Lenovo’s laptop lineup has continued to impress us, and their super light, super fast and super portable Lenovo Yoga 900s is no exception. This laptop isn’t for everyone, and it lacks in some areas, but it is a solid choice for many others. So read on and find out why the Lenovo Yoga 900s takes a Techaeris Top Pick 2016 award. If you prefer to watch a video review, check out the video below.
Specifications
Design
The Lenovo Yoga 900s is 12.8mm thin, making it one of the thinnest devices on the market. It is available in Platinum Silver and Champagne Gold, both of which are pretty flashy in looks. Our review unit came in the gold design, which I believe is an acquired taste. I would have opted for the silver color on a personal level, but my wife really loved the gold. The 900s is made of a carbon fiber WebCore top, magnesium bottom and high quality plastics on the interior. It’s super lightweight, coming in around 2.2 lbs, making it virtually unnoticeable in a bag or backpack. The Lenovo and Yoga branding are nice and subtle on the top and give the laptop a clean, finished look.
On the left of the laptop is the proprietary power port and one USB Type-C port. Why they didn’t use USB Type-C for power is beyond me. And on the right you’ll find one USB 3.0 port, headphone jack and power button. The back hinge of the Lenovo Yoga 900s is a watchband style hinge, and it looks absolutely amazing. On the bottom of the laptop you’ll find the stereo speakers. Because this thing is so thin, fitting speakers in here at all is amazing. That being said, the speakers are certainly nothing to write home about. The 12″ Apple MacBook does a far better job in the sound department but the 900s blows it away in CPU power. Lenovo did an excellent job of designing this laptop. It’s sleek, sexy, thin and light. It’s might be the perfect size for anyone on the move who wants something powerful but ultra-portable.
Display
The 12.5″ QHD IPS 2560×1440 display on our review model is super crisp. The colors were very natural with no oversaturation, and the blacks were deep and whites clean. Text looked very crisp, but since the screen is small, setting text at the highest resolution makes the text small. I’d recommend setting the resolution a little lower if you have issues reading small text. The display is nice and bright, but it does suffer from poor viewing angles in bright sunlight. However, viewing angles in room lighting are superb and watching movies and streaming HD content is very enjoyable.
The touch screen is very responsive and pin accurate. I had no problems with touching even the smallest points on the screen. Pinch to zoom works beautifully and scrolling is lag free and fluid. The touch screen also supports Lenovo’s stylus as well as third-party styluses which is a feature I don’t use much but could be useful for some. Overall, the display is really a joy to use though it can become frustrating in bright sunlight…but then I don’t use my laptops much in bright sunlight.
Software/Ecosystem
Windows 10 Home is what comes standard on the Lenovo Yoga 900s and you can upgrade to Pro if you like. Not much to say on the Windows 10 front other than it’s Microsoft’s best OS to date, and if you haven’t updated you should. There is of course the normal bits and pieces of bloatware here, the worst offender being McAfee Antivirus. The first thing you should do when getting the Lenovo Yoga 900s is to clear out all the bloatware and save yourself the headaches.
Performance
The Lenovo Yoga 900s runs on the Intel m mobile chipset. You can configure it with the m5 or m7 and go from 4GB to 8GB of RAM. The three SSD options are 128GB, 256GB and 512GB. The Intel m series isn’t going to be a desktop performing chipset, but these little guys have gotten better and better. The 900s was able to handle all the web browsing, media streaming, light photo editing and all the basic tasks you can think of with ease. While it may seem the Intel m chipset is under powered that isn’t the case, and I found the 900s to perform on par with other laptops of this stature, such as the Apple 12″ Macbook.
Speakers/Sound
Speakers are on the bottom and they sound really nice when the 900s is in stand or tent mode, but they lose some luster when in laptop or tablet mode. Overall, though, they are acceptable for video calls or just basic voice like YouTube videos. If you want to stream movies and music with this, I would suggest upping your sound options.
Camera
The front 720p camera is crisp and clear and works well with Skype and Google Hangouts. I did not attempt to use the front facing camera as an actual stills camera, though, and I wouldn’t recommend that anyway.
Battery Life
Lenovo claims 10 hours+ of battery life and I was able to get just over 9 hours, but I also run my screen at full brightness and I don’t put the screen to sleep for a few hours. I think you could easily pull 10 hours plus with this laptop. It’s just a matter of how you personally use it.
Price/Value
Starting at $899 and going up from there, the Lenovo Yoga 900s is very much worth the money if you’re looking for that ultra portability and versatility.
Wrap Up
This machine could be worth the price to some, especially those looking for something lightweight and portable. If you’re on the hunt for a desktop replacement or have the need for processing and RAM power then you should probably look elsewhere. The 900s can handle many tasks and even perform some heavier tasks but it does it sparingly so keep that in mind.
[button link=”http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/yoga/900-series/yoga-900s/” icon=”fa-shopping-cart” side=”left” target=”blank” color=”285b5e” textcolor=”ffffff”]Purchase from Lenovo[/button]*We were sent a review unit of the Lenovo Yoga 900s for the purposes of this review.
Last Updated on February 20, 2020.
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