Lenovo Yoga 900S - quick review

[sergioosh]

Hello everyone,

Thanks to Lenovo I had the opportunity to test and use the new Yoga 900S. As I also have Yoga 3 Pro I'll also compare the two.

Size, weight and build quality.

Yoga 900S is smaller and lighter (by 200 grams). However, they're both skinny 12.8mm thick.

The materials appear to be the same, but somehow 900S has much more metallic feel to it. It also feels more sturdy. It might be related to the smaller size of the 900S. The case on the inside has more of a leather feel to it compared to the rubbery feel in Y3P.

Keyboard:

I have mixed feelings with this one, because:

+ dedicated F~ key row - great!

+ 2 level backlight - love it too.

- much lower key travel compared to Y3P, but still comfortable enough.

? awkward placement of the right shift key. This could just be me, as I got used to Y3P's layout, which had the right shift key on the left side of the up arrow key instead of the right side.

(picture by Cnet)

Touchpad:

Slightly smaller, but still comfortable to use. I have no remarks. It does its job. It happened couple of times that the cursor jumped to the bottom right corner when I tried to click using left index finger while swiping with the right index finger. Not sure what happened, but it was so minor I'm suprised I still remember it did!

Screen:

The model I received has a Full HD screen (1920 x 1080). I've seen 1440p being mentioned around the net, but this particular model definitely has a FHD screen. I currently do not have any tools to measure the specific properties of the screen, but it does look very good. Colours are vibrant, and the contrast is also very good. I like this resolution, as there's no need to change the DPI of the screen to make desktop items bigger. Some applications do not work very well with any DPI other than 100%. Also, unlike Y3P, which has a pentile pixel arrangement I believe 900S has regular 3 subpixels per pixel matrix.

Unlike Y3P, 900S has a full-glass front. There's a plastic stripe right above the hinge in Y3P.

It was announced it has an inbuilt active digitizer, but as this one did not have the pen I could not test it.

The touchscreen is accurate and responsive. In 100% DPI mode some of the items might be too small so you should consider increasing it if you use touch a lot.

CPU:

Yoga 3 Pro: Core m 5y70 1.1GHz (2.8GHz turbo)

Yoga 900S: Core m7 6y75 1.2GHz (3.1 GHz turbo)

The newer Skylake CPU in 900S is an improvement, but not a huge one. There's not much to tell about the CPU itself... The first m series processor disappointed some people, but I have never had any problems with either. What's very satisfying is that this time Lenovo delivered a laptop according to Intels promises - 100% passive cooling. I only ran PassMark test (results below), but if you'd like me to run some other test please let me know.

GPU:

This is supposedly a big improvement over the Broadwell SoC, and judging by the benchmarks it is true. I started a 4k video on a freshly started 900S and there was almost no change in the CPU utilisation and the video played without any issues.

Storage:

This unit came with a 512SSD. It's a PCI-X4 M.2 card based on Samsung chips. I run Crystaldiskmark and... I was blown away. This SSD is seriously FAST.

For a comparison the results from the 256GB Y3P:

Ports:

On the right side we see exactly the same set of ports, yet with fewer controls. The volume and rotation lock buttons are gone while the recovery button went to the other side. Big plus, really big plus for moving the power button further towards the screen, as it's extremely easy to press it accidentally on Y3P. Imagine holding it with two hands by the sides... yeah. The button itself is also bit skinnier which also helps.

On the left side:

Exactly the same charging port as on Y3P, however this time the bit in the middle is orange not yellow. From here onwards more changes. Instead of another USB 3.0 port and an HDMI port we get a single USB C port which can cover both tasks (i.e. USB port or video-out). The next one is the recovery button. Unfortunately there is no more SD card slot. Not a deal breaker, but I'll be missing it a bit

Benchmark:

I ran Passmark's PerformanceTest. Some results are suprising, but it could be related to some differences in the conditions (running apps, drivers, etc).

I couldn't help myself and also had to take a peek inside 900S on the left, Y3P on the right. After removing the screws around the edge the cover comes off easily. As you can see there's absolutely no fan inside the 900S. Not sure why the speakers also got pushed back a bit towards the back, but alike Y3P they provide suprisingly good and loud enough sound.

Battery life.

Compared to Y3P the battery's capacity grew from 44Wh to 53Wh

I'm happy to anounce this time Lenovo definitely got it right. The advertised 10.5 hours is easily achievable. I used it at work everyday last week and I got runtimes between 8:01 to 10:52 (just powercfg output). I've yet to run a synthetic batterytest though.

Notes and summary

It's a real pleasure working on the 900S. As I'm constantly on the road it has the perfect size to be carried around. I'm happy Lenovo decided to somewhat split the premium Yoga series. Now, we have a thicker, but much more powerful Yoga 900, and still the thinnest convertible 900S tied with Y3P. Both have addressed different issues with the Y3P gives user a choice to choose the one which is closer to his or hers requirements. It's style and extreme size catches people's attention. I was really surprised once, when one of my clients directly asked me "Is that a Yoga?"


If there's anything you'd like me to test go ahead. I'll try to make it clearer whether this device is for you or not!

More benchmarks:

PCMark: 2350

http://www.3dmark.com/results/pcm8hm3

Geekbench3: single core 2075 multicore 3950

http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/5289855

3D Mark 06: 5127

http://www.3dmark.com/3dm06/17862089?resultRegistrationOutcome=KEY_IN_ANOTHER_ACCOUNT_CURRENT_ACCOUN...

CompuBenchCL

Face detection: 14 MPix/s

Optical Flow: 2.1 MPix/s

Ocean: 133.8 fps

Particles: 106 MInt/s

T-Rex: 0.9 fps

video: 5.5 fps

Bitcoin: 17 MHash/s

[EricX]

Great review and comparision! The Yoga 900S does look like both a beauty AND a beast!

[ProJectDusk]

Hey, thanks for the review, I'm really interested in this device. Anyway I just had a couple of questions regarding the Yoga 900s. Did you notice any of the stutters which people encountered on the yoga 3 pro? Does the cpu start to throttle under load after 5-10 minutes? Also could you please run Geekbench 3 or PCMark and post the scores for us?

Thanks for the help and have a nice day!

[gcoupe]

My review of the Yoga 900s is here:

https://gcoupe.wordpress.com/2016/02/07/the-lenovo-yoga-900s-a-review/

I think we are htting on the same points in the design. tl:dr - small, but (almost) perfectly formed.

[sergioosh · Accepted solution]

Good thing I added "quick" in the subject It appears yours is more of a proper review. Much more content and aestethically more professional. However, it's really surprising to see we have reached very similar conclusions.

I do not agree with the point about screen ratio though. True, 16:10 till 4:3 are more convenient for a tablet device, but IMO not in a convertible. The screen ratio also dictates the external dimensions of the whole device including keyboard. It is natural for a keyboard to be wide and that goes well with the 16:9 screen. There's less wasted space on the palm rest or above the keyboard.

Since I haven't used a Yoga 900 can you tell us how doest the key travel compare between 900S and 900 keyboard? In 900 it does look much more like the one in Y3P.

@ProJectDusk I haven't noticed any stuttering so far. However, the first time I've ever started it got unpleasantly warm for about 20 minutes, and that's both on the bottom of the device and around the 3 top rows of the keyboard. I presume because it was related to background processes like Windows Updates, Search and Defender, which do have a bit of a work to do on a freshly started computer. Still, no stutter. Since it's passively cooled I'd expect it to throttle, but so far I have not noticed any user impact, which is good.

What I've yet to figure out is how is that possible that the default windows 10 video player performes much better while playing 4k mp4 than MPC-HC using DXVA or Intel QuickSync. I'm sure it's a matter of configuration.

I will run Geekbench 3 and PCMark later today.  Additiona results at the bottom of the review.

[gcoupe]

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@sergioosh wrote:

I do not agree with the point about screen ratio though. True, 16:10 till 4:3 are more convenient for a tablet device, but IMO not in a convertible. The screen ratio also dictates the external dimensions of the whole device including keyboard. It is natural for a keyboard to be wide and that goes well with the 16:9 screen. There's less wasted space on the palm rest or above the keyboard.

Since I haven't used a Yoga 900 can you tell us how doest the key travel compare between 900S and 900 keyboard? In 900 it does look much more like the one in Y3P.

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I think you've forgotten about the impact of bezel size on external dimensions. The screen ratio alone does not dictate the external dimensions.

My argument is based around the fact that the large bottom bezel in both the Yoga 900 and 900s can be changed to a smaller one to accommodate a 16:10 ratio screen easily, and possibly a 3:2 ratio, without affecting the external dimensions of the convertibles or the horizontal dimension of the screen. You only have to look at the Surface Pro 4 (aspect ratio 3:2) to see that this can be done. That has both a fullsize keyboard and a trackpad that is larger than on either of the Yogas.

With regard to key travel, my entirely subjective impression is that it is exactly the same on both the Yoga 900 and the Yoga 900s.

Cheers,

Geoff

[sergioosh]

I, on the other hand, think you're forgetting how thin the screen of the Yoga 3 Pro, 900 and 900S is

You cannot claim that the 'large bezel' in all those Yoga models you mentioned actually CAN be changed to a smaller one. That's an assumption. You don't know what's in there. True, neither do I, but I'm sure it's not just empty space without any pupose. Maybe it's to keep it rigid enough while keeping it very thin? In case of bottom bezel it's actually simple. It's wider because that's where the hinge is. Even Dell XPS 13 with its 'infinity display' has a very wide bezel on the bottom part. Surface does not have a hinge thus it does not need that space.

Also, for a tablet device you do need that 'dead space' for holding it in one hand. 

[nickherum]

Have either of you used the Yoga 900s for editing photos (Photoshop) or videos?

For the most part I'm going to using the 900s for going back to school purposes along with the normal day-to-day web surfing etc. but I'd like to make sure that the 8gb of RAM and the Core-M processor are up to the task of using Photoshop and the like.

Thanks for the write up guys.

[gcoupe]

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@nickherum wrote:

Have either of you used the Yoga 900s for editing photos (Photoshop) or videos?

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Sorry, I haven't. Those sort of tasks I do on my desktop PC. Haven't tried them on the Yoga 900s. I did briefly try a "heavy" application (Cubase) on the Yoga 900, but that's a Core i7 machine. No idea how it would behave on a Core M machine like the Yoga 900s. Sorry I can't be of more help.

[rockykoston]

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@gcoupe wrote:

My review of the Yoga 900s is here:

https://gcoupe.wordpress.com/2016/02/07/the-lenovo-yoga-900s-a-review/

I think we are htting on the same points in the design. tl:dr - small, but (almost) perfectly formed.

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Very nice post about the comparisons.

One thing I have to say is that I have been getting higher battery life from my yoga 900, is that just coincidence?

Online movie - 5-6 hours

Normal use - 8-10 hours