Lenovo's Yoga 3 Pro: A Hybrid Ultrabook with a Watchband Hinge

The Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro is a hybrid ultrabook that features a watchband hinge, which allows it to transform from a laptop to a tablet. While it may not be the most conventional design, this feature makes the Yoga 3 Pro an ideal choice for those who need a device that can adapt to different usage scenarios.

The keyboard area of the Yoga 3 Pro is nicely laid out with comfortably shaped contoured key caps that are backlit as well. Key travel is a bit shallow, which isn't surprising given how thin this machine is at just half an inch thick at its thickest point. However, it's not quite up to Lenovo keyboard standards, which are arguably some of the best keyboards in the notebook business. With a bit of learning curve, however, users can become comfortable and proficient with this typing deck.

The touchpad area on the Yoga 3 Pro is large and features multi-gesture control. The flat black dimpled finish wrist rest area on the right side provides comfort during extended use. Lenovo has relocated the power button to the bottom row closest to your reach, making it easily accessible. Other ports include the OneTouch recovery Novo button, display rotation lock button, volume control 2-in-1 audio jack, and a USB 3 port with always-on charging on the left side. The dcn combo USB 2 port allows users to plug in the Yoga 3's charger for use or use it for data via its USB 2 interface.

The machine is also stealthy quiet, despite having no visible vents. Instead, there are a couple of speaker ports at the bottom that provide reasonable but flat and uninspiring audio output. However, this is a common trait among ultra-white notebook speakers. The real standout feature of the Yoga 3 Pro is its high-resolution 3200x1800 IPS display. Some have poked at its color gamut capability specified at 72%, but we found it to offer good accuracy, brightness, saturation, and contrast. The viewing angles specified at 170° are also excellent.

The device's display resolution allows for a ton of pixels to work with, resulting in crisp and tight images and text. However, the occasional Windows scaling issue is still present, which isn't Lenovo's fault. In terms of brightness, the Yoga 3 Pro gets the job done, but it could offer more at 300 nits. Nevertheless, it's noticeably brighter than some ultra-books, including Lenovo's own ThinkPad X1 Carbon.

When it comes to performance, the Yoga 3 Pro falls right in the middle of the pack of competitive Ultrabooks based on Intel's previous generation core i5 UL series processor. It excels in graphics and gaming tests like 3D Mark Cloudgate and Far Cry 2, but struggles with standard benchmarks like SunSpider and PC Mark 8 Lame. This performance is closer to that of a high-end ultrabook rather than a tablet.

However, the Yoga 3 Pro's battery life is excellent, scoring one of the best times we've seen from an Ultrabook in either standard web browsing tests or when firing up our worst-cased battery eater Pro test as configured. The machine retails for around $1,299, which is a decent value considering its high-resolution 3200x1800 touch IPS display, Core M processor, and advantages offered by the watchband hinge compared to similarly configured MacBook Air 13.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhi there it's Dave altavilla for H hardware.com here with a quick look at lenovo's Yoga 3 Pro hybrid Ultrabook this super thin and light 13-inch notebook by Lenovo weighs just 2.6 lbs and it's actually thinner and lighter than a 13-in MacBook Air it's also based on Intel's allnew Broadwell core M 14 NM low power processor architecture for cool and quiet performance and great battery life also on board our eval unit was 8 gig of DDR3 1600 RAM memory a 256 gig SSD 80211 AC Wi-Fi Bluetooth 4 two USB 3 ports a 401 flash card reader Windows 8.1 a three cell 44w hour battery and last but not least a super high resolution 3200x 1800 IPS LCD touch display but the real hook with the Yoga 3 Pro however is its signature watch band hinge this this hinge design is actually pretty Innovative and makes for a very strong mechanism while allowing the machine to bend and contort into various positions like tent mode stand mode and tablet mode in addition to traditional notebook positions as well of course Lenovo also builds in custom software for The Yoga 3 Pro called Harmony settings to help control your inner Chi apparently and also add a few functional assists like deactivating the keyboard when in tablet or stand mode or activating motion gesture control features as well in usage positions that can benefit from them if only we could have had the windows logo on the front of the machine function as a return to start menu button like it does on many tablet devices tablet mode would have been even more useful though frankly as it is the Yoga 3 Pro does make for a bit of an unwieldly tablet it's definitely still a nice useful feature Edition but for cash ual use or if you fire up a Bonafide drawing app that can make use of it in tablet position the keyboard area of the yoga 3 Pro is nicely laid out with comfortably shaped contoured key caps that are backlit as well key travel is a bit shallow which isn't surprising giving how thin this machine is at just half an inch thick at its thickest Point still it's not quite up to Lenovo keyboard standards which are arguably some of the best keyboards in the notebook business regardless with a bit of learning curve be up to speed fairly easily on this typing deck in no time there's also a large touchpad area with multi- gesture control and a very comfortable flat black dimpled finish wrist rest area on the right side Lenovo has relocated the power button and though it sure is Tiny it does work quite well at the bottom of the row closest to your reach from there working up you'll find the OneTouch recovery Novo button the display rotation lock button volume control 2in1 audio jack and a USB 3 port with always on charging ing on the left side is the dcn combo USB 2 Port which also allows you to either plug in the yoga 3's charger for use or use it for data via its usb2 interface and there's also a micro HDMI port and yes an SD card reader not surprisingly since the Yoga 3 Pro is powered by Intel's 4 and half watt Broadwell y variant of the core M series The Machine is also stealthy quiet though there are no visible vents rather just a couple of speaker ports in the bottom there is a fan that does spin up very quietly under load incidentally output from the speaker system is reasonably loud but a bit flat and uninspiring as are most ultra white notebook speaker systems oh certainly another standout feature for The Yoga 3 Pro is its very high resolution 3200x 1800 IPS display though some have poked at its color gamut capability specified at 72% we found it to offer good accuracy brightness saturation and contrast in addition viewing angles specified at 170° are excellent as well and of course at its 3200 by 1800 native resolution you get a ton of pixels to work with and save for the occasional Windows scaling issue which certainly isn't lenovo's fault images and text and multimedia content look super crispy and tight finally though it could offer a bit more brightness at 300 nits it gets the job done and it's still noticeably brighter than some Ultra books including lenovo's own ThinkPad X1 Carbon but perhaps what's more interesting to some of you is how did The Yoga 3 Pro handle in our battery of benchmarks with its new Intel corm processor well in our battery of benchmarks tests it fell right in the middle of the pack of competitive Ultrabooks based on Intel's previous generation core i5 UL series processor in a few standard benchmarks like SunSpider and PC Mark 8 lame and coding The Yoga 3 Pro actually scored in the top quadrant of our test group besting some of those previous generation Ultrabooks in graphics and gaming tests like the 3D Mark cloudgate and Far Cry 2 the machine fell to the lower quadrant of our test group however when this hybrid device is compared to premium tablets like the iPad air2 or Samsung Galaxy Tab Pro with respect to graphics performance it's significant more powerful as we saw in our 3D Mark ice storm testing and so for this sort of tweener product of sorts The Yoga 3 Pro's performance is much closer to that of a high-end Ultrabook rather than a tablet battery life on the other hand with Yoga 3 Pro is excellent and the Machine scored one of the best times we've seen from an Ultrabook in either standard web browsing tests or when we fired up our worst cased battery eater Pro test as configured The Yoga 3 Pro we have here retails for an MSRP of around $12.99 which is a decent value when you consider its high resolution 3200x 1800 touch IPS display corm processor and all of the advantages its watchband hinge affords compared to the likes of a similarly configured MacBook Air 13 The Yoga 3 Pro is an even better buy we think with the aformentioned advantages make sure you stop by hob.com for our full review with all the benchmarks however and be sure to thumb up this video if you liked it and subscribe to us here for additional reviews event cover and of course our 2 and a half Geeks webcast I'm Dave altavilla for H hardware.com and this is lenovo's Yoga 3 Pro hyper flexible Ultrabook thanks for stopping byhi there it's Dave altavilla for H hardware.com here with a quick look at lenovo's Yoga 3 Pro hybrid Ultrabook this super thin and light 13-inch notebook by Lenovo weighs just 2.6 lbs and it's actually thinner and lighter than a 13-in MacBook Air it's also based on Intel's allnew Broadwell core M 14 NM low power processor architecture for cool and quiet performance and great battery life also on board our eval unit was 8 gig of DDR3 1600 RAM memory a 256 gig SSD 80211 AC Wi-Fi Bluetooth 4 two USB 3 ports a 401 flash card reader Windows 8.1 a three cell 44w hour battery and last but not least a super high resolution 3200x 1800 IPS LCD touch display but the real hook with the Yoga 3 Pro however is its signature watch band hinge this this hinge design is actually pretty Innovative and makes for a very strong mechanism while allowing the machine to bend and contort into various positions like tent mode stand mode and tablet mode in addition to traditional notebook positions as well of course Lenovo also builds in custom software for The Yoga 3 Pro called Harmony settings to help control your inner Chi apparently and also add a few functional assists like deactivating the keyboard when in tablet or stand mode or activating motion gesture control features as well in usage positions that can benefit from them if only we could have had the windows logo on the front of the machine function as a return to start menu button like it does on many tablet devices tablet mode would have been even more useful though frankly as it is the Yoga 3 Pro does make for a bit of an unwieldly tablet it's definitely still a nice useful feature Edition but for cash ual use or if you fire up a Bonafide drawing app that can make use of it in tablet position the keyboard area of the yoga 3 Pro is nicely laid out with comfortably shaped contoured key caps that are backlit as well key travel is a bit shallow which isn't surprising giving how thin this machine is at just half an inch thick at its thickest Point still it's not quite up to Lenovo keyboard standards which are arguably some of the best keyboards in the notebook business regardless with a bit of learning curve be up to speed fairly easily on this typing deck in no time there's also a large touchpad area with multi- gesture control and a very comfortable flat black dimpled finish wrist rest area on the right side Lenovo has relocated the power button and though it sure is Tiny it does work quite well at the bottom of the row closest to your reach from there working up you'll find the OneTouch recovery Novo button the display rotation lock button volume control 2in1 audio jack and a USB 3 port with always on charging ing on the left side is the dcn combo USB 2 Port which also allows you to either plug in the yoga 3's charger for use or use it for data via its usb2 interface and there's also a micro HDMI port and yes an SD card reader not surprisingly since the Yoga 3 Pro is powered by Intel's 4 and half watt Broadwell y variant of the core M series The Machine is also stealthy quiet though there are no visible vents rather just a couple of speaker ports in the bottom there is a fan that does spin up very quietly under load incidentally output from the speaker system is reasonably loud but a bit flat and uninspiring as are most ultra white notebook speaker systems oh certainly another standout feature for The Yoga 3 Pro is its very high resolution 3200x 1800 IPS display though some have poked at its color gamut capability specified at 72% we found it to offer good accuracy brightness saturation and contrast in addition viewing angles specified at 170° are excellent as well and of course at its 3200 by 1800 native resolution you get a ton of pixels to work with and save for the occasional Windows scaling issue which certainly isn't lenovo's fault images and text and multimedia content look super crispy and tight finally though it could offer a bit more brightness at 300 nits it gets the job done and it's still noticeably brighter than some Ultra books including lenovo's own ThinkPad X1 Carbon but perhaps what's more interesting to some of you is how did The Yoga 3 Pro handle in our battery of benchmarks with its new Intel corm processor well in our battery of benchmarks tests it fell right in the middle of the pack of competitive Ultrabooks based on Intel's previous generation core i5 UL series processor in a few standard benchmarks like SunSpider and PC Mark 8 lame and coding The Yoga 3 Pro actually scored in the top quadrant of our test group besting some of those previous generation Ultrabooks in graphics and gaming tests like the 3D Mark cloudgate and Far Cry 2 the machine fell to the lower quadrant of our test group however when this hybrid device is compared to premium tablets like the iPad air2 or Samsung Galaxy Tab Pro with respect to graphics performance it's significant more powerful as we saw in our 3D Mark ice storm testing and so for this sort of tweener product of sorts The Yoga 3 Pro's performance is much closer to that of a high-end Ultrabook rather than a tablet battery life on the other hand with Yoga 3 Pro is excellent and the Machine scored one of the best times we've seen from an Ultrabook in either standard web browsing tests or when we fired up our worst cased battery eater Pro test as configured The Yoga 3 Pro we have here retails for an MSRP of around $12.99 which is a decent value when you consider its high resolution 3200x 1800 touch IPS display corm processor and all of the advantages its watchband hinge affords compared to the likes of a similarly configured MacBook Air 13 The Yoga 3 Pro is an even better buy we think with the aformentioned advantages make sure you stop by hob.com for our full review with all the benchmarks however and be sure to thumb up this video if you liked it and subscribe to us here for additional reviews event cover and of course our 2 and a half Geeks webcast I'm Dave altavilla for H hardware.com and this is lenovo's Yoga 3 Pro hyper flexible Ultrabook thanks for stopping by\n"