Lenovo Yoga 710 (14-inch) Review

Introduction, Design, & Features

You've seen products advertised as "often imitated, never duplicated." It's debatable whether the second claim applies to Lenovo's Yoga series of convertible laptops, whose flip-and-fold design has, for all practical purposes, been duplicated by 2-in-1 models from the likes of HP, Dell, and Asus.

But there's something to be said for sticking with the original.

Certainly, no one has made a better multimode portable than Lenovo. The latest midrange Yoga 710 ($799 for the 14-inch model seen here) delivers solid value with a premium design, discrete graphics, and impressive battery life—all while fixing many of the grumbles we had with its Yoga 700 predecessor.

Previously, we'd noted how we disliked the plasticky feel of the chassis and the shallow keyboard travel. Both of these issues are fixed, thanks to a system redesign that introduces a stylish aluminum body and a roomy, comfortable keyboard.

Like the earlier Yoga 700, the Yoga 710—or model 710-14ISK, to give it its full name—has a two-hinge design. The angled, solid hinges aren't as elegant as the full-width "watchband" hinge of the flagship Yoga 900 series, but they give you the same flexibility of positioning the display at any point along its 360-degree arc of travel. As with all Yogas, you can flip the screen fully around and use the system in tablet mode, too.

Mind you, at 3.52 pounds, this Lenovo is a bit heavy for using as a tablet for any length of time. Still, the option is there. More useful will be its agility to stand in a triangulated tent, perfect for sharing presentations or watching videos.

Work and play will both benefit from the 14-inch touch screen's extra real estate compared to the more common 13.3-inch displays. The screen offers full-HD (1,920x1,080, or 1080p) resolution, a good fit for its size. Text isn't too small to read comfortably, nor are icons too small to tap with a finger.

What do you get for your $799? Our Windows 10 Home test unit featured a 6th-Generation ("Skylake") 2.3GHz Intel Core i5-6200U processor, 8GB of system memory, Nvidia GeForce 940MX graphics with 2GB of memory, and a 256GB solid-state drive (SSD). These specs carried the Yoga 710 to strong results in our testing, with battery life being a particular standout.

Design

Inside specs only tell part of the story. The Yoga 710 has a gorgeous aesthetic, with an aluminum chassis and diamond-cut bezels. Even the embossed Yoga logo looks stylish. The case design marks a dramatic upgrade from the Yoga 700, and it seems able to withstand fingerprints and smudges, unlike its plastic predecessor. The case alone makes this look like a pricier notebook than it is.

At 3.52 pounds, the Yoga's weight is on par with the 13.3-inch Apple MacBook Pro, which weighs 3.48 pounds, and significantly lighter than the ThinkPad Yoga 460's 4.2 pounds. Its design is particularly compact, with a physical footprint that's about the same as the 13.3-inch Yoga 900. The Yoga 710 measures 12.7 by 8.8 by 0.68 inches, versus the ThinkPad Yoga 460's 13.3 by 9.3 by 0.7 inches.

The rest of the convertible's design is straightforward. The square AC adapter is lightweight and portable, but takes up two spots on a standard power strip. The power jack plugs into the left rear corner of the laptop, and fits snugly in place; an LED to its right blinks slowly during charging, and holds steady when the system reaches a full charge. Also along the left edge are an SD-card slot and an audio combo jack for headsets.

Along the right side, you'll find an always-on USB 3.0 port, a second USB 3.0 port, and a micro-HDMI port. We were disappointed not to see a USB Type-C port, and would have preferred to see a third USB port on a system of this size.

Also on the right side is the no-longer-plastic power/sleep button. We found this metal sliver of a button not well-defined and oddly difficult to press, requiring considerable pressure with a fingernail rather than a fingertip to depress flush to the edge.

Built-in connectivity includes Bluetooth 4.0 and 802.11ac 2x2 Wi-Fi using the Intel 8260 chipset. The system has ventilation ports at the bottom, as well as beneath the screen, so if you plan to put this laptop directly on top of your jeans or bedcovers, be prepared—it might get warm.

Lenovo offers a one-year warranty on the Yoga 710.

Features

The defining feature of the Yoga series, like that of its competitors, is the ability to bend the screen around up to 360 degrees, with stops at various articulations in between.

The keyboard is automatically disabled when you flip the screen past 180 degrees to tablet mode or the L-shaped easel mode, with the keyboard face down on the desk. The third mode is for use flipped around like a tent, propped like an inverted V.

Lenovo fits the 14-inch screen into little more than a 13.3-inch space by minimizing the screen bezels at right and left, and minimizing the head and chin of the screen, too. Getting more screen in the same space is an appealing prospect for having more room to review documents and spreadsheets, view and edit photos and videos, or Alt+Tab among multiple open windows. On the other hand, the smaller screen bezels all around could be an issue if you're using the 710 in tablet mode. When holding it as a tablet, we found it easy to accidentally tap on something unintended. That said, we don't expect many to hand-hold this 2-in-1 that often, given its weight. Still, it's something to be aware of that makes using the Yoga as a tablet more challenging.

While the 1080p display looked bright and sharp, we have to admit that we found ourselves wishing Lenovo offered a higher-resolution option, as well. Nonetheless, the IPS screen offered broad viewing angles, and colors looked accurate and popped on our test images.

The Yoga 710's overall build feels sturdier than its predecessor's. We noted the 700's screen wobbled during taps and swipes in laptop mode, but we saw none of that this time around. The screen felt firmly in place. Likewise, the keyboard deck never flexed as we typed—again, an improvement over the 700.

We particularly liked the backlit, island-style keyboard. The keys are significantly larger and more defined than on the Yoga 900, with bright and bold white lettering and good travel. The Shift and Backspace keys are comfortably sized, and the PgUp, PgDn, Home, and End buttons are all the same size as standard keys. The backlit keys are bright, and even at maximum brightness, we found minimal light bleed from the keys. (The only keys with notable bleed were the smaller, half-size function buttons along the top row.)

As with the Yoga 700, Lenovo opted to set the Yoga 710's Windows 10 scaling to 150 percent. This looked fine for browser text and the general Windows 10 experience, but text looked fuzzy when we created a document using OpenOffice using the default fonts. This effect was fixed when we changed the zoom to 125 percent, the same thing we had to do with the 700.

We had a more mixed experience with the touch pad. Measuring a generous 4.25 inches wide, the pad is centered beneath the space bar. We liked the size and location of the touch pad, but noticed the surface could have been just a bit smoother. Our fingers didn't glide over it as easily as other pads we've tried.

Another issue: We had what seemed like a glitchy touch pad, on which the left-click button didn't behave consistently, and we could too easily enlarge or shrink a screen accidentally simply by brushing our palm against it. The problem lessened, but still persisted, after updating the touch-pad driver as Lenovo suggested. Over our time with the Yoga 710, it seemed that anywhere from every two to every 20 left-clicks yielded no response, and the problem sometimes repeated several times before correcting itself. We tried a second unit which behaved more consistently, but occasionally had touch-pad issues as well. Bottom line: Your mileage may vary. If you tap to click, you might not notice the issue with any consistency; if you press down to click, it might be more pronounced.

Also disappointing was the 1-megapixel, 720p Webcam. While it was okay in low light, images were fuzzy and disappointing during Google Hangout video calls.

Conversely, the system's JBL stereo speakers and Dolby Audio Premium-enhanced audio impressed. While bass tones could have been a bit fuller, the audio from the bottom-firing speakers was suitably loud and lacked distortion. The Dolby software's surround sound effect worked even in music, such as the ticking clock in Lindsey Stirling's "Shatter Me" track.

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Source: Lenovo Yoga 710 (14-inch) Review