Lenovo’s Yoga series has become a category unto itself. Not only does it
encompass the ultrabook but also the tablets segment. Yoga as the name
implies, lets you arrange the ultrabook in around four modes. The Yoga
series is in its third generation this time around and the Yoga 3 Pro is
the flagship multi-mode ultrabook in the series.
One of the main conditions to fulfill, for a laptop to be categorised
as an Ultrabook, is that it should be slim. The Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro
fulfills this condition with aplomb, measuring just 12.8mm when closed.
And it weighs just 1.19kg which makes it convenient to carry around in
your backpack.
The other most interesting feature of the Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro has to be
its hinge. Considering the Yoga 3 Pro laptop goes all the way back,
thereby giving you modes such as laptop, stand, tablet and tent, the
hinge mechanism has employed around “813 individual pieces of aluminum
and steel.” It seems to have certainly taken inspiration from metal
watch bands.
The Yoga 3 Pro comes in three colours orange, silver and gold on the
outside and black colour on the inside. Opening up the laptop reveals a
textured, rubberised palm rest which covers the entire portion around
the keypad. The texture has a great feel to it. The trackpad is located
in the centre and has a single slab of clickable plastic. There aren’t
any buttons or indicators on the top of the keypad.
Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro comes with the multi-mode branding which lets you
set up the laptop in four different modes of use cases. It houses an
Intel Core M 5Y70 processor which is a dual-core hyper threaded part,
clocked at 1.1GHz with the Turbo frequency going up to 2.6GHz. Thanks to
the low power processor, the Yoga 3 Pro does not have any fan cooling
mechanism, another reason for its slim form factor. It comes with 8GB
RAM and has a 256GB storage capacity.
There are a lot of software flourishes on the Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro. For
starters there is the Harmony settings app, which can be set to change
display settings depending on the mode you set your Yoga 3 Pro in. For
instance, if you switch to a reading mode, the display gets a warm tinge
to reduce strain on your eyes. ‘My Favourites’, section makes most
frequently used apps easier to find. You also have certain applications
which are Harmony compatible and you can optimise settings for the same.
The Yoga 3 Pro features JBL speakers which are sufficiently loud and
clear for most use cases. Apart from this you also get utilities such as
McAfee Livesafe, Amazon Kindle, Evernote, Lenovo Photo Master among
others, pre-installed.
Display: 9/10
One of the high points of the Yoga 3 Pro is its display. At 3200 x
1800 pixels the 13.3-inch display looks gorgeous. You get an LED backlit
LCD display with an IPS panel and Corning Gorilla Glass protection.
Viewing angles are great, the colours appear vibrant and one hardly sees
any pixillation on the text. Website logos that aren’t high resolution
will show some jaggies naturally. Black levels are pretty good.
In the
Lagom.nl
tests, the display performed well in most tests. The contrast test
shows all the different bands of colours going from brightest to
darkest. The white saturation test was one of the best I’ve seen on a
laptop display, showing all the checkerboard boxes. Gradient banding
test also shows a gradual change of colour from black to white. All in
all a wonderful display.
Watching movies on the display is a joy, provided you have at least
an HD quality movie. Upscaling standard definition content will show
jaggies. The experience is best when you are watching a movie in a dark
room, but you can also enjoy it with ambient lighting, just ensure that
there aren’t any direct light sources behind you. The tent and stand
modes are ideal for watching videos.
Performance: 6.5/10
Battery Life: 6/10
Considering this is an Intel Core M processor based ultrabook, one
thing I was really looking forward to was a long lasting battery. The
Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro houses a 4-cell 44Wh battery. But the battery life
performance of the Lenovo Yoga Pro 3 was certainly not upto the mark.
Getting a 3 hours 43 mins on high performance mode and 5 hours 14 mins
on Balanced mode are definitely no indicators of ‘Epic Battery Life’ of
around 7.2 hours as promised on its product page. For an ultrabook which
comes with a low power processor, one really expects longer lasting
battery. But if you cannot even pull in a day’s worth of usage without
plugging in the charger, then that is just defeating the purpose.
Verdict and Price in India
Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro is a beautifully designed ultrabook and the slim
form factor along with the light weight is a boon if you are the kinds
who have to carry a laptop to work daily. The 3200 x 1800 pixel display
is one of the best we have seen on a laptop. Touch response and using
the Yoga 3 Pro in various modes, specially stand and tent mode for
movies and presentations is really cool. In terms of performance, the
Yoga 3 Pro can do most of the regular tasks such as surfing the web,
watching HD movies, working on office suites, even working with Adobe
Lightroom for photo editing. Now, only IF these factors appeal to you
does it make sense to shell out Rs 1,14,990 for the Yoga 3 Pro.
But this is not a workhorse in the traditional sense of the word. You
cannot do heavy lifting such as video editing. Granted this laptop is
not meant for that kind of work. If you are planning to transcode video,
again it will be really slow on this. The battery life, something which
should have been at least the promised 7.2 hours, is nowhere close.
That is the biggest drawback. The whole premise of using a low power
processor such as the Core M is to have a long lasting battery.