Score: 9/10 (Fantastic)
Pros Extremely flexible design, great looking screen, very fast processor, long-lasting battery that completely recharges in less than two hours, respectable price. | Cons Touchscreen can be glitchy at times, Windows RT feels quite disjointed and still requires a lot of work, poor selection of applications |
At this point in time, Windows RT-powered tablets are not anything new. Microsoft has been trying to push the Windows RT operating system since October, but has been fighting an uphill battle the entire time. Lenovo is looking to aid Microsoft in this battle though, with the Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 11. Unlike most Windows RT tablets, the Yoga 11 features a non-detachable keyboard, like you would find on most laptops. Is the Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 11 the Windows RT tablet/laptop to rule them all? Find out in our review!
Design/Build Quality
The Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 11 is a very sleek, light, and sexy device. At 11.7 x 8.0 x 0.61", and weighing in at just 2.8 lbs, the Yoga 11 is an extremely portable tablet/laptop hybrid. Like the Yoga 13, the Yoga 11's biggest selling point is it's ability to bend and contort into four different modes of use (Laptop, Tablet, Stand, and Tent).
The first mode, Laptop mode, is one of the modes that we used most in our time with the Yoga 11. Like most of Lenovo's latest laptops, the Yoga 11 uses the famous AccuType keyboard. As we said before in our review of the Yoga 13, the keyboard feels so freaking great. For an 11-inch laptop, Lenovo was still able to cram in a full sized keyboard that feels just as great as any high end laptop. The trackpad, located directly below the keyboard, worked really well in my time with the device. It's relatively large, and proved to be very accurate when clicking on smaller links on the screen.
The second mode, Tablet mode, is the other mode that we used the most. Tablet mode is the mode in which the keyboard is folding all the way back, so you can use the Yoga 11 as an 11-inch tablet. While the 11-inch screen felt surprisingly great in Tablet mode, the exposed keyboard proved to still be quite an annoyance, as it was on the Yoga 13. Even though the keyboard and trackpad are completely deactivated when using the Yoga 11 is Tablet mode, it still proved to be an uncomfortable experience to use the Yoga 11 in Tablet mode for a prolonged period of time.
The third mode, Stand mode, allows you to bend the screen back about 270 degrees, so the Yoga 11 sits on it's keyboard and brings the screen even closer to your face. I found this mode to be surprisingly useful when watching videos. It allows you to view the entirety of the 11-inch screen, and not have to look at the keyboard while doing so.
The fourth, and final mode, is Tent mode. Tent mode allows you to bend most of the screen back, and prop the Yoga 11 up like a tent. On Lenovo's website, they suggest this mode for listening to music, video chatting, and sharing the screen
with other people. While I didn't use Tent mode a whole lot in my time with the Yoga 11, it actually is a very comfortable way to use the Yoga 11's touchscreen.
with other people. While I didn't use Tent mode a whole lot in my time with the Yoga 11, it actually is a very comfortable way to use the Yoga 11's touchscreen.
Overall, I was extremely pleased with the Yoga 11's design. Along with the incredible flexibility, the Yoga 11 also packs in a bunch of welcome ports, such as two USB 2.0 ports, a 2-in-1 SD/MMC card reader, combo jack, and HDMI-out.
The Yoga 11 also adds a physical button on the keyboard to adjust it's screen brightness. While you may be thinking that this isn't that big of a deal, it sure is helpful when using Windows RT. To adjust your screen brightness in Windows RT, you normally have to go into the Charms bar, touch Screen, and slide the brightness adjuster on-screen from there. While it doesn't take long to get to this setting, it can be quite difficult to find for a first time Windows RT user. With the non-detachable keyboard on the Yoga 11 though, you also have quick and easy access to adjust your screen brightness, something you don't usually see with Windows-RT powered gadgets.
Hardware
The IdeaPad Yoga 11 features, as the name suggests, an 11.6-inch display with a pixel resolution of 1366 x 768. While this isn't the highest resolution you will find on the market, I found that the Yoga 11's screen still looked quite good. Colors were very bright and vibrant, text was easy to read, and games and video looked good as well. The Yoga 11 also provides great viewing angles, which goes along perfectly with all of the modes you can use this convertible laptop in. In my time with the device, I did find one issue with the Yoga 11's touchscreen. When attempting to swipe down from the top of the screen to close the current application I was using, I often found that the Yoga 11 would not register my touch input at all, or would zoom in when trying to close the app. While I wouldn't normally bring something like this up, this happened to me numerous times throughout my use of the laptop, and proved to be quite annoying.
In terms of processing speeds, the Yoga 11 is packing in an NVIDIA Tegra 3 CPU, NVIDIA ULP GeForce GPU, and 2GB of RAM. Although we didn't play any graphically intensive games on the Yoga 11, lighter games such as Jetpack Joyride, Web browsing, music streaming, and navigating your way through the Modern UI on Windows RT proved to be a very smooth experience. Games ran great, Web browsing was extremely smooth, and the Modern UI ran with little-to-no lag whatsoever. While these aren't great specs for a laptop, they certainly do hold their own when you remember that this is more of a tablet, rather than a full fledged laptop. The Yoga 11 is also packing in a 64GB SSD to ensure that you have all of the storage you need for your photos, music, applications, and more.
The Yoga 11 has a 4-cell battery that Lenovo is promising 13 hours of use out of on a single charge. In our time with the device, that claim actually turned out to be quite true! We got about 13 hours of use with moderate Web browsing, application usage, and music/video streaming. Aside from the long lasting usage time, the battery itself charges up incredibly fast! You can completely recharge the Yoga 11 from 0%-100% is under two hours. That ladies and gentlemen, is pretty freaking impressive.
Software
The Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 11 is running on Microsoft's own Windows RT operating system. Windows RT looks nearly identical to Windows 8, but is technically a mobile OS, rather than a full fledged PC operating system. So, how does Windows RT stack up against other mobile OS's out there? Honestly, not so well.
One of my biggest issues with Windows RT, similar to the issues I had in Windows 8 with the Yoga 13, is the disjointed experience between the Modern (or Metro) UI and your Desktop. The Modern UI is where you will most likely spend most of your time, as it is treated like your home screen for the Yoga 11. From the Modern UI, you can open applications, search through all of the apps you have installed on your device, and access settings such as your User, General, Privacy, Wireless, and Devices, among others. If you want to access your Control Panel, Sound Recorder, or Office 2013 (included for free on all Windows RT devices), you will be forced into the Desktop to access these features. This can cause for quite a bit of confusion, and makes Windows RT feel like an operating system with an identity crisis. On one hand, you have the Modern UI, a clean, simple, and elegant UI that works like a "charm" (not our best pun...only real users of Windows 8 or RT will understand), but does not allow you to have full access to all of the features on your device. Then you have the Desktop mode, the familiar interface we've all come to know and love with past versions of Windows, but with the lack of the Start button. Your Start button is essentially the Modern UI. Confusing? It sure is. While experienced techies, like myself, will be able to figure their way around the operating system, casual electronics users will feel completely, and utterly lost. While I appreciate what Microsoft was trying to do with the Modern UI and the Desktop mode, it still needs work before it is anywhere near perfection.
It is also worth noting that, despite the ability to use Desktop mode, you cannot install full desktop applications such as iTunes, Adobe Photoshop, Sony Vegas Movie Studio, Final Cut Pro, etc. with Windows RT. The only applications that you can download are the ones that you have available to you in the Windows Store. This is probably the biggest distinction, and downside, from Windows RT to Windows 8.
Windows RT also lacks in it's application store department. Microsoft uses the Windows Store as the destination to purchase and download all of the applications your could possibly want for all of your Windows 8 and Windows RT devices. While the Windows Store certainly provides an extremely larger selection of apps for Windows 8 PCs compared to Apple's Macs, the Windows Store falters when used as the primary app store for a mobile OS, such as Windows RT. While you have access to applications such as Evernote, Netflix, iHeartRadio, Amazon, Skype, and more, there is no official YouTube, Facebook, or Pandora applications, just to name a few.
Final Verdict
At the end of the day, I really enjoyed my time with the Yoga 11. It's compact, lightweight, incredibly flexible, has a good looking screen, snappy processors, and a long-lasting battery. If you are looking for an easy to carry Windows RT tablet that will last you through a long day of use, and will be able to provide you with a freaking amazing keyboard, the Yoga 11 might be perfect for you. However, if you are looking for your a small and compact laptop, you may want to look elsewhere. Despite it's laptop form factor, the Yoga 11 should be considered to be a tablet with a keyboard. The Yoga 11 is still running Windows RT, so you cannot install full desktop applications like you are able to do on Windows 8. Because of this, the Yoga 11 is not really meant for full laptop use. Despite our complaints though, the Yoga 11 is still an incredible piece of machinery. If the device was running on Windows 8, this would be (without a doubt) a near perfect laptop. However, due to the limitations of Windows RT, the Yoga 11 will certainly not be for everyone. If you are sure that the Yoga 11 has everything you are looking for in a Windows RT tablet though, then go out a buy it. The Yoga 11 is one of the best Windows RT devices that is currently out on the market, and is a pure joy to use.
DISCLAIMER: Joseph Maring used the Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 11 for 17 days before beginning to write his review of the device. Lenovo sent us the IdeaPad Yoga 11 to review, but in no way affected our final score of the laptop.
Author: Joseph Maring
DISCLAIMER: Joseph Maring used the Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 11 for 17 days before beginning to write his review of the device. Lenovo sent us the IdeaPad Yoga 11 to review, but in no way affected our final score of the laptop.
Author: Joseph Maring
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