours. It took 4 hr 10 min to run the battery down to 5 % from 95 % on a Peacekeeper test. Peacekeeper usually places more stress on a PC than my usual light duty.

One disappointment is the apparent lack of position sensors. I play a Windows 8.1 game called F18 Carrier Landing on my Yoga 11s. I tilt the Yoga forward/back and side to side to control the F18. But, the game will not work except in keyboard mode on Yoga 3 11.

Overall I like the Yoga 3 11, but I will be returning it to Best Buy on Monday because of the poor battery life and the problem with the position sensors.

Edit: I did a real world battery life test yesterday. With my light duty use I got 6 hrs 32 min on the Yoga 3 11. That raises my rating from poor to fair. But, I finally got hold of a Lenovo tech who knew something. He confirmed that the Yoga 3 11 does not have a position sensor. He said that the Yoga is more of a laptop, than a tablet, so a position sensor wasn't included. (Hey Lenovo, quit claiming a Yoga has a tablet mode.)

Regards, Jim

 

Interesting take on the yoga 3-11.
I just picked up the same model and also owned the older 11S (4210y, 8gb, 1tb ssd). My first concern is the screen, with any adjustment the picture distorts and appears wavy; not a comforting issue.
I'll spend some more time with it to see how it stacks up but thanks to the unique charger I am able to use a lithium battery pack with USB port to provide additional juice.

 

Mind sharing your personal benchmark? I have a M-5Y10c coming in and I would like to see how it stacks up agains the M-5y71 in yours.