The eye-catching and unique watchband hinge was one of the defining aspects of last year's Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro and one of our favourite elements, too. So it was happily that I saw it had made a return for this year's Yoga 900 convertible. Like before, there are over 800 pieces of aluminium and steel used for its construction and Lenovo says less force is required to open and shut. I certainly didn't have any problems with it when I went hands on a few weeks ago; the Yoga 900 contorting and bending with resolute grace. The hinge is now also colour-matched against the chassis you opt for, with a choice of orange, gold and silver available. It looks even classier than ever.
At around 14.9mm at its thickest point, and weighing 1.29kg, Lenovo says the Yoga 900 is the thinnest convertible with an Intel Core i processor available. It's an important distinction, as laptops with Intel's low-power Core m processors allow for fan-less designs, thereby shaving ever more millimetres off the dimensions.
Cooling was in fact one of the key challenges Lenovo faced with the Yoga 900. The convertible manages to have a metal alloy fan that is 32% larger than in the older Yoga but somehow managed to reduce density by 66%. There are specially designed vents to help cooling further. Altogether, Lenovo says there is 15% better airflow and 30% improved cooling, yet the system runs quieter than ever before. I didn't manage to put the Yoga 900 under load during the hands on so it will be interesting to hear how loud the fans spin up to when pushing the system.
In terms of the battery, Lenovo has improved on this, too. It has a 50% higher battery density, increasing from 44WHr to 66WHr, which should hopefully translate to better battery life. Lenovo says to expect around 9 hours of real life performance (constituting HD video playback and a screen set to 200nits) or 10 hours of web browsing, which is very respectable for such a svelte laptop.
The 13.3in screen has a 3,200x1,800 resolution IPS panel and there are JBL stereo speakers. USB Type-C makes an appearance. The keyboard has been improved over last year's with a full-size six row keyboard (the old Yoga had a five row keyboard). The keys are backlit, too, and I found them nice and comfortable to type away on. The touchpad has also been made larger and more comfortable to use. A leather trim surrounds the keyboard and touchpad that feels great to the touch. The Yoga 900 can be specified with up to 6th gen Core i7 processors and 16GB of memory. Graphics performance comes from integrated Intel HD Graphics 520.
Starting price will be £1,199 and available later on in October. From what I saw, it looks as though the Yoga 900 builds upon a lot of what made the Yoga 3 Pro great, but we'll get one in for review as soon as they become available.
