Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 2 Pro review

The original Yoga 13 was one of our favourite convertible hybrids of 2013, but Lenovo’s brand-new Yoga 2 Pro improves on its predecessor in almost every way. The Yoga 2 Pro’s unique super-flexible hinge is back in all its 360 degree glory, letting you fold the keyboard behind the screen so that you can use the Yoga 2 Pro as a tablet. However, the Yoga 2 Pro’s chassis is thinner and lighter than the older model, which means its much more portable and easier to use as a tablet. Indeed, the Yoga 2 Pro measures a slim 15mm thick when closed.

We’re also happy to report that the Yoga 2 Pro’s build quality has improved dramatically over that of the original Yoga. The flex in the keyboard tray that spoiled the Yoga isn’t present, so the Yoga 2 Pro feels much more like a premium laptop, and the hinge remains as sturdy as ever. At 1.4kg, it’s still a little too heavy to hold in tablet mode for long periods of time, and we found ourselves resting the Yoga 2 Pro on our lap or a work surface. Even so, we certainly welcome the 100g weight reduction. Connection ports are scarce, but there are two USB ports, one of which is UBS3, a micro HDMI output, an SD and MMC card reader and a 3.5mm combined headphone and microphone jack.

FIX UP, LOOK SHARP

Unlike previous Yoga models, the headline feature of the Yoga 2 Pro isn’t its 360-degree hinge, it’s the stunning 3,200×1,800 resolution of its 13.3in IPS touchscreen display. This is the same resolution as Samsung’s Ultimate award-winning Ativ Book 9 Plus, and it means the Yoga 2 Pro’s screen has a huge pixel density of 275 pixels per inch (PPI). That PPI is even higher than that of Apple’s 13in Macbook Pro Retina display. Unsurprisingly, you can see a tremendous amount of detail on the Yoga 2 Pro’s screen, and this much higher resolution is a great improvement on the old Yoga’s 1,600×900 resolution.

The Yoga 2 Pro’s screen has the image quality to match, too. With an sRGB colour gamut reading of 85.3 per cent, colours were represented evenly across all the major colour groups. Reds and greens were a little lacking compared to its strong blues, but it didn’t affect our subjective image tests. All the solid colours looked bright, vibrant and evenly lit across the screen. Whites were very clean as well thanks to the screen’s high brightness levels, but we were a little disappointed to see a black level reading of 0.47cd/m2. This is much higher than we’d normally expect to see from a laptop of this price, and it showed in our solid blacks, which appeared noticeably grey compared to the laptop’s dark black bezel.

It’s a relatively minor flaw, though, and thankfully the screen’s contrast levels were more encouraging. We measured a great contrast ratio of 713:1 and all of our high contrast test images looked great. Some areas of dark shadow only appeared as simple areas of solid black in a few of our night shots, but on the whole images looked crisp and had plenty of detail. Thanks to its superb viewing angles, we could see the screen clearly no matter how far back we tilted the screen.

TIPPING THE SCALE
Having such a high resolution does have some cause some problems, though, because Windows 8.1’s desktop scaling technology is nowhere near as sophisticated as that of Mac OS X. Samsung managed to counter this problem on the Ativ Book 9 Plus by including its own software that rendered the Windows desktop at 1,080p. Sadly, Lenovo has included no such software with the Yoga 2 Pro, so you can’t adjust the amount of space you have onscreen. Instead, the only way to control how the size of text is by adjusting the Display settings in the Control Panel. You’ll probably want to increase the size to Extra Large, which is 200 per cent larger than normal, because text rendered at 100 per cent was almost illegible.

Windows 8’s poor scaling affected the Chrome web browser when we used it in Metro mode, too, with text and icons looking tiny. They were so small that we had difficulty clicking the correct tabs and menu icons with our touchpad, let alone when we used the touchscreen. Thankfully, text returned to its normal size when we re-launched the browser in Desktop mode.

Scaling issues aside, we enjoyed using the Yoga 2 Pro for day-to-day tasks such as word processing and sending emails. The keyboard’s springy keys gave a great level of tactile feedback and the Yoga 2 Pro’s lightly textured soft-touch wrist rest was very comfortable and was a real boon when we used the laptop for protracted periods of time. The Yoga 2 Pro’s smooth touchpad was also very quick and responsive when we were browsed through our files, and we had no problem performing Windows 8 shortcuts and multitouch gestures.

FLEXIBLE PERFORMER
The Yoga 2 Pro didn’t disappoint when it came to processing performance either, and its 1.6GHz Intel Core i5-4200U processor and 4GB of RAM powered the laptop to an admirable overall score of 46 in our multimedia benchmarks. This is exactly the score we expect to see from this type of processor, and the benchmark results show that the Yoga 2 Pro’s slim, sealed chassis doesn’t suffer from overheating like other Ultrabooks such as the Core i7-based Sony Vaio Pro 13, which also scored 46 despite having a technically better processor.

The Yoga 2 Pro’s Intel HD Graphics 4400 graphics processor can just about play 3D games, but you’ll have to compromise on graphics quality settings and the latest, most graphically challenging games will prove too much for it. The Yoga Pro 2 managed to output an average frame rate of 19.9fps in our Dirt Showdown benchmark with graphics quality set to High and the resolution set to 1,280×720. However, this increased to a much smoother average frame rate of 35.1fps when we set graphics quality to Low. The Yoga 2 Pro even managed to produce a respectable average frame rate of 29.1fps with graphics quality set to Low and no anti-aliasing at a resolution of 1,920×1,080. Sadly, 3D gaming is out of the question at the Yoga 2 Pro’s native 3,200×1,800 resolution, as the laptop failed our Dirt Showdown benchmark at that resolution, even with graphics quality set to Low and no anti-aliasing.

For us, the only real disappointment with the Yoga 2 Pro, apart from Windows 8’s poor resolution scaling, was average battery life. It lasted 7 hours and 17 minutes in our light use test with the screen set to half brightness, which is roughly the same as the original Yoga 13’s battery life. This would have been a great length of time for a laptop released in 2013, but we’ve seen other recently released Haswell-based Ultrabooks last for up to 11 hours. This makes the Yoga 2 Pro seem a little less attractive if you need to an ultra-portable laptop to take on the road.

Like its predecessor, the Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 2 Pro isn’t perfect, but its novel hinge and impressive display certainly go a long way to make up for its flaws. At just under £1,000, it’s also roughly £250 less than other 3,200×1,800 resolution laptops such as the Samsung Ativ Book 9 Plus. The Yoga 2 Pro’s price also gives it a huge edge over other, similarly priced Ultrabooks with lower 1,920×1,080 resolutions. If you want a fun two-in-one device with a gorgeously detailed screen, the Yoga 2 Pro is the convertible laptop for you.