If any brand made convertible laptops popular, it is Lenovo’s ThinkPad Yoga. ThinkPad was a name known only for workstations, but after Yoga series, now it is a trusted brand for business and entertainment laptop as well. Honestly, who doesn’t love a laptop with a 360 degree hinge?
You can use it as a laptop, tablet or even a touch display! Beside the flexibility and portability, the Yoga 14 sports a colorful 14 inch 1080p screen, a 4th Gen Core i5 processor and a powerful NVIDIA GPU with 2GB of dedicated video memory. It has everything you expect from a premium laptop, and all that just inside a 4.2 pound package.
Anyway, if you are into the convertible laptop, the Yoga 14 surely is the best choice. You can get it for $999 from Amazon. However, before makeup your mind and buying it, I suggest you to read our review on the laptop and see, if the Yoga 14 fits your requirements.
Pros
- Flexibility
- Full HD touch display
- Durable build
- Powerful GPU
- Decent performance
- Comfortable
- Good Keyboard and touchpad
Cons
- Low battery life
- Unstylish outlook
- Inadequate price/performance ratio
- No SSD
Specifications
- Brand: Lenovo
- Series: ThinkPad
- Model: Yoga 14
- Processor: Intel Core i5 4210 1.7 GHz
- Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GT 840M
- Memory: 8GB 1600MHz DDR3L SDRAM
- SSD: none
- HDD: 1TB SATA
- Optical Drive: none
- Display Type: IPS Touchscreen with LED Backlit
- Screen Size: 14 inch
- Screen Resolution: 1920×1080 (16:9)
- Audio: 2x bottom-facing speakers
- Keyboard: Chiclet style keyboard with backlit
- Navigation: 3.9 x 2.8 inch touchpad
- Webcam: 720p Webcam
- Video Ports: HDMI port
- Audio Ports: Combo headphone/microphone jack
- USB: 2x USB 3.0 and 1x USB 2.0
- Media Ports: 4 in 1 Card reader
- Wi-Fi: Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 7260
- Network: none
- Bluetooth: 4.0
- Ethernet: none
- Width: 13.3 inch / 33.8 cm
- Depth: 9.4 inch / 23.9 cm
- Height: 0.8 inch / 2.0 cm
- Weight: 4.2 pounds / 1.9 kg
- Battery: 4 cell 56 WHr Lithium-polymer battery
- Battery Life: 7 Hours
- Operating System: 64 bit Windows 8.1
- Warranty: 1 year Limited
- Base Price: $999 on Amazon
Build and Design
The design of the ThinkPad Yoga 14 is the perfect mixture of Lenovo’s simple design, ThinkPad’s durable workstation builds, and of course Yoga’s convertible flexibility. The top lid is made of solid magnesium alloy, while the rest of the laptop is covered in a curved plastic frame. They also kept the Yoga’s trademark design. The whole surface of the laptop is matte dark gray, while there are two thin red stripes at the top of the touchpad.
Like all other Yoga laptops, the ThinkPad 14 sport a 360 degree hinge, which will allow you to use it as a laptop, as a tablet by folding it and just the display in the tent and stand mode. There is a Lift n Lock technology, it will automatically turn the keyboard off while in stand or tent mode. It’s very useful as you won’t have to worry about accidental keystrokes, when using Yoga 14 as a tablet. There is rubber footing on the front edge to keep the edges safe while using the laptop in tent mode.
Anyway, with the thickness of only 0.8 inches, Yoga 14 is thin enough for an Ultrabook. However, the 4.2 pound weight is kind of high for its class.
Keyboard
The Yoga 14 has an AccuType chiclet style keyboard. It’s really comfortable and provides good feedback. They function keys can also be used as multimedia shortcut keys. You can adjust volume, brightness and open various applications with them. The keys are very sharp and edgy. You will be able to type really fast without any problem.
The palm rest is not that big, but it is sufficient enough for resting your wrist while using the keyboard. There is also a soft Lenovo’s trademark red pointing stick just between the G and H keys.
Touchpad
The touchpad is smooth and quite large (3.9 x 2.8 inch). The responsiveness and feedback of the touchpad are fast. When I tested, I was able to perform all windows 8.1 gestures easily.
Connectivity
The ThinkPad Yoga 14 has sufficient amount of connectivity ports. You will be able to get almost all work done without using converters.
On the left side, there is a power input, a USB 2.0 port, a 3.5 mm combo headphone/microphone jack and a 4-in-1 card reader.
While the right side has the power button, volume rocker, Keylock button, an HDMI port and two USB 3.0 ports.
There are no connectivity ports on the front or rear side of the laptop.
Display
The Yoga 14 has a glossy 14 inch IPS touchscreen. The screen is bright, vivid and colorful. The display resolution is 1920×1080. Thanks to the IPS panel, the viewing angle of the screen is really amazing.
The average brightness of the display is 290 nits, which is decent enough for outdoor use. The contrast ratio 700:1 and black level 0.44 is also quite good. I watched 1080p videos from YouTube and it was really sharp and vivid. However, the glass protector on the screen and the bezel is a kind of glossy, which you may find annoying, when you are using the laptop outdoor.
Audio
The speakers of the Yoga 14 are bottom facing and loud enough for a small party. The Dolby home theater software enhancement is also quite helpful. However, the sound of the internal speakers is not really much clear. Moreover, these speakers don’t provide good bass and small details of the music. So, if you are planning to watch movies or enjoy music, you should get a good headphone or external speakers.
Performance
The ThinkPad Yoga 14 is fitted with a 4th generation Intel Core i5 4210U processor, 8 GB of memory, 1 TB of HDD and NVIDIA GeForce GT 840M GPU with 2 GB of dedicated video memory.
As I see, the combination of hardware is nearly perfect. The 4 th Gen Haswell processors are known for their cool and quiet performance, and ultra low power demand. The 8 GB DDR3L memory is sufficient enough for a business laptop. 1 terabyte of storage is decent. And honestly, the NVIDIA 840M GPU is kind of overkill. It’s a business laptop, not a gaming machine! But well, if you do heavy graphic works or want to play games; the dedicated GPU will help you with that. However, the laptop doesn’t have an SSD, which is a really a bad thing for a $999 laptop.
Heat and Noise
Yoga 14 stays cool under normal pressure and you will be able to use it on your lap easily. After using the laptop for around 1 hour, the temperature of the bottom of the laptop was 32 degree Celsius, which is almost same as room temperature. The keyboard and palm rest stays even cooler.
As for noise, the system fan stays quiet, almost all the time. However, the fan won’t ever stop while the laptop is on. But if you play games for a long time the fan will start making little noises (around 34 decibels).
Battery Life
The Yoga 14 comes with a non removable 4 cell 56 WHr battery. As I tested by browsing the internet and watching videos, I was able to get roughly 6 hours from it. For a laptop with dedicated GPU the battery life is decent. However, as an Ultrabook, 6 hours of battery life is not even nearly enough.
Customization
Sadly, you will have to buy the Yoga 14 as it is. There is no way to customize this laptop.
Wrap Up
Though the Yoga 14 is not the best Ultrabook of the market and the specs are not rich enough to replace the work system, it is not a bad laptop for business and office use. To be honest, rest specs aside, multi mode hinge alone is a good reason to buy this laptop. Anyway, if you think, you can manage with the 4.2 pound weight and 6 hours of battery life, the Yoga 14 surely is an excellent choice for you. With the IPS touchscreen, i5 processor and dedicated graphics, the ThinkPad Yoga 14 is worth the money.
