Lenovo ThinkBook 14s Yoga Gen 2 Review

The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga Gen 7 is a first-class company convertible, however our June evaluation unit’s $2,457 worth would possibly capsize a small enterprise. Fortuitously, Lenovo has one other 14-inch 2-in-1 for workplaces south of the enterprise: The ThinkBook 14s Yoga Gen 2 (begins at $1,007.40; $1,197.99 as examined) is a barely generic laptop computer with an old-school full HD (1,920-by-1,080-pixel) show—its side ratio is the acquainted 16:9 as an alternative of the marginally taller, newly modern 16:10—nevertheless it’s a succesful performer with a handy onboard stylus. The ThinkBook is not one of the best convertible you should purchase, however saving $1,250 has its points of interest. 

All the pieces You Want, Nothing You Do not 

We gave the primary go-around of the ThinkBook 14s Yoga an Editors’ Selection award in April 2021, however desk stakes have gone up since then. The Gen 2 mannequin sports activities a twelfth Era Intel Core processor—a Core i5-1235U within the $1,007.40 base mannequin. Our $1,197.99 Staples config has the identical 16GB of RAM, 512GB NVMe solid-state drive, and 1080p contact display screen however steps as much as a Core i7-1255U CPU (two Efficiency cores, eight Environment friendly cores, 12 threads).

(Credit score: Molly Flores)

The display screen is rated at 300 nits of brightness, which is satisfactory however not the 400 nits we at all times hope for, and makes use of IPS know-how; there isn’t any snazzy OLED mannequin accessible. Bezels are skinny—Lenovo cites an 86% screen-to-body ratio—and the webcam options 1080p as an alternative of 720p decision. The cam lacks Home windows Whats up face recognition, however there is a fingerprint reader built-in with the facility button. Reminiscence cannot be expanded previous 16GB, although there are two M.2 SSD slots. 

The aluminum ThinkBook has a two-tone shade scheme in Abyss Blue or our mannequin’s Mineral Grey. It measures 0.67 by 12.6 by 8.5 inches, an in depth match for the Dell Inspiron 14 7415 2-in-1 (0.71 by 12.7 by 8.4 inches), and weighs nearly the identical (3.31 kilos, to the Dell’s 3.4 kilos). The deluxe ThinkPad X1 Yoga is a little bit trimmer at 3.04 kilos. Within the case of the ThinkBook, there’s hardly any flex when you grasp the display screen corners or press the keyboard deck.

(Credit score: Molly Flores)

Two USB 3.1 Sort-C ports, one appropriate for the AC adapter and the opposite with Thunderbolt 4 performance, enhance the left edge. They’re joined by a USB 3.2 Sort-A port, an HDMI video output, and an audio jack. A second USB-A port and a microSD card slot are on the proper, together with the facility button, a safety lock slot, and a distinct segment for the equipped stylus.

(Credit score: Molly Flores)

A Bit Extra Than the Fundamentals 

The webcam includes a sliding privateness shutter within the prime bezel. At 1080p decision, it captures comparatively well-lit and colourful photographs with good element and nearly no noise. Backside-mounted audio system produce loud, barely hole sound; drumbeats sound extra like static than booming bass, however highs and midtones are clear, and you can also make out overlapping tracks. Dolby Audio software program offers music, film, recreation, and voice presets and an equalizer. 

The thin, 4.25-inch-long Lenovo Built-in Pen stashes in a charging slot on the proper edge and has two customizable buttons. It saved up with my quickest swoops and scribbles on the display screen, exhibiting good palm rejection. A equipped SmartNote app enables you to save pages of jotted notes and export them to Microsoft OneNote.

(Credit score: Molly Flores)

I discovered myself tapping the F6 key in hopes of turning up the brightness one other couple of notches, however the contact display screen is in any other case engaging, with clear white backgrounds and wealthy, well-saturated colours. Viewing angles are broad, and the perimeters of letters are sharp, not pixelated. Distinction is pretty good, although a brighter backlight would assist. 

The backlit keyboard has a satisfactorily, snappy typing really feel. Like many laptops’ layouts, it lacks Dwelling, Finish, Web page Up, and Web page Down keys, combining these features with the Fn key and cursor arrows and arranging these arrows in a slipshod, HP-style row as an alternative of the right inverted T. The up and down arrows, just like the top-row Escape and Delete keys, are too small and onerous to hit. Prime-row shortcut-key features embrace putting and ending Microsoft Groups calls, in addition to adjusting brightness and quantity. The midsize, buttonless touchpad has a barely stiff click on.

(Credit score: Molly Flores)

Lenovo preloads the Home windows 11 Professional system with pitches for a number of annual subscription providers, together with $29.99 Good Efficiency, $39.99 Good Privateness, and $49.99 Good Lock antitheft. An AI Assembly Supervisor program gives fee-based, real-time transcripts (in addition to foreign-language translation and subtitles) throughout videoconferences. Lenovo Good Noise Cancellation optimizes the microphones for a desk stuffed with attendees or a single speaker, whereas Lenovo Good Look gives to blur the background, prettify your face, and allow you to stroll round throughout a video name.

Testing the ThinkBook 14s Yoga Gen 2: Snappy Sufficient, However Not Blazing Quick 

For our benchmark charts, we in contrast the ThinkBook 14s Yoga Gen 2 to 4 different laptops appropriate for small enterprise. Two are convertibles, the Dell Inspiron 14 7415 2-in-1 and the 15.6-inch Samsung Galaxy Book2 Professional 360. Two are 14-inch clamshells, the Acer Swift 3 and the just-reviewed HP Pavilion Plus 14. You possibly can see their fundamental specs within the desk beneath.

Productiveness Assessments 

The primary benchmark of UL’s PCMark 10 suite simulates quite a lot of real-world productiveness and content-creation workflows to measure general efficiency for office-centric duties comparable to phrase processing, spreadsheet work, internet shopping, and videoconferencing. We additionally run PCMark 10’s Full System Drive take a look at to evaluate the load time and throughput of a laptop computer’s storage. 

Three benchmarks concentrate on the CPU, utilizing all accessible cores and threads, to charge a PC’s suitability for processor-intensive workloads. Maxon’s Cinebench R23 makes use of that firm’s Cinema 4D engine to render a posh scene, whereas Primate Labs’ Geekbench 5.4 Professional simulates in style apps starting from PDF rendering and speech recognition to machine studying. Lastly, we use the open-source video transcoder HandBrake 1.4 to transform a 12-minute video clip from 4K to 1080p decision (decrease instances are higher). 

Our ultimate productiveness take a look at is Puget Techniques’ PugetBench for Photoshop, which makes use of the Artistic Cloud model 22 of Adobe’s well-known picture editor to charge a PC’s efficiency for content material creation and multimedia purposes. It is an automatic extension that executes quite a lot of basic and GPU-accelerated Photoshop duties starting from opening, rotating, resizing, and saving a picture to making use of masks, gradient fills, and filters.

The Yoga Gen 2 saved towards the again of the pack in these assessments. It proved greater than appropriate for on a regular basis purposes—it simply cleared the 4,000-point hurdle in PCMark 10 that signifies glorious productiveness for Microsoft Workplace or Google Workspace—however its CPU outcomes have been underwhelming, partly as a result of Core i7-1255U’s having solely two Efficiency cores. 

Graphics Assessments 

We take a look at Home windows PCs’ graphics with two DirectX 12 gaming simulations from UL’s 3DMark, Evening Raid (extra modest, appropriate for laptops with built-in graphics) and Time Spy (extra demanding, appropriate for gaming rigs with discrete GPUs). 

We additionally run two assessments from the cross-platform GPU benchmark GFXBench 5, which stresses each low-level routines like texturing and high-level, game-like picture rendering. The 1440p Aztec Ruins and 1080p Automotive Chase assessments, rendered offscreen to accommodate completely different show resolutions, train graphics and compute shaders utilizing the OpenGL programming interface and {hardware} tessellation respectively. The extra frames per second (fps), the higher.

None of those laptops’ built-in graphics comes inside a rustic mile of the discrete GPUs you will discover in gaming rigs, so that they’re strictly for informal gaming and streaming media as an alternative of the most recent shoot-em-ups. The Lenovo once more settled for fourth place in a five-way race. 

Battery and Show Assessments 

We take a look at laptops’ battery life by enjoying a regionally saved 720p video file (the open-source Blender film Tears of Metal(Opens in a brand new window)) with show brightness at 50% and audio quantity at 100%. We be certain that the battery is absolutely charged earlier than the take a look at, with Wi-Fi and keyboard backlighting turned off. 

We additionally use a Datacolor SpyderX Elite monitor calibration sensor and its Home windows software program to measure a laptop computer display screen’s shade saturation—what proportion of the sRGB, Adobe RGB, and DCI-P3 shade gamuts or palettes the show can present—and its 50% and peak brightness in nits (candelas per sq. meter).

Although it managed solely a midfield end, the ThinkBook’s battery life was spectacular—it ought to get you thru a full day of labor or faculty plus a night’s leisure. Its display screen delivered fairly good shade and readability, although it was no match for the AMOLED display screen within the Samsung or the OLED one within the Pavilion Plus, and its brightness was lackluster at finest.

Verdict: A Secure Small-Enterprise Choice 

We see so many sleeker convertibles with brighter, extra colourful shows that we’re not notably excited by the Lenovo ThinkBook 14s Yoga Gen 2, however we will not deny it is a strong worth.

(Credit score: Molly Flores)

A sunnier display screen and a greater keyboard can be good, to make certain, and people issues can be found in different laptops, each enterprise fashions just like the ThinkPad and Dell Latitude collection and shopper entries like Lenovo’s Yoga 9i Gen 7 and HP’s Spectre line. However most of them price significantly extra. The ThinkBook is a well-built, low-priced small-business answer that you simply should not overlook if it is in your worth zone.