Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga Gen 6
One of the best bes Windows 10 convertibles around, a but Lenovo charges charg a high price and it’s heavier heavie than ideal
“Despite the fan rarely going above a low drone, the ThinkPad X1 Yoga Gen 6 proved a star performer in our benchmarks”
SCORE
PRICE From £1,330 (£1,596 (£ inc VAT) from lenovo.com
H ow serendipitous serendip that we revi review the latest ThinkP ThinkPad X1 Yoga in the same issue as the Ap Apple iPad Pro 12.9in ( see p62): ): if o one of your criteria is pen-on-screen capability, ca both Lenovo and Apple m make a compelling argument for your money.
In other ways, these are two very different beasts. The X1 Yoga is a serious business tool dressed in grey aluminium, with the only notes of relief being the red trackpoint in the centre of the keyboard and a backlit dot over the “i” in ThinkPad on the lid. It’s understated, classy and a little boring.
It’s also incredibly well made, with no hint of flex in the metal lid or the chassis. Lenovo backs this up with MIL-STD-810H tests, so you know you can use this laptop in even tough environments such as deserts without fear of failure. We don’t suggest you take your iPad Pro to such places.
Slim shady
Lenovo achieves this ruggedness despite the slim dimensions. It measures 15mm thick, with bezelled edges to give it the impression of even more slenderness from the front.
Lenovo refuses to sacrifice ports. You’ll find a full-size HDMI 2 output on the left alongside one USB-A 3.1 port and two Thunderbolt 4 ports; the one closest to the back also acts as the power input. Head over to the right and you’ll find a second USB-A 3.1 port, 3.5mm jack and Kensington lock slot. There’s also a slot for a garaged stylus.
Lenovo doubles down on biometric security by embedding a fingerprint reader into the power button, whilst an infrared webcam supports Windows Hello for handsfree logins and an integrated privacy cover. It’s only a shame that Lenovo hasn’t upgraded the webcam to 1080p or higher as the 720p resolution is no match for dedicated webcams.
Image quality is bog standard, with compression and mediocre colours. The Yoga’s strongest suit here is its excellent microphone system, with four far-field mics built in to clearly capture your voice rather than background sounds. Lenovo matches those mics with a fine pair of speakers, which sit on either side of the keyboard to create a stereo stage. I would be quite happy to listening to music on these whilst tapping away on a long document.
Easy input
This brings us to the keyboard, which lacks the luxurious deep travel of ThinkPads of yore but remains a high-quality offering. It wins for the size and the contouring of the keys – they feel natural under the finger – and its sheer quietness. Even the heaviest typist won’t annoy th their i companions with the X1 Yog Yoga.
Lenovo pays careful attention to the function key keys at the top, with grouping to make them easier to hit plus dedicated keys for Home, End, Insert and Delete. Then there’s the double-height Enter key and elongated spacebar. Note the mouse buttons placed just below the keyboard, which are particularly useful for those who still use the trackpoint, and although lthough that results sults in a smaller trackpad ackpad (110 x 57mm) mm) few people will complain.
It helps that you can whip out the previously mentioned ned stylus at a moment’s t’s notice, whether to annotate a PDF, sign a document or draw upon the screen. Take scrawled note, ote, though, that its size is reminiscent miniscent of the styluses found d with Palm Pilots rather than han a chunky Apple Pencil. The he larger your fingers, the more e difficult you will find it to hold. d.
Screen marks
Lenovo supplies four different IPS panels with the Yoga Gen 6, so pay attention when you pick your model. I tested the top-end 3,840 x 2,400 version with HDR400 certification, a nominal peak brightness of 500cd/m2 (I measured 531cd/m2) and the promise of 90% DCI-P3 coverage. The reality exceeded even that expectation with 97% coverage and a superb maximum Delta E of 0.58. That translates into superb accuracy.
The other three panels Lenovo offers won’t be as good, with no promises of colour coverage, and also note their lower 1,920 x 1,200 resolution. That translates into 162ppi, which is sharp to the human eye at distances from 21in and over, so if you normally view your laptop screen at arm’s length, it will still look sharp.
However, if you can afford the higher-spec panel then choose it. Not simply because of the greater colour coverage, but because when in tablet mode you’ll likely be working at closer quarters than arm’s length.
As a tablet, the argument for the ThinkPad is weaker, not only against the iPad Pro but also lighter 2-in-1 convertibles such as the Dynabook Portégé X30W-J ( see issue 319, p56). Whil Whilst t a weight of 1.4kg is respectable able for a 14in laptop, this isn’t a machine you’ll want to hold ld in one hand for long.
The iPad Pro weighs 682g, the Dynabook 950g.
Numbers game
Where Lenovo pulls well ahead of the Dynabook is power. Despite the fan rarely going above a low drone, it proved a star performer rformer in our benchmarks. A score ore of 159 is exceptional from a Core i7-1165G7, and one
reason for this is the stunning PCIe 4 SSD: it returned 5,450MB/sec in AS SSD’s sequential write test and 3,547MB/sec for reads. 16GB of RAM always helps, but note this is soldered in and not upgradeable.
The Yoga relies on integrated Iris Xe graphics but again we saw results at the top end of this accelerator’s skills. A 51fps at 1080p in Metro: Last
Light is strong, as is 41fps in F1 2020 and 67fps in Dirt: Showdown. The only negative compared to some recent laptops is a video-rundown score of 8hrs 29mins in our battery tests. I hoped for ten hours or more, and Lenovo promises 15 hours under light use. Still, the power adapter won’t take up much space in your bag and it weighs only 350g.
So to the big question of whether you should buy the X1 Yoga – and an uncomfortable conversation about prices. If you want the display I tested, your only current option on
lenovo.com is a customisable model that ships in “more than six weeks” and costs £2,008 exc VAT. That’s with 32GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD. The precise spec I tested, with the part code 20XY004BUK, isn’t available, which is a shame as it also supports 4G; that’s a £140 upgrade on Lenovo’s website, or you can buy 5G for £400.
Cheaper options are available. For example, £1,542 exc VAT buys a Core i5 model with 16GB of RAM, a 512GB SSD, a 1,920 x 1,200 screen and 4G. That’s not cheap, but it includes a three-year return-to-base warranty you can upgrade to on-site for £89.
Should your IT department offer you the X1 Yoga Gen 6 as a laptop then I wouldn’t hesitate: it’s a great convertible laptop despite the minor weaknesses I’ve highlighted. I just hope that they can negotiate a better deal than what’s currently on offer direct from Lenovo. TIM DANTON
SPECIFICATIONS
4-core 2.8GHz (4.7GHz burst) Intel Core i7-1165G7 processor 16GB 4,266MHz LPDDR4x RAM Intel Iris Xe Graphics 14in touchscreen IPS display, 3,840 x 2,400 resolution 512GB M.2 PCIe 4 SSD 720p IR webcam 2x2 Wi-Fi 6 Bluetooth 5.2 2 x Thunderbolt 4 2 x USB-A 3.1 HDMI 2 supports 4G NFC 3.5mm jack Lenovo Integrated Pen 57Wh battery Windows 10 Pro 314 x 223 x 15mm (WDH) 1.4kg 3yr C&R warranty part code 20XY004BUK