Review: Lenovo's Second-Gen ThinkPad X1 Yoga Is A Smooth Operator

Imagine a laptop where everything just works. Maybe it's not the snazziest-looking laptop on the planet, but it has the attributes that matter for getting a lot done. Lenovo's second-gen ThinkPad X1 Yoga could very well be that laptop.

After putting the 2-in-1 laptop to the test during a recent conference over several days, the X1 Yoga did everything asked of it. Solid battery life, a terrific touchpad and keyboard, and plenty of giddy up in terms of processing power.

Overall, Lenovo's X1 Yoga provides a very smooth experience.

[Related: Review: Lenovo's New ThinkPad X1 Carbon Is A Highly Portable Workhorse]

Perhaps because of wanting to adhere to the ThinkPad brand – and keeping the laptop highly durable – the X1 Yoga may be too understated; it looks like many of Lenovo's other ThinkPads. It's not a machine that will turn many heads, though a few onlookers might be surprised by the convertibility features and touchscreen.

In a work laptop, we're first and foremost looking for everything to work together intuitively, quickly and with a long-lasting battery. We rarely had to charge up even while using the laptop intensively during our long conference days.

The design may be an important deciding factor when weighing the new X1 Yoga against other work-friendly, 2-in-1 laptops out there, such as HP's EliteBook x360 and Spectre x360. Both of these contenders are more appealing and stylish.

Lenovo certainly does have Yoga options that are sexier, such as the Yoga 910, though our review found some issues on that laptop such as keyboard weirdness and a loud fan.

The X1 Yoga is certainly competitive with other business laptops when it comes to key areas such as versatility. It features two USB-C ports that support Thunderbolt 3, three USB-A ports, HDMI, microSD and microSIM. That gives the business user a wide variety of monitors and peripherals that can be easily used with no complicated conversion cables.

Our try out model didn't feature the optional OLED display, so the 14-inch screen wasn't quite as pretty as it could be, but still sharp and bright enough for our purposes.

The touchscreen and hinge combo were up to the usual Yoga standard of easy convertibility between different modes – no issues there.

The X1 Yoga isn't quite as portable as some of the 2-in-1s that are hitting the market, at more than 3 pounds for the non-OLED model and 0.69 of an inch thick, but that doesn't strike us as a deal-breaker.

In our view, the biggest feature worth singing the praises of on the X1 Yoga is the touchpad, which is basically perfect; it was intuitive, smooth, no latency to be found. That's even the case with multi-finger gestures such as two-finger scrolling, which are often problematic for other Windows touchpads.

The second-gen ThinkPad X1 Yoga is relatively high on price for a laptop that's as plain-looking as this – it starts at nearly $1,700 – but we still consider it a top performer, capable of providing an all-around stellar experience.