Lenovo Yoga 700 Review: A Flexible 14-Inch Ultraportable Convertible


Lenovo Yoga 700 Intro and Specifications

With the release of Windows 8, Microsoft effectively encouraged its hardware partners to think beyond the confines of traditional PC design, giving them the nudge they needed to introduce bold new products. Lenovo embraced the challenge, and in 2012 it brought its first Yoga system to market, a multi-mode laptop that could fold back onto itself like a carnival contortionist.

The design proved popular, so over the past few years Lenovo has added new laptops to its Yoga line. One of the newest is the Yoga 700, a 14-inch convertible that takes advantage of the latest technologies, pairing Intel's Skylake architecture with Microsoft's Windows 10 platform. It's a marriage of hardware and software made flexible through the Yoga's familiar ability to assume different modes.

Lenovo Yoga 700

Therein lies the beauty of the Yoga 700. At its core, the Yoga 700 is a laptop like any number of other ultraportable on the market, But it can also assume the role of tablet by bending the display all the way back on its keyboard. And in between those two modes are two other options—stand mode for watching movies or video chatting with relatives, and a tent mode that's ideal for touch input, like scrolling through a recipe on the kitchen counter or cycling through a playlist of songs.

Lenovo's Yoga 700 is the fourth generation of the Yoga line and it's available in four different configurations on the company's website. The model we have in for evaluation is a special SKU for Best Buy stores where it normally sells for $900 (on sale for $800 at the time of this writing). It has the same specs as the $900 80QD00BWUS model on Lenovo's web store, including an Intel Core i5-6200U dual-core processor, 8GB of DDR3L 1600MHz RAM, and a 256GB solid state drive—not a shabby foundation for a sub-$1,000 machine.

Lenovo Yoga 700
Specifications & Features
Processor Options 6th Gen Intel Core i7-6200U (3M Cache, 2.3GHz to 2.8GHz)
Display
14-inch Full HD (1920x1080) IPS w/ Touch
Graphics Intel HD Graphics 520
Memory
8GB DDR3L 1600MHz
Storage
256GB Solid State Drive
Optical N/A
Ethernet N/A
Wireless Connectivity
802.11ac 2x2 Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0
Interface (Left)
Power button; Novo button (recovery); Auto rotate control; Volume control; micro HDMI; USB 3.0
Interface (Right
DC-in w/ USB 2.0; USB 3.0; 3.5mm audio combo jack; 4-in-1 memory card reader
Interface (Back) N/A
Webcam
720p HD
Operating System
Windows 10 Home 64-Bit
Battery 45Whr (rated up to 7 hours of local video playback)
Dimensions 0.72 (H) x 13.19 (W) x 9.04 (D) inches
Weight
3.52 pounds
Manufacturer Warranty
1 year
Pricing $899.99 (Best Buy SKU)

Lenovo Yoga 700 Keyboard Closeup

This particular configuration also sports integrated Intel HD Graphics 520, which tells you that it's not intended for any kind of serious gaming. If you need a stronger graphics subsystem for whatever reason, Lenovo's top end configuration adds a discrete NVIDIA GeForce 940M GPU with 2GB of onboard memory to the equation. That still isn't enough to transform the Yoga 700 into a gaming powerhouse, but for casual game play and tasks that require added graphics horsepower, it's an option.

What's not an option is custom configuring a Yoga 700—it's Lenovo's way or the highway. This isn't a major deal since Lenovo's four configurations cover most of the bases, but if you wanted to upgrade the GPU to a GeForce 940M without also doubling the SSD storage space to 256GB, you'd be out of luck

As the top seller of PCs in the world, Lenovo might be tempted to rest on its laurels with uninspired upgrades, though so far it hasn't done that. Is the Yoga 700 another solid release from Lenovo? Let's take a closer look and find out...

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