My girlfriend loves my new Yoga 2 Pro, but the computer she's been ogling is its smaller cousin, the Yoga 2 11 ($499 at Best Buy). Unlike the 13" Yoga 2 Pro, it comes equipped with the following:

11.6" IPS screen with1366x768 resolution

4GB RAM

Intel Pentium N3520 Processor (Bay Trail) 

500GB HDD

It looks great on paper, but I'm worried about that Bay Trail processor. I am pretty happy to see that it comes with full Windows 8 though. She doesn't play any intense games or anything (she could use my Y2P if she ever wanted to try out Guild Wars 2 or something). She currently uses her 6 year old Toshiba Satellite to:

Email

Freelance Writing

Minor image editing (for small projects here and there, I think she's used Photoshop Elements or something)

YouTube/Netflix

Not worried about the resolution. I'm not sure that the HDD is swappable, though she is nervous about an SSD after my old Macbook Pro went bad (it really wasn't the SSD's fault). I'm just worried that she'll get very frustrated with the Pentium Processor if it starts chugging. Do you think she'll find it slow? Or should it be well equipped for Windows 8 and the kinds of things she wants to do?

---

wrote:

 

My girlfriend loves my new Yoga 2 Pro, but the computer she's been ogling is its smaller cousin, the Yoga 2 11 ($499 at Best Buy). Unlike the 13" Yoga 2 Pro, it comes equipped with the following:

 

11.6" IPS screen with1366x768 resolution

4GB RAM

Intel Pentium N3520 Processor (Bay Trail) 

500GB HDD

 

It looks great on paper, but I'm worried about that Bay Trail processor. I am pretty happy to see that it comes with full Windows 8 though. She doesn't play any intense games or anything (she could use my Y2P if she ever wanted to try out Guild Wars 2 or something). She currently uses her 6 year old Toshiba Satellite to:

 

Email

Freelance Writing

Minor image editing (for small projects here and there, I think she's used Photoshop Elements or something)

YouTube/Netflix

 

Not worried about the resolution. I'm not sure that the HDD is swappable, though she is nervous about an SSD after my old Macbook Pro went bad (it really wasn't the SSD's fault). I'm just worried that she'll get very frustrated with the Pentium Processor if it starts chugging. Do you think she'll find it slow? Or should it be well equipped for Windows 8 and the kinds of things she wants to do?

---

Bay Trail processors are suppose to be pretty decent, and much better than offerings of the past. Still it defiantly won't have the power or snappy feel of a i5 or i7.

Doesn't sound like she is doing anything that would cause her major issues, except for maybe photo editing depending on how minor it is. Still it will be slower at it regardless.

You could always look at the 11S with the i5 Haswell processor. It seems to come with a much smaller SSD instead. It is about $300 more also.

I'll take an SSD (even if I hae to upgrade to a bigger one) over an HDD every time. I love how my Y2P boots in 7.

I love how snappy my Y2P is as well, but we have to keep costs into account. She's not making much money right now, so I was going to chip in a little for her, so unfortunately the $800 version isn't an option.

She basically just wants a small, cool, lightweight computer that she can write on, take with her, and watch video on. It has really good reviews on Best Buy but I know she can be a bit impatient at times with computers. 

Have you considered looking at what's available in the Lenovo Outlet ?

Here's one example, Y11s Haswell: http://outlet.lenovo.com/outlet_us/itemdetails/59RF0542/445

Listed as a refurb. My experience with refurbs from the outlet is that I couldn't tell them from 'new'. YMCV.

Happy Hunting!

---

wrote:

I love how snappy my Y2P is as well, but we have to keep costs into account. She's not making much money right now, so I was going to chip in a little for her, so unfortunately the $800 version isn't an option.

 

She basically just wants a small, cool, lightweight computer that she can write on, take with her, and watch video on. It has really good reviews on Best Buy but I know she can be a bit impatient at times with computers. 

---

I hear ya. The Bay Trail should be enough to do what she need from the sound of it. I would have a hard time dealing with the lessor perfaomance now that both my main PCs have good specs and running SSDs.

As the poster above mention the outlet is a good option for saving a few bucks. If I could afford it I would grab one of those, something in the forfactor of the 11S is very arttractive to me.

Either way it should be nice compaired to what she is using now.

Good Luck....