Lenovo Yoga 2 11

[Ravynmagi]

I recently bought the $500 Lenovo Yoga 2 laptop convertible...

11.6 inch 1366x768 10 point touch IPS display
2.4GHz quad core Baytrail
4GB RAM
500GB hard drive
USB 3.0, USB 2.0, SD, and micro HDMI ports
auto rotate toggle button

Been using it a couple days and am still not quite certain if I like it or not.

First I'll start with it's good points. The specs seem pretty good for a convertible laptop. It's fairly thin and light (3 pounds). And while the resolution isn't good, it's at least touch IPS and the colors look good. It's hard to find a touch IPS display on something this cheap.

The bad points however. The keyboard sucks. I don't think the size is the problem, though it seems there is plenty of room for a larger keyboard with about 3/4 of an inch of free space on either side. But the keys don't feel that good and I sometimes when I hit a key I get nothing and on a rare occasion I'll repeat the stroke twice. Seems like Lenovo should be better than this. I get it's a $500 laptop, but there should be a minimum level of quality for any laptop.

The other problem is the battery. This thing has a Baytrail Atom processor and gets only about 5 hours of battery life. That is a bit surprising and underwhelming.


So I can't decide if I like this or not. I probably won't be able to find another convertible with IPS display for $500. And it seems like if I want these things with possibly a better keyboard would require a significant price increase to something with a Core processor and SSD, which is nice, but overkill for my needs.

For now I'm debating keeping this and accepting it's significant shortcomings or spending 50 to 100% more on a better quality Yoga 2 Pro or Sony Flip or another convertible.

 

[Ravynmagi]

PS. This thing is brand new, just started shipping a couple weeks ago. And out of the box it still had Windows 8.0 on it? So I got to spend about the first 6 hours installing updates and Windows 8.1 on this and more updates. No idea why it doesn't have Windows 8.1 on it.

 

[RossMAN]

First I'll start with it's good points. The specs seem pretty good for a convertible laptop. It's fairly thin and light (3 pounds). And while the resolution isn't good, it's at least touch IPS and the colors look good. It's hard to find a touch IPS display on something this cheap.

The bad points however. The keyboard sucks. I don't think the size is the problem, though it seems there is plenty of room for a larger keyboard with about 3/4 of an inch of free space on either side. But the keys don't feel that good and I sometimes when I hit a key I get nothing and on a rare occasion I'll repeat the stroke twice. Seems like Lenovo should be better than this. I get it's a $500 laptop, but there should be a minimum level of quality for any laptop.

The keyboard would be a possible deal breaker for me as I value LCD display and keyboard the most.

Can you overlook the shortcomings for this $500 laptop?

Or would the keyboard and other shortcomings always glare at you like a constant reminder what a great laptop it could have been?

 

[Ravynmagi]

I really tried to like the tablet. I loved the convertible form factor, the display looked good, even it was only 768p, even the speakers sound pretty good and really loud. But the keyboard... I think this is the deal breaker for me.

For some reason Lenovo uses some really horrible keyboards in their budget products. I encountered something similar with the Lenovo Lynx tablet with keyboard dock. This keyboard isn't quite as horrible as the Lynx keyboard was. However it's still bad enough that I can't be happy using this laptop for anything more the brief typing experiences.

And this bugs me. It seems like the keyboard is one of the cheaper components in a laptop. There really doesn't seem to be an excuse not to use a reliable quality keyboard. It doesn't need to be uber fancy backlit with rubberized keys and the works like the Yoga 2 Pro. But it should be reliable at least. I've play with cheaper Chromebooks that had better keyboards than this.

 

[tfinch2]

I returned mine today. Three problems:

1.) Too much crapware
2.) Touch screen not as sensitive/accurate as my Asus X202E that I was replacing
3.) Stability issues when waking the laptop up, which required a reboot sometimes

Only had it about 10 days. Shame because it was fairly cheap, light, and I liked the form factor.

 

[teesmattw69]

Hi Folks:
A newbie to this wonderful forum (...so please go easy on me). I just picked-up my Yoga 2 11 inch at BB on 3/8. Haven't had the chance yet to take it for a spin. But one irritating thing already to me is trying to figure out - without it booted up - how the battery charging indicator works. More specifically, does anyone know the color scheme and/or flashing scheme of the battery charging indicator on this device to know when it's fully charged? I charged the device yesterday for about 4.5 hours and the battery charging indicator light got to the point of a solid white color (not flashing color). Thanks!

 

[release213]

I returned mine today. Three problems:

1.) Too much crapware
2.) Touch screen not as sensitive/accurate as my Asus X202E that I was replacing
3.) Stability issues when waking the laptop up, which required a reboot sometimes

Only had it about 10 days. Shame because it was fairly cheap, light, and I liked the form factor.

Well that sucks. I have a Lenovo that is getting shipped to me. I bought a $260 Lenovo instead of a $480 Asus.

For #1, can't you reinstall windows to get rid of all the crapware? I hope the touchscreen on mine isn't too bad. We'll see when I get it this week.

 

[IntelUser2000]

The other problem is the battery. This thing has a Baytrail Atom processor and gets only about 5 hours of battery life. That is a bit surprising and underwhelming.

That's because its using Bay Trail-M. It doesn't have all the fancy S0iX features needed to get really low drain. Power management of Bay Trail-M is on par with Pre-Haswell/Pre-Medfield.

 

[Ravynmagi]

Well that sucks. I have a Lenovo that is getting shipped to me. I bought a $260 Lenovo instead of a $480 Asus.

For #1, can't you reinstall windows to get rid of all the crapware? I hope the touchscreen on mine isn't too bad. We'll see when I get it this week.

To me, I thought the bloatware was pretty light. I can't remember what it was now, McAfee Internet Suite, some other x86 app. And the a small handful of Windows 8 apps, all easily removed in a few minutes.

And fortunately I had no issues with the touchscreen on mine. I mainly wish the keyboard was better quality.