the yoga line is nice and the yoga 3 pro could be one killer machine, but when i have to press key combos for simple things as adjusting brightness, or to skip a track this would be just a big step back in usability for me.
like the author, i'm also not a fan of the rgbw-display, especially when sharp makes a display of the same resolution which is just so much nicer.
and the third point would be the middling battery life. i would give up the 1800p screen in a heartbeat if it meant i could get the same battery life as the 1080p xps 13.
i'm still not the biggest fan of core m, even with a little fan helping out.
i guess for me that means the time isn't quite here yet for the super-slim 12mm for factor and in this generation and probably the next i'd still be more inclined to go with a 15-17mm thick device, simply to have something a bit more future proof in the cpu and especially gpu department.
if more manufacturers could now offer 16:10, or even 15:10 screens on their future devices, that would be much appreciated.
someone in lenovo has obviously gotten hold of some kind of focus group testing or user survey that says most 'normals' don't use the F keys, and gone ahead and loaded the shotgun (pointed at their feet). Observe the X1 carbon (though maybe the latest variant went back to the F keys?), yep thinkpad users don't use F keys... not..... My company recently got a laptop refresh where we were given the choice of T440s or X1s. The first wave of people went X1s en masse and there was a seriously high return rate after people realised how much of a PITA the new, no-F-key layout was.
It seems the new paradigm to remove stuff and reduce user convenience, samsung did it with their new phones, apple did it with their new single-port laptop, and you see more and more devices being released with pointlessly reduced functionality.
But as for 'pro', I'm not sure any 'pro' would get lenovo after the spy-ware fiasco. I know lenovo is not an option for me after that.
Fair point, but seeing we hear more and more about things embedded in firmware and BIOS I'm not sure I'd trust it either way. Especially the BIOS would only require a cooperation of lenovo to 'enhance' their system.
It's the nature of the nastiness they were exposed as bundling, it was too complex and devious to brush off. In my opinion at least. And it ruined any trust I have.
I don't mind the function keys as much as having keys in the wrong place. For instance the right shift key should be directly below the enter key and the forward slash / should be below the '. things like that kill typing speed.
Odd view, the shift key isn't too bad if you type with ten fingers since it is where it suppose to be except the right part missing, and people can probably adapt to that. As for the forward slash, that is always below the middle between ; and ' on standard keyboards, check wikipedia to see. And it's actually the ctrl key which isn't where you expect it.
Core M seems to be a mixed bag. Great if you want short bursts of activity but fails when you demand any longer activity, especially a GPU one. Fine for netbooks, but spending 1k+ to get a tablet class of performance seems pointless to me. XPS 13 has better performance and normalized battery life. What is wrong with Yoga?
The performance of the core M 5Y71 parts is leavig me feeling a little bit better for a potential core m SP4. Still, this was with a fan - fanless performance is sure to be worse, and if you have a fan you might as well use the full voltage part!
But in any case, I really hope that Windows 10 and Core M skylake can coincide. A skylake Surface Pro 4 in a fanless design could seriously be amazing without sacrificing performance compared to Haswell-U.
The funny thing is that it's pretty much always about the cooling. A 5W TDP part works in a 5W TDP case, but it would be helpful to know what the maximum TDP is for turbo workloads. If the SP4 still has a fan and it could push 15 W out, you'd probably get the full performance without throttling.
I've never really understood Core M and its value proposition. Maybe current applications aren't optimal. Since ^this ultrabook has a fan, I just can't seem to understand why they didn't wait it out a bit and went with a cheaper Broadwell U that races to sleep much faster. In that aspect, Dell got it right with their XPS 13. No one talks about how thin this device is, especially that it's thinner than Apple's new MacBook. I can't even justify the price to performance ratio even for a fanless Windows x86 tablet. Microsoft should stick with Broadwell U for the SP4 to maintain a performance upgrade at the least.
I don't know, Core M probably only has value for those who want an expensive, fanless machine, and this only works for Apple most of the time.
How do you get that it's thinner than new Macbook? MacBook tapers from 13.2mm to 3.6mm. This is a flat 1.28mm. On "average" MacBook is thinner, and visually it looks far thinner.
The Yoga is over half a pound heavier. You also fail to understand how triangles work. The Yoga is 1.28cm more or less across the whole laptop. The MacBook is 0.35 to 1.31cm. If we assume the delta is defined by a triangle then it will be 0.48 in average height if they could flatten it's volume, or a total height of 0.83cm, again, if they could squeeze the whole design into a rectangle. And if Apple updates the MacBook Pro, next year, with similar technology it will likely be a straight 1.31cm across.
There is a sign on the door that says to leave all Jr. Math Awards with the attendant before entering Anandtech. Obviously you didn't see that... hmmmm... what to do, what to do.
I don't know, performance is one thing, but if all you are doing is Office work, maybe some web surfing and casual games, Core M's proposition is ideal.
The Asus UX305 (which I hope Anandtech reviews next) is using the Core M, and for the most part, it works as a ultrabook with no added sound profile to it. And its pretty cheap too.
Yah, I'd wait for Skylake Core M to buy any device with it. Skylake apparently improves IPC, battery life, and comes with a completely overhauled GPU architecture. Right now Core M seems a bit underpowered for the devices carrying it.
Short bursts of activity are actually what you do with computer most of the time. Open document -> burst of activity. Open website -> burst. Swap application -> burst. Then reading, scrolling, editing is basically idle time for CPU waiting for user input.
I am convinced 90%+ people in my company would be better served by Core-M system, rather than Broadwell-U, simply because they will hardly ever utilise the sustained Broadwell-U performance, but improved portability will make their life easier while travelling.
Sure, there are types of tasks that need sustained performance, but then ultrabook is probably not a good answer either.
Frankly, I was curious about feasibility of Core M until Apple introduced MacBook. As much as I dislike Apple, they never choose anything but top notch components. Core M however requires good passive cooling through chasis.
Nevertheless, I was also disappointed with battery performance vs all but Yoga 2. I wonder why, could it be display?
> I am convinced 90%+ people in my company would be better served by Core-M system, rather > than Broadwell-U
Probably. The performance deficit of Core M gets exaggerated IMO. And that despite the well-established fact that the majority of use cases haven't needed a performance boost since forever. Web, office, music, video. Even most photoshopping or coding tasks can easily be done on a Core M. The 13" or less sized displays of ultrabooks will be more of a usability problem than CPU speed.
> Nevertheless, I was also disappointed with battery performance vs all but Yoga 2. I wonder why, > could it be display?
Considering the FHD XPS13 got 5.5 hours more battery life than the UHD model, I'd say: definitely.
The promise years ago was that we'd be able to attach some kind of cooling solution for turbo performance. It seems that world has come, but... without the cooling solutions? I've tossed my Stream 7 into a freezer for a few minutes to restore performance while playing a game. I've also got some aluminum foil under the cover to transfer the heat through that air gap.
In short, someone needs to release some kind of Peltier mat that you can lay these kinds of devices on. Imagine a stand with an angled cool surface.
Not sure what you're saying here... Bay Trail is the latest evolution of Intel's Atom series of processor core designs. While they're not using the Atom brand for it any more, that's still pretty much what it is.
But the point is, it isn't the atom brand. It is the same architecture, but compared to the actual TABLET chips, in some ways it is worse. You have higher TDP, but the CPU is actually worse in a lot of ways, especially multithreaded tests. You've got 2 cores at up to 2.58GHz, where as the top end Atom Bay Trail chips you have 4 cores at up to 2.39GHz. I can attest in long work loads in passively cooled tablets, the z3775 doesn't really seem to throttle...so you have potentially close to a doubling of performance in highly threaded workloads for something like the z3775 compared to the N2840...which makes the whole CPU performance inbalance between "Atom" and "Broadwell M" a heck of a lot less than these tests make it out to be.
Oh...there still is, but in highly threaded work loads the inbalance isn't all that much.
On the GPU side of things...well N2840 or z3775 (or other Atom chip), Broadwell M still crushes it.
It'll be interesting to see how the top end Atom Cherry Trail chips stack up. Assuming ZERO IPC improvements (and I assume there will be at least a little), it clocks in ~200MHz faster than Bay Trail and 4x the EUs (Intel was claiming top clocks of 2.6GHz and 16EU for the top end Cherry Trail tablet chips). The current pre-release Intel claims of ~100% faster GPU with no CPU claims right now.
Still makes Cherry Trail a fair amount slower on the GPU side of things, but on the CPU side...that puts it spitting distance with Broadwell M for multithreaded and if there are modest IPC improvements it might actually actually be FASTER in some multithreaded workloads.
It's not hard to imagine a quad core beating a dual core in multi threaded... Remember though, that in normal use, the feeling of it being fast or slow is all about single threaded speed.
Also, don't get all confused with the brand names. There are 2 cores, the Atom core and the 'Core' big core -- it doesnt matter whatever brand name they use it is still either Intel's big core or little core.
i think you are reading too much into the branding. it's still atom, which still means somewhat poor single threading, poor graphics, but quite ok multi threading, since there often are four cores instead of the two cores you get in all of intels other sub-35w mobile parts.
i think intel doesn't do itself a favour spreading the celeron and pentium brands to the atom architecture, but here we have it, let's not make it any worse.
Intel's marketing division is just trying to confuse people by extending the Celeron and Pentium names to CPUs with the Silvermont architecture, so they can sell computers with cheaper parts for more money.
Most people use the term "Atom" to refer to Intel's (current) Silvermont architecture used in Atom, and now some Celeron and Pentium models. As opposed to Intel's Haswell cores (used in Haswell and Broadwell) used in their i3/i5/i7, as well as some of the Celeron and Pentium models.
Since historically the Celeron name was only given to the upper tier architecture (Haswell, Sandy Bridge, Nehalem), it's more accurate to call the N2840 an Atom than a Celeron. Calling the N2840 a Celeron is kinda like calling the 4-cylinder Mustang a Mustang. The performance just isn't there to back up the name.
Doesn't "Mustang" mean performance, though? If you get a Celeron computer, you're expecting something cheap and just fast enough to use for basic tasks.
Good luck with that. Intel puts more care into the design of the glue those stickers use than practically anything else they ship. After you do finally manage to pull the sticker off, you're left with a nasty glob of gunk on your machine, and it's not clear quite what will remove it while not hurting the finish of the machine. Acetone? Alcohol? Vinegar?
try baby oil. i agree though, those pesky stickers should simply use the glue they use on post-its, that would be nice for a change. or, you know, get rid of those useless things all together.
Actually I've found gently prising them off slowly lifts most of the glue with the sticker, especially when they are new. Then use the sticker to dab over any glue left gets 99% of it. Not difficult.
Can verify that it is actually 4.5w TDP and not set for 3.5cTDP? The original was version was found to use the lower cTDP setting which is why performance was low (especially in gaming).
Was the performance actually sustainable? For instance the SP3 i3 did not show performance regression in gaming benchmarks until after the first pass of Dota 2.
I'm also wondering whether or not mobile reviews from now on should start looking into sustained performance and perhaps monitoring what clock rates actually are when in use.
Just to add in general I'm wondering in mobile reviews are they actually being down to account for performance differences under extended use?
We now see the market move towards more variable and burst based performance I think this does need to be looked at more. A 10 minute gaming benchmark for instance may not represent an actual extended game play session if this isn't accounted for.
CPU Z shows it as a 4.5w part, and the clock speeds agree. I actually was hoping it would be cTDP up to 6w since it has a fan but it does not appear to be.
Sustained performance did not appear to be a big factor. I ran Cinebench R15 six times in a row (which took about an hour total) and all of the scores were within a fraction of a percentage of each other.
i think a cTDP of 6w would be a better fit for an actively cooled 13-inch machine, hell, i could even get behind a cTDP of 10 watts. the gap between 4.5 and 15w just seems so big otherwise. but with power states and turbo clocks diluting the whole TDP-game anyways, i don't even know what i want in a cpu anymore. o.O
Broadwell GPU performance is such a letdown. Is there any chance of combining Core M with a dGPU or would that only work with the other Intel SKUs? It would be nice to get the battery efficiency of Core M when you need it, but then have the option for GPU power when you need it.
The CPU is so extremely low performance that it would choke almost any dedicated GPU. Plus you would get terrible battery life, have to add fans, a thicker design, etc. etc. If you are going to put in a dGPU then you really need a u-SKU product in the first place. This is just a glorified netbook. Fine for browsing the web, watching shows, and playing simple games like cards or angry birds, but that is it.
That is exactly right. We need to remember the purpose and audience this device is designed for. And based on this being a netbook I feel the price point is way to high. Better off considering the dell xps 13 or even SP3 at this point.
not sure why everybody thinks Core M = netbook. netbooks use Atom processors, this CPU is clearly in a completely different league in comparison. I'm almost certain that you wouldn't be complaining about it being a netbook if Intel kept using the old Y-series branding and the CPU was called a Core i5-5071Y.
Did you read any of the performance data? On CPU benchmarks, it trades blows with 15W Haswell. On GPU benchmarks, it seems to be up at the top of fanless SoCs. Last time I checked, you could do a lot more than angry birds on an iPad 2 or Nexus 9, this should be as good or better.
I agree with the broken keyboard comment. A high end laptop with 20% of its keys missing, forcing such silliness as doubling PageUp/Down and Home/End? Never here, and I will be in the market for something like this.
even as a home user, having those brightness and media keys only one tap away sure as hell is handy. wouldn't want to miss those, even on a convertible.
router guy (terminals all day long) who dabbles in python, you can pry the home/end, pgup/pgdn and insert keys from my cold dead fingers. (old fashioned, use shift-ins for pasting in terminals)
They at least should have kept them as touch keys. That's a compromise I could live with. Even still hitting Fn + <Key> to get F1 isn't that big of a deal.
I'd be a lot more accepting of RGBW (and RGBG) subpixel-arrangement displays if they didn't do the shady thing of counting only two subpixels as one pixel (meaning a single addressable pixel cannot reproduce the whole display gamut).
i agree, but how else would you "count" subpixels on a RGBG matrix? and as far as i can see, the RGBW even uses 4 subpixels per pixel, or did i miss something? of course the whole pixel gets quite long this way, which isn't ideal for sharpness, but on a 1800p display i don't even care anymore.
No, it has TWO subpixels per pixel. RGBW theoretically sounds nice if it was 4 subpixels per pixel, but with just two then it ruins everything. Color reproduction, sharpness, black levels, etc. A 1080p RGB looks pretty much as good.
ok, now i'm completely confused. there i thought it used 4 subpixels, where do you get it used only two?
my dissent for pentile only grows, it could be so easy with 1080/1200p, 1440/1600p RGB, but no, someone always has to cheat in this stupid dick measuring contest.
"Luckily Lenovo has sorted out the color reproduction for the Yoga 3 Pro, just like they did with the Yoga 2 Pro a few months into its life."
No, they did not fix this on the Yoga 2 Pro. I have all the BIOs updates and all the power management updates. Lenovo's idea of "fixing" this issue is turning your machine to the most power hungry mode and cranking your brightness to 100%, thus giving your machine ~1 or 2 hours of battery life. That's the only way to get correct yellows, otherwise, you get mustardy variations.
Lenovo will not recognize that the problem still exists and just closes threads or sweeps customer complaints under the rug. I do not know what this is like on the Y3P, but it's still fudged on the 2.
I'm going to pick some random nits: why the hell do PC makers still slap those stickers on their machines? OK ok, I know AMD is still around, so maybe Intel wants to make sure people know what's "inside", but why the "Intel Ultrabook" sticker? Why Windows or Office badges? This garbage just muddies up these machines, and they don't always come off nicely. It's such a waste of time and material. What average person on the street doesn't know a non-Apple laptop comes with Windows? Some may argue that there are now cheapo Chromebooks out there, but Windows and Chrome clearly do not look the same.
That is all. Please return to your regularly scheduled comments.
The thing that really bothers me is not that they were doing it, but that they weren't going to admit anything until they actually got caught. This tells me that they are likely to be searching for other avenues through which to screw us, ones that will be more difficult to spot.
I think at this point, things made in China simply cannot be trusted whatsoever. I will not be buying anything that comes from China if humanly possible, and my strong recommendation if you are reading this is to do the same. Otherwise, you are at risk.
And to keep my own internal conversation going over here:
What pains me even more is the cell phone situation. I've been a Motorola fan because they generally have the best radios, and actually making phones calls is important to me because I use it for my business. With Moto being bought by Lenovo, aka spyware corp, what am I supposed to do now about cell phones in the future? How can I even trust that any future Moto X 2013 updates aren't going to come with some type of keylogger or some other bizzarity?
hm this is low powered. GPU benchmarks look ok but for now; with the s6 coming, expect the mali gpu to hit 5000 levels.
I just went on gfxbench website: put it in, galaxy s6 vs 5300 they get the same score, same for htc one m9. Intel needs to step it up. this soc should be the atom bottom of the barrel cpu. but at $200 per cpu its all about profits! ARM A72 can't come any sooner....
So much for AI singularity if Intel can't get transistors lower than 5nm or hit more performance goals on 4700K.
I'll wait until Skylake, USB-3.1-c, PCle SSD's and DDR4 RAM to upgrade my bulky Westmere laptop.
those are essentially the things i'm waiting for right now and it's a shame how long intel takes to implement all of this. as for hi dpi support, if someone went ahead and gave me a top notch 1200p screen, hi dpi wouldn't even be that high of a priority for me.
I'm hoping Lenovo follows in Dell's footsteps and gets rid of the bezel around the screen along with big wasted area around the keyboard.
Pretty sweet to get the same display size and pixel density: 13.3″ 75.59 square inche display (11.6″x6.5″) 3200×1800 16:9 Ratio 276.05 PPI ***all in a much smaller form factor!***
the thing is for the tablet mode it's nice to have some bezel to grip the whole thing, so going the minimal bezel route like the xps 13 wouldn't be the most comfortable thing on a device like a yoga 3 pro. that's the same reason we have the big wasted space around the keyboard: that's where you hold the device in tablet mode. i think they still should have given us at least a row of half-height function keys, but we see that a convertible is always a compromise.
agreed. the hinge might look nice to some and as long as it works it's fine by me, but if they go ahead and bost about it consists of over 800 parts, that just screams "over engineered" to me.
i also don't see how a simple hinge has to look like a watchband, or a piece of jewelry and again: using 800 parts, when you could reach the same goal with just two is simply too much in my book.
Hugely disappointing to see the keyboard get compromised like this. one of the most useful things about Lenovo is that they make good keyboards with intelligent layouts. Nixing the F-row and hamstringing the PgUp/Down and Home/End keys is probably a deal breaker for me.
I really hope that there's a review coming for the recent HP Spectre. I think it (and the XPS) has Lenovo beat this year
I appreciate you linking the notebook bench link, but the Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro isn't listed on your bench results yet (nor in CPU bench). I was also hoping there would be more of an in-depth discussion about the Core-M CPU and probably a few more "real life" use case results and short comings of the CPU, as this is Anandtech's first product review with a Core-M.
I like how you included Dell's XPS 15, but for those unfamiliar with that model, I think you should have at least mentioned what CPU it was other than being a quad-core CPU. Without bench results, it's also hard to compare what core-M's performance is compared to other broadwell/Haswell offerings as the charts are comparing tablets and some Haswell-U's. I think it'd be an interesting dive to see what users would be sacrificing in terms of performance to go to Core-M (form-factor) versus intel's bigger mobile processors. I suppose I could wait for the bench results and pore over the charts myself, and since anyone can do that, that's not why we read anandtech.
Sorry the Yoga 3 Pro was in Bench but not enabled for public viewing until after I posted. I just enabled it now.
I did mention in the article that the Dell is a quad-core part. I have some more ideas as well to make that more clear but it's a backend thing.
Look for more Core M discussion soon. We had issues getting samples at the start since it seemed like a really slow release but we have some now. I've got a couple more Core M devices in my queue to look at.
Sweet. I'm looking forward to more core-M reviews. I think a lot of our readers are interested in reading what you guys have to say about the new MB apple released.
Also, I'm aware other products' performance is listed in bench but it would be nice to include products that match the one you're reviewing in terms of size, form factor, and price - I felt that the products you included in your charts were heavily skewed to tablet comparisons, where we could have used some more comparisons for products in similar price ranges.
Otherwise, good read, thank you for your hard work.
I actually bought a Yoga 3 Pro (my first laptop in over 10 years) during the holiday season, and eventually returned it after a few weeks. My thoughts:
-The build quality on this thing is pretty poor for such an expensive device. The panel on the back of the screen on mine flexed quite a bit, as if it didn't fit perfectly. Similarly, there is a piece of plastic below the display that looks like it is fit into a rectangular slot, and that wiggled around too, as if it was glued poorly or something. It also shows usage very poorly; no amount of hand washing prevented it from looking like a mess after using it. I had a chance to touch a MBP while I owned this, and that felt markedly better made.
-The screen is not very good. It wasn't really that much of a problem, and the article mentions it getting better in the refresh, but mine was pretty poor. It was also my introduction to HiDPI Windows and all the caveats that come with that. I am also used to my 16:10 desktop monitor, so I'm probably a bit biased. But seriously, we need more 16:10 laptop screens that aren't on Macs.
-It generally felt fast enough, but mine could not handle HD streaming on Amazon Instant Video (tried Chrome and latest IE). The video would start stuttering, making it un-watchable. Netflix didn't have this issue, and neither did a 1080p video stored locally when used with VLC. I don't know if the refresh has this issue, but it made Amazon Instant Video a last resort.
-The battery life is terrible. I am not really used to laptops, so for me the 5 hours of life I managed out of the thing felt very oppressive. And although this is a minor issue, the included charging cable is too short.
-The last laptop I owned had physical click buttons; my index finger worked the pad, and my thumb rested on the left click button. Based on the Yoga I cannot see how people have adapted to use these new-fangled track pads with no buttons. It is like we've actually regressed in technology over the last 10 years when it comes to this. Getting click and drag to work on these damn things is real challenge.
-Make sure you keep that Harmony software installed; otherwise the computer won't properly deactivate the keyboard and track pad when in stand mode.
-This computer makes me want more, better hybrids to exist. Because of the utility of stand mode, I do not think I can ever buy a normal laptop or a tablet. The light weight of this thing is also a plus, but I think that is more a benefit to tablet mode, which isn't that useful in comparison to the other modes.
thanks for your quick review, it's interesting to hear some real life caveats, even if you didn't use the latest model.
i also share some of the same complaints about at least some of the current ultrabooks. i recently got to test an asus zenbook (ux301la) and while it looked stunning with its white glass finish, it only stood on three of its rubber feet and kept wiggling, as you moved your hand to and from the palm rest. even the (buttonless!) glass touchpad made a slight squeaking sound, when you moused around on it. it seems to me that many manufacturers have a problem converting those nice press renders and incredibly high specs into really usable products that don't show some serious flaws after a short amount of time.
many people say this machine (e.g. a zenbook), or that laptop (e.g. the new xps 13) offer incredible build quality, but still i have to see one laptop model to offer such a continuously high build quality as apple does with their whole macbook line. a shame, since i'm really not a fan of osx.
i'm also not the biggest fan of hi dpi screens, especially when the effect is made obsolete due to the use of a pentile matrix. it seems we're just wasting money, energy and gpu cycles, hell, even usability (->scaling), just to have one more spec to boast about. and all this on the machines that are conceptually the worst place to start the dpi-revolution: battery and performance limited mobile devices. "The screen is not very good." ...if people sum up a screen with those (your) words, i think we can agree that this specific panel was a poor choice on a somewhat premium device like the yoga 3 pro.
and a new $$$$ laptop not managing 1080p playback on one of the biggest VoD services... i think i have seen enough of core m for one day, even if that specific problem turns out to be driver related.
Considering that you can go to the HP website right now and get the Spectre x360 with 1080p touch, 8GB of RAM, a 256GB SSD, a Core-i5 5200U, a much larger battery and what looks like much better build quality all for under $1000, I'm afraid Lenovo needs to do more than this refresh to keep the Yoga line competitive. You can even upgrade to a QHD display for only another $100, if you prefer resolution to battery life. Hopefully you guys get in a Spectre x360 for review in the near future.
And if you don't care about a 360-degree hinge and a touchscreen, then the Dell XPS 13 knocks it out of the park.
I will say this for Lenovo though: I much prefer soft-touch materials and colors like they have on the Yoga 3 Pro to cold, slick, plain-silver aluminum.
I like the inclusion of "Brett's Core i7-860" results. It helps those of us with older systems compare with what we've actually got. Would like to see more of this.
I decided to keep Yoga 3 Pro with its 5Y70 processor after this test which compares linear algebra matrix equations Y = AX performance. Here what Yoga shows compared to my overclocked to 4.5GHz 4770k:
It is deplorable that they are charging $200 more for less performance when the only thing you're really getting is a skimpier battery. The thing should cost less, not more. DOTA 2 isnt even playable on a $1200 machine? That is unbelievable.
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KZ0 - Friday, March 13, 2015 - link
Why did they have to break the keyboard! So close to perfect, but the keyboard is important!fokka - Friday, March 13, 2015 - link
the yoga line is nice and the yoga 3 pro could be one killer machine, but when i have to press key combos for simple things as adjusting brightness, or to skip a track this would be just a big step back in usability for me.like the author, i'm also not a fan of the rgbw-display, especially when sharp makes a display of the same resolution which is just so much nicer.
and the third point would be the middling battery life. i would give up the 1800p screen in a heartbeat if it meant i could get the same battery life as the 1080p xps 13.
i'm still not the biggest fan of core m, even with a little fan helping out.
i guess for me that means the time isn't quite here yet for the super-slim 12mm for factor and in this generation and probably the next i'd still be more inclined to go with a 15-17mm thick device, simply to have something a bit more future proof in the cpu and especially gpu department.
if more manufacturers could now offer 16:10, or even 15:10 screens on their future devices, that would be much appreciated.
fokka - Friday, March 13, 2015 - link
oh sorry, now i posted the whole shebang, when i only wanted to share my sentiments about the keyboard... edit option, anyone?wintermute000 - Saturday, March 14, 2015 - link
someone in lenovo has obviously gotten hold of some kind of focus group testing or user survey that says most 'normals' don't use the F keys, and gone ahead and loaded the shotgun (pointed at their feet). Observe the X1 carbon (though maybe the latest variant went back to the F keys?), yep thinkpad users don't use F keys... not.....My company recently got a laptop refresh where we were given the choice of T440s or X1s. The first wave of people went X1s en masse and there was a seriously high return rate after people realised how much of a PITA the new, no-F-key layout was.
MrSpadge - Sunday, March 15, 2015 - link
I agree, this is ridiculous especially for a "Pro" version. And they still have so much space left at the top of the current keyboard.Wwhat - Sunday, March 15, 2015 - link
It seems the new paradigm to remove stuff and reduce user convenience, samsung did it with their new phones, apple did it with their new single-port laptop, and you see more and more devices being released with pointlessly reduced functionality.But as for 'pro', I'm not sure any 'pro' would get lenovo after the spy-ware fiasco.
I know lenovo is not an option for me after that.
Gigaplex - Monday, March 16, 2015 - link
"Pro" use in the Enterprise would just use a corporate image, rather than using whatever Lenovo installed.Wwhat - Saturday, March 21, 2015 - link
Fair point, but seeing we hear more and more about things embedded in firmware and BIOS I'm not sure I'd trust it either way. Especially the BIOS would only require a cooperation of lenovo to 'enhance' their system.It's the nature of the nastiness they were exposed as bundling, it was too complex and devious to brush off. In my opinion at least. And it ruined any trust I have.
miahshodan - Tuesday, March 17, 2015 - link
I don't mind the function keys as much as having keys in the wrong place. For instance the right shift key should be directly below the enter key and the forward slash / should be below the '. things like that kill typing speed.Wwhat - Tuesday, March 24, 2015 - link
Odd view, the shift key isn't too bad if you type with ten fingers since it is where it suppose to be except the right part missing, and people can probably adapt to that.As for the forward slash, that is always below the middle between ; and ' on standard keyboards, check wikipedia to see. And it's actually the ctrl key which isn't where you expect it.
Zizy - Friday, March 13, 2015 - link
Core M seems to be a mixed bag. Great if you want short bursts of activity but fails when you demand any longer activity, especially a GPU one. Fine for netbooks, but spending 1k+ to get a tablet class of performance seems pointless to me.XPS 13 has better performance and normalized battery life. What is wrong with Yoga?
Will you also make an in-depth CPU test?
Drumsticks - Friday, March 13, 2015 - link
The performance of the core M 5Y71 parts is leavig me feeling a little bit better for a potential core m SP4. Still, this was with a fan - fanless performance is sure to be worse, and if you have a fan you might as well use the full voltage part!But in any case, I really hope that Windows 10 and Core M skylake can coincide. A skylake Surface Pro 4 in a fanless design could seriously be amazing without sacrificing performance compared to Haswell-U.
mkozakewich - Saturday, March 14, 2015 - link
The funny thing is that it's pretty much always about the cooling. A 5W TDP part works in a 5W TDP case, but it would be helpful to know what the maximum TDP is for turbo workloads. If the SP4 still has a fan and it could push 15 W out, you'd probably get the full performance without throttling.lilmoe - Friday, March 13, 2015 - link
I've never really understood Core M and its value proposition. Maybe current applications aren't optimal. Since ^this ultrabook has a fan, I just can't seem to understand why they didn't wait it out a bit and went with a cheaper Broadwell U that races to sleep much faster. In that aspect, Dell got it right with their XPS 13. No one talks about how thin this device is, especially that it's thinner than Apple's new MacBook. I can't even justify the price to performance ratio even for a fanless Windows x86 tablet. Microsoft should stick with Broadwell U for the SP4 to maintain a performance upgrade at the least.I don't know, Core M probably only has value for those who want an expensive, fanless machine, and this only works for Apple most of the time.
name99 - Friday, March 13, 2015 - link
How do you get that it's thinner than new Macbook?MacBook tapers from 13.2mm to 3.6mm. This is a flat 1.28mm. On "average" MacBook is thinner, and visually it looks far thinner.
lilmoe - Friday, March 13, 2015 - link
Since that seems the only thing you got out of my post, I'm sorry to have offended you...N000RM - Friday, March 13, 2015 - link
Would you say a two penny nail is thin because it tapers to a point? The Yoga is thinner and lighter, fanboi.michael2k - Friday, March 13, 2015 - link
The Yoga is over half a pound heavier. You also fail to understand how triangles work. The Yoga is 1.28cm more or less across the whole laptop. The MacBook is 0.35 to 1.31cm. If we assume the delta is defined by a triangle then it will be 0.48 in average height if they could flatten it's volume, or a total height of 0.83cm, again, if they could squeeze the whole design into a rectangle. And if Apple updates the MacBook Pro, next year, with similar technology it will likely be a straight 1.31cm across.wolfemane - Monday, March 16, 2015 - link
There is a sign on the door that says to leave all Jr. Math Awards with the attendant before entering Anandtech. Obviously you didn't see that... hmmmm... what to do, what to do.heron_kusanagi - Monday, March 16, 2015 - link
I don't know, performance is one thing, but if all you are doing is Office work, maybe some web surfing and casual games, Core M's proposition is ideal.The Asus UX305 (which I hope Anandtech reviews next) is using the Core M, and for the most part, it works as a ultrabook with no added sound profile to it. And its pretty cheap too.
sonicmerlin - Friday, March 13, 2015 - link
The Apple A8X and Tegra K1 have faster GPUs than the Core M. You're paying a huge Intel premium for the faster CPUs.ASEdouardD - Friday, March 13, 2015 - link
I just saw and realized that. Pretty crazy when you think about it. The iPad is more powerful than the new Macbook.arsjum - Friday, March 13, 2015 - link
You mean GPU-wise? Then, yes. The dual-core CPU in Core M is 2 to 3 times more powerful than A8X's three cores.ppi - Friday, March 13, 2015 - link
For typical workload of tablets and ultrabooks (web, mail, light-to-mid office), CPU is more important than GPU.Frenetic Pony - Friday, March 13, 2015 - link
Yah, I'd wait for Skylake Core M to buy any device with it. Skylake apparently improves IPC, battery life, and comes with a completely overhauled GPU architecture. Right now Core M seems a bit underpowered for the devices carrying it.ppi - Friday, March 13, 2015 - link
Short bursts of activity are actually what you do with computer most of the time. Open document -> burst of activity. Open website -> burst. Swap application -> burst. Then reading, scrolling, editing is basically idle time for CPU waiting for user input.I am convinced 90%+ people in my company would be better served by Core-M system, rather than Broadwell-U, simply because they will hardly ever utilise the sustained Broadwell-U performance, but improved portability will make their life easier while travelling.
Sure, there are types of tasks that need sustained performance, but then ultrabook is probably not a good answer either.
Frankly, I was curious about feasibility of Core M until Apple introduced MacBook. As much as I dislike Apple, they never choose anything but top notch components. Core M however requires good passive cooling through chasis.
Nevertheless, I was also disappointed with battery performance vs all but Yoga 2. I wonder why, could it be display?
tim851 - Friday, March 13, 2015 - link
> I am convinced 90%+ people in my company would be better served by Core-M system, rather> than Broadwell-U
Probably. The performance deficit of Core M gets exaggerated IMO. And that despite the well-established fact that the majority of use cases haven't needed a performance boost since forever.
Web, office, music, video. Even most photoshopping or coding tasks can easily be done on a Core M. The 13" or less sized displays of ultrabooks will be more of a usability problem than CPU speed.
> Nevertheless, I was also disappointed with battery performance vs all but Yoga 2. I wonder why,
> could it be display?
Considering the FHD XPS13 got 5.5 hours more battery life than the UHD model, I'd say: definitely.
mkozakewich - Saturday, March 14, 2015 - link
The promise years ago was that we'd be able to attach some kind of cooling solution for turbo performance. It seems that world has come, but... without the cooling solutions? I've tossed my Stream 7 into a freezer for a few minutes to restore performance while playing a game. I've also got some aluminum foil under the cover to transfer the heat through that air gap.In short, someone needs to release some kind of Peltier mat that you can lay these kinds of devices on. Imagine a stand with an angled cool surface.
Thorburn - Friday, March 13, 2015 - link
The N2840 isn't an Atom, its a Bay Trail based Celeron.Thorburn - Friday, March 13, 2015 - link
Also its TDP is 7.5W, it has an SDP of 4.5W.Brett Howse - Friday, March 13, 2015 - link
Sorry corrected the TDP info. We can debate about whether it is an Atom or Celeron, but it's really an Atom rebadged.jhoff80 - Friday, March 13, 2015 - link
I think you missed one. "The 5 watt Atom core in the HP Stream is sorely outclassed by the 4.5 watt Core M."kepstin - Friday, March 13, 2015 - link
Not sure what you're saying here... Bay Trail is the latest evolution of Intel's Atom series of processor core designs. While they're not using the Atom brand for it any more, that's still pretty much what it is.azazel1024 - Friday, March 13, 2015 - link
But the point is, it isn't the atom brand. It is the same architecture, but compared to the actual TABLET chips, in some ways it is worse. You have higher TDP, but the CPU is actually worse in a lot of ways, especially multithreaded tests. You've got 2 cores at up to 2.58GHz, where as the top end Atom Bay Trail chips you have 4 cores at up to 2.39GHz. I can attest in long work loads in passively cooled tablets, the z3775 doesn't really seem to throttle...so you have potentially close to a doubling of performance in highly threaded workloads for something like the z3775 compared to the N2840...which makes the whole CPU performance inbalance between "Atom" and "Broadwell M" a heck of a lot less than these tests make it out to be.Oh...there still is, but in highly threaded work loads the inbalance isn't all that much.
On the GPU side of things...well N2840 or z3775 (or other Atom chip), Broadwell M still crushes it.
It'll be interesting to see how the top end Atom Cherry Trail chips stack up. Assuming ZERO IPC improvements (and I assume there will be at least a little), it clocks in ~200MHz faster than Bay Trail and 4x the EUs (Intel was claiming top clocks of 2.6GHz and 16EU for the top end Cherry Trail tablet chips). The current pre-release Intel claims of ~100% faster GPU with no CPU claims right now.
Still makes Cherry Trail a fair amount slower on the GPU side of things, but on the CPU side...that puts it spitting distance with Broadwell M for multithreaded and if there are modest IPC improvements it might actually actually be FASTER in some multithreaded workloads.
extide - Friday, March 13, 2015 - link
It's not hard to imagine a quad core beating a dual core in multi threaded... Remember though, that in normal use, the feeling of it being fast or slow is all about single threaded speed.Also, don't get all confused with the brand names. There are 2 cores, the Atom core and the 'Core' big core -- it doesnt matter whatever brand name they use it is still either Intel's big core or little core.
fokka - Friday, March 13, 2015 - link
i think you are reading too much into the branding. it's still atom, which still means somewhat poor single threading, poor graphics, but quite ok multi threading, since there often are four cores instead of the two cores you get in all of intels other sub-35w mobile parts.i think intel doesn't do itself a favour spreading the celeron and pentium brands to the atom architecture, but here we have it, let's not make it any worse.
Solandri - Friday, March 13, 2015 - link
Intel's marketing division is just trying to confuse people by extending the Celeron and Pentium names to CPUs with the Silvermont architecture, so they can sell computers with cheaper parts for more money.Most people use the term "Atom" to refer to Intel's (current) Silvermont architecture used in Atom, and now some Celeron and Pentium models. As opposed to Intel's Haswell cores (used in Haswell and Broadwell) used in their i3/i5/i7, as well as some of the Celeron and Pentium models.
Since historically the Celeron name was only given to the upper tier architecture (Haswell, Sandy Bridge, Nehalem), it's more accurate to call the N2840 an Atom than a Celeron. Calling the N2840 a Celeron is kinda like calling the 4-cylinder Mustang a Mustang. The performance just isn't there to back up the name.
mkozakewich - Saturday, March 14, 2015 - link
Doesn't "Mustang" mean performance, though? If you get a Celeron computer, you're expecting something cheap and just fast enough to use for basic tasks.extide - Friday, March 13, 2015 - link
...Which means it's an Atom.jabber - Friday, March 13, 2015 - link
First thing I'd do if that was mine? Get rid of those awful stickers.Like those dumb car parts shopping lists muppets stick on their mom's Civic.name99 - Friday, March 13, 2015 - link
Good luck with that. Intel puts more care into the design of the glue those stickers use than practically anything else they ship.After you do finally manage to pull the sticker off, you're left with a nasty glob of gunk on your machine, and it's not clear quite what will remove it while not hurting the finish of the machine. Acetone? Alcohol? Vinegar?
fokka - Friday, March 13, 2015 - link
try baby oil. i agree though, those pesky stickers should simply use the glue they use on post-its, that would be nice for a change. or, you know, get rid of those useless things all together.jabber - Saturday, March 14, 2015 - link
Actually I've found gently prising them off slowly lifts most of the glue with the sticker, especially when they are new. Then use the sticker to dab over any glue left gets 99% of it. Not difficult.mkozakewich - Saturday, March 14, 2015 - link
Oils destabilize rubbers. Try accidentally leaving a bit of turkey stock in the rubber part of a baster, or try eating peanuts while chewing gum.Alexvrb - Sunday, March 15, 2015 - link
I would probably use Goo Gone, if I was prone to caring about removing factory stickers.Manch - Sunday, March 15, 2015 - link
wd40. put a spot on a rag and wipe. then clean with alcohol.limitedaccess - Friday, March 13, 2015 - link
Can verify that it is actually 4.5w TDP and not set for 3.5cTDP? The original was version was found to use the lower cTDP setting which is why performance was low (especially in gaming).Was the performance actually sustainable? For instance the SP3 i3 did not show performance regression in gaming benchmarks until after the first pass of Dota 2.
I'm also wondering whether or not mobile reviews from now on should start looking into sustained performance and perhaps monitoring what clock rates actually are when in use.
What were the temperatures?
limitedaccess - Friday, March 13, 2015 - link
Just to add in general I'm wondering in mobile reviews are they actually being down to account for performance differences under extended use?We now see the market move towards more variable and burst based performance I think this does need to be looked at more. A 10 minute gaming benchmark for instance may not represent an actual extended game play session if this isn't accounted for.
Brett Howse - Friday, March 13, 2015 - link
CPU Z shows it as a 4.5w part, and the clock speeds agree. I actually was hoping it would be cTDP up to 6w since it has a fan but it does not appear to be.Sustained performance did not appear to be a big factor. I ran Cinebench R15 six times in a row (which took about an hour total) and all of the scores were within a fraction of a percentage of each other.
fokka - Friday, March 13, 2015 - link
i think a cTDP of 6w would be a better fit for an actively cooled 13-inch machine, hell, i could even get behind a cTDP of 10 watts. the gap between 4.5 and 15w just seems so big otherwise. but with power states and turbo clocks diluting the whole TDP-game anyways, i don't even know what i want in a cpu anymore. o.Onathanddrews - Friday, March 13, 2015 - link
Broadwell GPU performance is such a letdown. Is there any chance of combining Core M with a dGPU or would that only work with the other Intel SKUs? It would be nice to get the battery efficiency of Core M when you need it, but then have the option for GPU power when you need it.Zizy - Friday, March 13, 2015 - link
I don't see any gains using M (vs U) in perf/W. Adding dGPU would mean fans so you lose that benefit as well. Therefore, why bother? :)nathanddrews - Friday, March 13, 2015 - link
Cost savings, perhaps? Remember the Atom/Ion combos?I admit it seems like a waste of time and effort given what's already possible with a regular U-SKU.
Gigaplex - Friday, March 13, 2015 - link
Perhaps I missed something, but I don't think the Core M chips are cheaper. In fact I heard they were more expensive.fokka - Friday, March 13, 2015 - link
intel lists a price of 281$ for its core m CPUs, from the 5y10 to the 5y71, which incidentially is the same price it asks for its i5 5200u.http://ark.intel.com/de/products/series/83614/Inte...
CaedenV - Friday, March 13, 2015 - link
The CPU is so extremely low performance that it would choke almost any dedicated GPU. Plus you would get terrible battery life, have to add fans, a thicker design, etc. etc.If you are going to put in a dGPU then you really need a u-SKU product in the first place. This is just a glorified netbook. Fine for browsing the web, watching shows, and playing simple games like cards or angry birds, but that is it.
3ricss - Friday, March 13, 2015 - link
That is exactly right. We need to remember the purpose and audience this device is designed for. And based on this being a netbook I feel the price point is way to high. Better off considering the dell xps 13 or even SP3 at this point.defferoo - Friday, March 13, 2015 - link
not sure why everybody thinks Core M = netbook. netbooks use Atom processors, this CPU is clearly in a completely different league in comparison. I'm almost certain that you wouldn't be complaining about it being a netbook if Intel kept using the old Y-series branding and the CPU was called a Core i5-5071Y.fokka - Friday, March 13, 2015 - link
it might also have to do with the low tdp why people keep comparing it with netbooks.on another note, if intel would keep the core-i naming scheme for the chip, i'm sure the 5y71 would be an i7 (and cost 400 bucks...)
mkozakewich - Sunday, March 15, 2015 - link
Also considering that newer Atoms have like 2x the performance at less power, and Core-M has nearly an order of magnitude more performance.wintermute000 - Saturday, March 14, 2015 - link
The benches don't look that bad, or am I missing something?(never used a Core M product IRL so dunno)
FwFred - Saturday, March 14, 2015 - link
Did you read any of the performance data? On CPU benchmarks, it trades blows with 15W Haswell. On GPU benchmarks, it seems to be up at the top of fanless SoCs. Last time I checked, you could do a lot more than angry birds on an iPad 2 or Nexus 9, this should be as good or better.Arbie - Friday, March 13, 2015 - link
I agree with the broken keyboard comment. A high end laptop with 20% of its keys missing, forcing such silliness as doubling PageUp/Down and Home/End? Never here, and I will be in the market for something like this.jabber - Friday, March 13, 2015 - link
Can't remember when 99% of the worlds population used the Home/End key.Same goes for SysRq Scroll Lock and Pause/Break.
Sounds to me like a bonus to start ditching old AT era legacy on mobile devices.
Gigaplex - Friday, March 13, 2015 - link
I use the F keys a lot for Visual Studio development. Certainly not ready to give up on those.fokka - Friday, March 13, 2015 - link
even as a home user, having those brightness and media keys only one tap away sure as hell is handy. wouldn't want to miss those, even on a convertible.andrewaggb - Friday, March 13, 2015 - link
well I use home/end regularly in linux and in software dev tools. I'm never used scroll lock or pause/break.wintermute000 - Saturday, March 14, 2015 - link
router guy (terminals all day long) who dabbles in python, you can pry the home/end, pgup/pgdn and insert keys from my cold dead fingers. (old fashioned, use shift-ins for pasting in terminals)Pissedoffyouth - Saturday, March 14, 2015 - link
Lotus Notes users really need Pause/BreakManch - Sunday, March 15, 2015 - link
They at least should have kept them as touch keys. That's a compromise I could live with. Even still hitting Fn + <Key> to get F1 isn't that big of a deal.edzieba - Friday, March 13, 2015 - link
I'd be a lot more accepting of RGBW (and RGBG) subpixel-arrangement displays if they didn't do the shady thing of counting only two subpixels as one pixel (meaning a single addressable pixel cannot reproduce the whole display gamut).fokka - Friday, March 13, 2015 - link
i agree, but how else would you "count" subpixels on a RGBG matrix? and as far as i can see, the RGBW even uses 4 subpixels per pixel, or did i miss something? of course the whole pixel gets quite long this way, which isn't ideal for sharpness, but on a 1800p display i don't even care anymore.zepi - Friday, March 13, 2015 - link
So this thing has 4 subpixels for each pixel, but the display controller only takes R,G,B as input from computer for each pixel?Well, I guess it is an acceptable way of increasing brightness for high-dpi displays to keep the power consumption low.
peterfares - Friday, March 13, 2015 - link
No, it has TWO subpixels per pixel. RGBW theoretically sounds nice if it was 4 subpixels per pixel, but with just two then it ruins everything. Color reproduction, sharpness, black levels, etc. A 1080p RGB looks pretty much as good.fokka - Friday, March 13, 2015 - link
ok, now i'm completely confused. there i thought it used 4 subpixels, where do you get it used only two?my dissent for pentile only grows, it could be so easy with 1080/1200p, 1440/1600p RGB, but no, someone always has to cheat in this stupid dick measuring contest.
lolTyler - Friday, March 13, 2015 - link
"Luckily Lenovo has sorted out the color reproduction for the Yoga 3 Pro, just like they did with the Yoga 2 Pro a few months into its life."No, they did not fix this on the Yoga 2 Pro. I have all the BIOs updates and all the power management updates. Lenovo's idea of "fixing" this issue is turning your machine to the most power hungry mode and cranking your brightness to 100%, thus giving your machine ~1 or 2 hours of battery life. That's the only way to get correct yellows, otherwise, you get mustardy variations.
Lenovo will not recognize that the problem still exists and just closes threads or sweeps customer complaints under the rug. I do not know what this is like on the Y3P, but it's still fudged on the 2.
Brett Howse - Friday, March 13, 2015 - link
The one that we tested was produced after they "fixed" it, and our i1Pro shows that they did indeed fix this issue. http://images.anandtech.com/doci/8289/Saturation.p...I can't comment on the ones produced before the fix though. They could still have an issue but I don't have one to even look at.
Regular Reader - Friday, March 13, 2015 - link
I'm going to pick some random nits: why the hell do PC makers still slap those stickers on their machines? OK ok, I know AMD is still around, so maybe Intel wants to make sure people know what's "inside", but why the "Intel Ultrabook" sticker? Why Windows or Office badges? This garbage just muddies up these machines, and they don't always come off nicely. It's such a waste of time and material. What average person on the street doesn't know a non-Apple laptop comes with Windows? Some may argue that there are now cheapo Chromebooks out there, but Windows and Chrome clearly do not look the same.That is all. Please return to your regularly scheduled comments.
fokka - Friday, March 13, 2015 - link
i can only agree here and add: if you want your machine look cheap, put a bunch of stickers on it.peterfares - Friday, March 13, 2015 - link
PenTile screen means the screen is still garbage. I'd rather a 1080p RGB than this abomination.MrSpadge - Sunday, March 15, 2015 - link
But it's got the bigger MPs!(no, seriously: I completely agree. Even power consumption is much better with 1080p)
aggiechase37 - Friday, March 13, 2015 - link
Yeah, but tell us about the spyware situation???aggiechase37 - Friday, March 13, 2015 - link
The thing that really bothers me is not that they were doing it, but that they weren't going to admit anything until they actually got caught. This tells me that they are likely to be searching for other avenues through which to screw us, ones that will be more difficult to spot.I think at this point, things made in China simply cannot be trusted whatsoever. I will not be buying anything that comes from China if humanly possible, and my strong recommendation if you are reading this is to do the same. Otherwise, you are at risk.
aggiechase37 - Friday, March 13, 2015 - link
And to keep my own internal conversation going over here:What pains me even more is the cell phone situation. I've been a Motorola fan because they generally have the best radios, and actually making phones calls is important to me because I use it for my business. With Moto being bought by Lenovo, aka spyware corp, what am I supposed to do now about cell phones in the future? How can I even trust that any future Moto X 2013 updates aren't going to come with some type of keylogger or some other bizzarity?
extide - Friday, March 13, 2015 - link
Doesn't really matter because everyone uses Qualcomm radios in cell phones these days anyways, so get whatever phone you want.djvita - Friday, March 13, 2015 - link
hm this is low powered. GPU benchmarks look ok but for now; with the s6 coming, expect the mali gpu to hit 5000 levels.I just went on gfxbench website: put it in, galaxy s6 vs 5300 they get the same score, same for htc one m9. Intel needs to step it up. this soc should be the atom bottom of the barrel cpu. but at $200 per cpu its all about profits! ARM A72 can't come any sooner....
So much for AI singularity if Intel can't get transistors lower than 5nm or hit more performance goals on 4700K.
I'll wait until Skylake, USB-3.1-c, PCle SSD's and DDR4 RAM to upgrade my bulky Westmere laptop.
RDO CA - Friday, March 13, 2015 - link
I will wait on Skylake also and add to your list NVME and Win 10 for better HiDPI support.fokka - Friday, March 13, 2015 - link
those are essentially the things i'm waiting for right now and it's a shame how long intel takes to implement all of this. as for hi dpi support, if someone went ahead and gave me a top notch 1200p screen, hi dpi wouldn't even be that high of a priority for me.lilmoe - Saturday, March 14, 2015 - link
Totally agreed. Agreed also with RDO CA.Tech sites really need to emphasize how 2015 is the worst year to buy a PC/Laptop of any sorts. Well, unless someone has a 1 year upgrade cycle...
AmdInside - Friday, March 13, 2015 - link
I still find the Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro design very fugly. The hinge especially. They should have changed the outer shell instead of updating the CPU.coolhardware - Friday, March 13, 2015 - link
I'm hoping Lenovo follows in Dell's footsteps and gets rid of the bezel around the screen along with big wasted area around the keyboard.Pretty sweet to get the same display size and pixel density:
13.3″ 75.59 square inche display (11.6″x6.5″) 3200×1800 16:9 Ratio 276.05 PPI
***all in a much smaller form factor!***
*Source for display specs: http://pixensity.com/list/laptop/
fokka - Friday, March 13, 2015 - link
the thing is for the tablet mode it's nice to have some bezel to grip the whole thing, so going the minimal bezel route like the xps 13 wouldn't be the most comfortable thing on a device like a yoga 3 pro.that's the same reason we have the big wasted space around the keyboard: that's where you hold the device in tablet mode. i think they still should have given us at least a row of half-height function keys, but we see that a convertible is always a compromise.
fokka - Friday, March 13, 2015 - link
agreed. the hinge might look nice to some and as long as it works it's fine by me, but if they go ahead and bost about it consists of over 800 parts, that just screams "over engineered" to me.i also don't see how a simple hinge has to look like a watchband, or a piece of jewelry and again: using 800 parts, when you could reach the same goal with just two is simply too much in my book.
Cook-e-Monster - Friday, March 13, 2015 - link
Hugely disappointing to see the keyboard get compromised like this. one of the most useful things about Lenovo is that they make good keyboards with intelligent layouts. Nixing the F-row and hamstringing the PgUp/Down and Home/End keys is probably a deal breaker for me.I really hope that there's a review coming for the recent HP Spectre. I think it (and the XPS) has Lenovo beat this year
Sushisamurai - Friday, March 13, 2015 - link
I appreciate you linking the notebook bench link, but the Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro isn't listed on your bench results yet (nor in CPU bench). I was also hoping there would be more of an in-depth discussion about the Core-M CPU and probably a few more "real life" use case results and short comings of the CPU, as this is Anandtech's first product review with a Core-M.I like how you included Dell's XPS 15, but for those unfamiliar with that model, I think you should have at least mentioned what CPU it was other than being a quad-core CPU. Without bench results, it's also hard to compare what core-M's performance is compared to other broadwell/Haswell offerings as the charts are comparing tablets and some Haswell-U's. I think it'd be an interesting dive to see what users would be sacrificing in terms of performance to go to Core-M (form-factor) versus intel's bigger mobile processors. I suppose I could wait for the bench results and pore over the charts myself, and since anyone can do that, that's not why we read anandtech.
Brett Howse - Saturday, March 14, 2015 - link
Sorry the Yoga 3 Pro was in Bench but not enabled for public viewing until after I posted. I just enabled it now.I did mention in the article that the Dell is a quad-core part. I have some more ideas as well to make that more clear but it's a backend thing.
Look for more Core M discussion soon. We had issues getting samples at the start since it seemed like a really slow release but we have some now. I've got a couple more Core M devices in my queue to look at.
Sushisamurai - Sunday, March 15, 2015 - link
Sweet. I'm looking forward to more core-M reviews. I think a lot of our readers are interested in reading what you guys have to say about the new MB apple released.Also, I'm aware other products' performance is listed in bench but it would be nice to include products that match the one you're reviewing in terms of size, form factor, and price - I felt that the products you included in your charts were heavily skewed to tablet comparisons, where we could have used some more comparisons for products in similar price ranges.
Otherwise, good read, thank you for your hard work.
sandineyes - Friday, March 13, 2015 - link
I actually bought a Yoga 3 Pro (my first laptop in over 10 years) during the holiday season, and eventually returned it after a few weeks. My thoughts:-The build quality on this thing is pretty poor for such an expensive device. The panel on the back of the screen on mine flexed quite a bit, as if it didn't fit perfectly. Similarly, there is a piece of plastic below the display that looks like it is fit into a rectangular slot, and that wiggled around too, as if it was glued poorly or something. It also shows usage very poorly; no amount of hand washing prevented it from looking like a mess after using it. I had a chance to touch a MBP while I owned this, and that felt markedly better made.
-The screen is not very good. It wasn't really that much of a problem, and the article mentions it getting better in the refresh, but mine was pretty poor. It was also my introduction to HiDPI Windows and all the caveats that come with that. I am also used to my 16:10 desktop monitor, so I'm probably a bit biased. But seriously, we need more 16:10 laptop screens that aren't on Macs.
-It generally felt fast enough, but mine could not handle HD streaming on Amazon Instant Video (tried Chrome and latest IE). The video would start stuttering, making it un-watchable. Netflix didn't have this issue, and neither did a 1080p video stored locally when used with VLC. I don't know if the refresh has this issue, but it made Amazon Instant Video a last resort.
-The battery life is terrible. I am not really used to laptops, so for me the 5 hours of life I managed out of the thing felt very oppressive. And although this is a minor issue, the included charging cable is too short.
-The last laptop I owned had physical click buttons; my index finger worked the pad, and my thumb rested on the left click button. Based on the Yoga I cannot see how people have adapted to use these new-fangled track pads with no buttons. It is like we've actually regressed in technology over the last 10 years when it comes to this. Getting click and drag to work on these damn things is real challenge.
-Make sure you keep that Harmony software installed; otherwise the computer won't properly deactivate the keyboard and track pad when in stand mode.
-This computer makes me want more, better hybrids to exist. Because of the utility of stand mode, I do not think I can ever buy a normal laptop or a tablet. The light weight of this thing is also a plus, but I think that is more a benefit to tablet mode, which isn't that useful in comparison to the other modes.
fokka - Friday, March 13, 2015 - link
thanks for your quick review, it's interesting to hear some real life caveats, even if you didn't use the latest model.i also share some of the same complaints about at least some of the current ultrabooks. i recently got to test an asus zenbook (ux301la) and while it looked stunning with its white glass finish, it only stood on three of its rubber feet and kept wiggling, as you moved your hand to and from the palm rest. even the (buttonless!) glass touchpad made a slight squeaking sound, when you moused around on it.
it seems to me that many manufacturers have a problem converting those nice press renders and incredibly high specs into really usable products that don't show some serious flaws after a short amount of time.
many people say this machine (e.g. a zenbook), or that laptop (e.g. the new xps 13) offer incredible build quality, but still i have to see one laptop model to offer such a continuously high build quality as apple does with their whole macbook line. a shame, since i'm really not a fan of osx.
i'm also not the biggest fan of hi dpi screens, especially when the effect is made obsolete due to the use of a pentile matrix. it seems we're just wasting money, energy and gpu cycles, hell, even usability (->scaling), just to have one more spec to boast about. and all this on the machines that are conceptually the worst place to start the dpi-revolution: battery and performance limited mobile devices.
"The screen is not very good." ...if people sum up a screen with those (your) words, i think we can agree that this specific panel was a poor choice on a somewhat premium device like the yoga 3 pro.
and a new $$$$ laptop not managing 1080p playback on one of the biggest VoD services... i think i have seen enough of core m for one day, even if that specific problem turns out to be driver related.
kyuu - Saturday, March 14, 2015 - link
Considering that you can go to the HP website right now and get the Spectre x360 with 1080p touch, 8GB of RAM, a 256GB SSD, a Core-i5 5200U, a much larger battery and what looks like much better build quality all for under $1000, I'm afraid Lenovo needs to do more than this refresh to keep the Yoga line competitive. You can even upgrade to a QHD display for only another $100, if you prefer resolution to battery life. Hopefully you guys get in a Spectre x360 for review in the near future.And if you don't care about a 360-degree hinge and a touchscreen, then the Dell XPS 13 knocks it out of the park.
kyuu - Saturday, March 14, 2015 - link
I will say this for Lenovo though: I much prefer soft-touch materials and colors like they have on the Yoga 3 Pro to cold, slick, plain-silver aluminum.Antronman - Saturday, March 14, 2015 - link
Considering that your average HP has a life expectancy about the same as your warranty, I wouldn't be buying one.But yes, the XPS 13 is the machine to buy right now.
Sushisamurai - Sunday, March 15, 2015 - link
Agreed, that was a good additionnonoverclock - Saturday, March 14, 2015 - link
I like the inclusion of "Brett's Core i7-860" results. It helps those of us with older systems compare with what we've actually got. Would like to see more of this.gamoniac - Saturday, March 14, 2015 - link
The yoga 2 pro in the link seems to be a refurbished item. Brand new one is around $1040, it seems.SanX - Sunday, March 15, 2015 - link
I decided to keep Yoga 3 Pro with its 5Y70 processor after this test which compares linear algebra matrix equations Y = AX performance. Here what Yoga shows compared to my overclocked to 4.5GHz 4770k:matrix size --> 1000 2000 3000 4000
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5Y70 2.6 GHz 0.27 2.90 8.80 20.7
4770k 4.5 GHz 0.12 1.81 6.70 16.2
(time in seconds, lower is better, dense matrix). Almost the same performance despite of thermal throttling. Wow!
Mumrik - Sunday, March 15, 2015 - link
Did they announce any exciting new spy- or adware for this refresh?Shadowmaster625 - Monday, March 16, 2015 - link
It is deplorable that they are charging $200 more for less performance when the only thing you're really getting is a skimpier battery. The thing should cost less, not more. DOTA 2 isnt even playable on a $1200 machine? That is unbelievable.sre123 - Tuesday, August 30, 2016 - link
can lenovo yoga 3 pro's prosessor intel core m be replaced by intel i5 or i7....