Review: Lenovo's Impressive 2-In-1 Yoga 900

A Standout 2-in-1

There is a trend in business-class laptops where notebook makers are blurring the lines between consumer and work PCs. And nowhere is that line blurred more than with Lenovo's ultra-sleek 2-in-1 laptop.

With this 13-inch PC, Lenovo shows why it's a 2-in-1 king of the hill.

Specs for our review unit include Intel's latest SkyLake i7 processor, 512 GB SSD storage, a 13.3-inch LED display, full-size backlit keyboard and 16 GB of RAM. But specs aside, the standout feature of this Lenovo laptop is its ultra-svelte design, its slim watchband-style hinge and the silver unibody chassis. The Lenovo Yoga 900 weighs in at 2.8 pounds and has a starting price of $1,200 for the i7 model.

Display

A big part of the Yoga 900's wow factor is its gorgeous 3,200 x 1,800 touch-screen display. This 13-3-inch display, that is just shy of being 4K, matches Apple's Retina technology as well as Microsoft's PixelSense high-resolution screen.

The Yoga's 900 screen is clear and bright and colors are vivid. The only issue we found is a glossy coating that tends to catch a lot of reflected light and attract a lot of fingerprints.

An advanced display feature called "paper display" optimizes the screen for reading long stretches of text and PDFs. Lenovo uses the laptop's webcam to "detect ambient light conditions" and adjust the brightness and color temperature for optimal reading. Our verdict after playing around with the feature was that we were less than impressed with the yellowish tint. The good news: Just hit "Fn+ESC" to turn it off.

Watchband Hinge

Another standout feature that illustrates Lenovo's leadership in the 2-in-1 space is this laptop's watchband hinge. The hinge is stiff enough to stay in place when tapping on the screen and doesn't wobble when typing on your lap. And unlike competing 2-in-1 laptops CRN has tested, the Lenovo 900 folds all the way back to where the keyboard aligns nicely with the display. In fact, it's Lenovo's excellent hinge that really allows this notebook to be a full-time laptop and a part-time tablet. Unlike other 2-in-1s, the Yoga 900 really does transform into great tablet for watching Netflix, reading or just casual surfing.

Keyboard

There is some room for improvement with Lenovo's keyboard. We like the backlit keyboard that is covered in a soft-touch material. The keyboard is also sunken slightly into the base chassis with keys skimming above a lip for easy touch typing. Now, fold the notebook into tablet mode and the keys sink slightly lower into the laptop. This allows the Yoga 900 to sit flat on a desk without keys scraping the surface of a desk or accidentally having a key pressed while in reverse laptop mode.

One dig we had, however, was Lenovo's smallish Shift key sometimes tripped us up when typing. That went double for the Backspace key. Several times we lost our typing rhythm searching for the right key.

Performance

The Yoga 900 is noticeably faster than last year's Yoga 3 Pro powered by Intel's slower Core M processor. In CRN's benchmark testing, the 2.5GHZ Intel Core i7-6500U CPU matched similar benchmark scores of Apple's 13-inch MacBook Pro and Microsoft's new Surface Book running Intel's Core i5 CPU. Lenovo's use of the i7 system shined during common multitasking tests and when it came to power conservation. The Yoga 900 lasted just over 9 hours in our battery test playing looping videos. That was better than Lenovo's own rating of 9 hours flat.

Taking The 2-in-1 To The Next Level

This latest Lenovo Yoga hybrid is a giant leap forward compared with earlier incarnations of the Yoga 2-in-1 family.

Lenovo ups the 2-in-1 ante by adding a better CPU, longer battery life and improved keyboard and trackpad. With the Yoga 900, Lenovo delivers a perfect balance of style, function, versatility and thoughtful design.

The Lenovo Yoga 900 is available now.