Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga (2018) - Review 2022

If you're lucky enough to take a boss who bestows you with a top-of-the-line tertiary-generation Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga (starts at $1,649; $2,739 as tested), congratulations are in order. This 14-inch 2-in-1 convertible laptop is splendid at powering through spreadsheets and other productivity tasks thanks to its Intel Core i7 processor, 1TB SSD, 16GB of memory, included active stylus, and more than. It is also the first laptop we've seen to sport a high dynamic range (HDR) display, which makes it a stunning video platform when work is over. All of this comes at an eye-watering cost, though, and HDR is nevertheless in its infancy, which means that the X1 Yoga is more of a condition symbol than other excellent business 2-in-1s similar the Editors' Option HP EliteBook x360 1030 G2.

A Archetype With a Carbon Fiber Twist

The new X1 Yoga looks almost exactly like the 2nd-generation ane it replaced, which in turn looks like pretty much every other ThinkPad. There'southward footling to mar the expanses of black that adorn every surface, save for ThinkPad and X1 logos on the outside of the brandish chapeau and a 2d ThinkPad logo below the keyboard. That the conservative black chassis has remained largely unchanged since the 1990s is likewise what helps endear it to both IT departments and the road warriors they back up.

The X1 designation, which the Yoga shares with the ThinkPad X1 Carbon, includes some understated but significant quality improvements over more run-of-the-manufactory siblings like the ThinkPad T470. The soft-touch chassis feels both luxurious and satisfyingly slim, measuring 0.67 by 13.11 by 9.02 (HWD). Information technology'southward too reinforced with carbon fiber and glass to increase durability and decrease weight. The weight savings are significant with the X1 Carbon, which weighs merely ii.49 pounds compared with the T470's three.74 pounds. That'due south not the case with thursday iii.08-pound X1 Yoga, which is laden with a 360-caste swivel and other contrasted hardware that allow you to use it as a conventional laptop, a tablet, or to prop information technology upwards on the tabular array like an easel.

Part of the boosted hardware enables a nifty and unique characteristic that automatically recesses the keyboard into the chassis when you rotate the brandish swivel past 180 degrees. Since the keys are flush with the chassis, they're far less distracting or probable to be damaged when you lot use the X1 Yoga equally a tablet. Fortunately, none of this affects the legendary ThinkPad keyboard condolement.

Outset the Evidence

While yous tin guild an X1 Yoga with a more common full HD display, our review unit is the flagship model, which includes a xiv-inch quad HD (two,560-by-1,440) HDR bear on screen. As well available equally an selection on the X1 Carbon, the screen is a first for the ThinkPad lineup, and in fact it's the first HDR laptop display we've tested, although nosotros've seen quite a few HDR monitors and televisions. HDR increases the vividity of colors by widening the gap between the darkest dark and the brightest bright the screen can display, and the results are stunning, assuming the video you want to sentry supports HDR. More specifically, it has to support the Dolby Vision variety of HDR that Lenovo uses, which is currently available on a limited just e'er-expanding amount of movies and Idiot box shows from Netflix (assuming you trounce out actress for its top-of-the-line subscription plan), Amazon Prime Video, and Vudu.

There is too a lot of HDR content uploaded to YouTube, but it's difficult to find and of varying degrees of quality, since anyone can upload information technology. I watched a few clips of nature footage in HDR that I found on YouTube, and the deviation was immediately apparent compared with watching the aforementioned footage on a full HD (1,920-past-1,080) desktop monitor. Not simply are colors more vivid, but the movie appears sharper, as well, almost as if I was watching in 4K (I wasn't, though, since the X1 Yoga's quad Hard disk screen is a few hundred pixels short of that resolution).

When you're not watching an HDR video, y'all'll still notice more than brilliant colors. To me, the increased vividity of colors within app windows comes beyond equally a color temperature that's besides warm, at least until I got used to it. You tin can edit the colour profile in the Lenovo Vantage app, where yous likewise have access to many other hardware and software settings.

Stylus Storage

Watching HDR videos isn't the just thing you can do with the X1 Yoga's amazing screen. You can also tap it with your fingers or depict on information technology using the included ThinkPad Active Pen. Unlike the active digital stylus that you tin purchase to go with Lenovo'southward consumer touch screen laptops, the ThinkPad Active Pen has a built-in rechargeable battery and fits into a slot on the bottom right edge of the X1 Yoga. It's very similar to the stylus system on the Samsung Milky way Note 8, and far meliorate than the magnetic Microsoft Surface Pen if yous similar to continue the stylus out of sight when it's not in use. Leaving the Active Pen in the slot for xv seconds will requite information technology enough juice for more than an hr and a half of use, Lenovo says.

Ports are plentiful, including two USB-C ports with Thunderbolt 3, two USB Type A ports, an audio input/output jack, an HDMI output, and a microSD card reader. 1 major port deficiency is the lack of a full-sized Ethernet connector, a must-have for business travelers attending conferences with poor Wi-Fi connectivity. The X1 Yoga does have a built in Ethernet interface, just you must buy a proprietary adapter to access it. It's an inconvenient but likely necessary design conclusion given the X1 Yoga's slim body.

Configuration Options Galore

The X1 Yoga is eminently configurable. The base model includes an Intel Core i5-8250U, a full HD display, 8GB of retentivity, and a 256GB PCIe NVMe SSD. You tin boost the memory and storage up to the maximum capacities mentioned earlier, and cull an Intel Core i7 processor. Every bit for screen options, you lot can pace up to a non-HDR bear on screen, which also adds IR sensors to the webcam so you tin log into Windows using confront recognition. Our review unit has the ultimate screen choice, which in addition to HDR comes with an increased brightness level of 500 nits instead of 270 nits. Unfortunately, it's not available with an IR-equipped webcam.

A maxed-out configuration adds more than $1,000 to the $1,649 base price. That's a steep premium if you're ownership a armada of X1 Yogas for executives at your company. If you're simply ownership i for the CEO or for yourself, it's a chip easier to stomach.

All models include 802.11ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.ii, a pair of decent-sounding single-watt speakers, and a one-yr warranty with mail-in hardware support.

Operation Where it Counts

In add-on to watching HDR movies, one other reason you might opt for such a loftier-quality display is if you need to squint at rows and rows of data in a spreadsheet. When it comes time to crunch those numbers, the powerful processor and copious retention in the X1 Yoga will make short work of it. On our processor-intensive benchmark tests like encoding video and rendering 3D images, the X1 Yoga was nearly twice as quick as last twelvemonth's model and its competitors from HP (the EliteBook x360 1030 G2) and Dell (the Latitude 7389 2-in-1), each of which apply an older sixth-generation Intel Cadre i7-7600U processor. The X1 Yoga took 1:09 to render a video and achieved a score of 616 on the Cinebench R15 3D simulation, compared with 2:08 and 326, respectively, for its predecessor.

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga Performance Chart

On everyday computing tasks like web browsing, word processing, video conferencing, and the like, the new X1 Yoga is not much faster than final twelvemonth's model or the contest. Information technology achieved a score of iii,293 on the PCMark 8 benchmark, which measures such tasks. All of the other systems were within a hundred points or and so, and annihilation above three,000 on this test represents excellent performance.

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga Graphics Performance Chart

All of the systems come up with an integrated graphics chip, which means that none fared well on the Heaven and Valley benchmarks, our video game graphics tests that simulate GPU-intensive gaming. Thirty frames per 2d (fps) is the minimum here for smoothen gameplay, and the X1 Yoga barely achieved that with medium quality settings. At full HD resolution and ultra quality, it recorded just 6fps on the Heaven test and 7fps on the Valley exam.

Related Story Run into How Nosotros Examination Laptops

At just less than ten hours on our rundown exam, bombardment life is good, specially considering the demanding HDR display and powerful processor. The HP EliteBook 1030 G2 lasted far longer at 14 hours, but information technology has a less-bright full Hard disk display. Ane matter to note about the X1 Yoga: It charges quite fast. The battery went from less than 5 percent capacity to fully charged in a little more than 1 hour in my testing.

Cutting-Border, but a Worthy Splurge?

The X1 Yoga is a cut-edge 2-in-1 stuffed into a tried-and-truthful only very premium chassis. If you must accept a laptop with an HDR screen, it'southward worth the considerable expense. If not, in that location are other high-end business organization two-in-1s with similar computing performance, better battery life, and cheaper prices that you should consider instead, including the HP EliteBook x360 1030 G2.