Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga 3rd Gen Review (2018): Full-Featured Convertible

In the following benchmarks we employ two very different battery life tests, Battery Eater Pro and a custom 1080p HD video loop test developed in-house, to prove out battery life with our test group of machines. In all tests, Windows 10 Quiet Hours has been enabled and the displays are calibrated with lux meters on pure white screens to as close to 115 lux as possible. For the average laptop this is somewhere between a 40 - 60% brightness setting. Since laptop displays significantly affect power consumption and battery life, it's important to ensure a level playing field with respect to brightness of the display for battery testing. However, since many laptop displays vary in brightness at each respective setting in Windows, this calibration with the meter is critical to ensure all displays are set to as near identical brightness as possible before testing.

Battery Life - How We Test:

Our custom HotHardware video loop test takes a 1080p HD video with a 16Kbps bit rate and loops it repeatedly, with 1 minute break intervals in between. A timer log file increments minutes of up-time every minute -- along with the grand total -- before system shutdown is stored in the log. This is a lighter-duty test that is still a bit more strenuous than many office productivity tasks, but it's not nearly as taxing as the load Battery Eater puts on a system.

While a lot has changed from the last gen ThinkPad X1 Yoga, battery life remains roughly the same. In our real-world testing, the battery life was nearly identical to the X1 Yoga Gen 2 ultrabook sporting a 1440p OLED display, but with a dual-core CPU and slightly larger battery (56 Whr, versus 54 Whr in the new machine). Regardless, both machines powered down just minutes from each other in our testing. So what you're looking at is a machine that will remain powered for just over 6 hours under standard video streaming usage at modest brightness levels.


The ThinkPad X1 Yoga comes equipped with a Li-ion 54 Whr battery with RapidCharge technology. Under light usage, Lenovo claims the battery can last upwards of 15 hours, but under heavy, sustained load, the battery runs out of juice at about the 2.5 hour mark. While we aren't looking at industry leading up time, overall battery life respectable for Lenovo's latest ThinkPad X1 Yoga.

While testing the battery performance, especially under heavy load, the fan inside the ThinkPad X1 Yoga was noticeably audible. The sound was never loud or distracting though. Instead of a high pitched fan, it just sounded like a little wind was being pushed through the X1 Yoga. So, in terms of acoustics this ultrabook scores high marks. Just know it won't be fully silent when under load. As for the thermals, we would have liked to seen them reduced just a bit. When under sustained load the Intel Core i5-8250U processor would reach it's thermal threshold and throttle clock speeds. It's the equivalent of easing up on the gas pedal. Sure you're still moving forward at a good pace, but 60MPH just isn't the same as 100MPH.