Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga 2018 (i7-8550U, HDR WQHD) Convertible Review

We did not notice any big changes to the black, wedge-shaped case compared to its predecessor. The largest differences are in the hinges, the port selection and the two ThinkPad logos, which are now black instead of silver. The X1 Yoga 2018 is immediately recognizable as a ThinkPad due to its red TrackPoint, the unusual touchpad build, the striking logos, the ThinkPad keyboard, as well as the soft-touch cover that attracts fingerprints, but has a very nice feel. The case is made from light-weight hybrid carbon fiber.

The base unit can be warped minimally under strong pressure and makes slight creaking noises. The display cover, which opens to 360°, is quite stable, but not pressure resistant. The overall stability is decent. It is not possible to open the device with one hand; Lenovo has obviously preferred giving the device strong hinges that ensure stable positioning in any mode. The keyboard automatically retracts into the base unit at an opening angle of 270° and above. This creates a more or less smooth surface and the keys cannot be pressed anymore, which improves handling in tablet mode. The workmanship appears to be good and rounds off our general impression of a high-quality case nicely. 

As most of our comparison notebooks are 13-inch devices, while the X1 Yoga 2018 has a 14-inch screen, we have also included the 14-inch Asus ZenBook 3 Deluxe, which claims to be very compact, into our size comparison. We have also left out the Toshiba Portégé (12.5-inch) in this particular comparison. It is easy to see that unlike Asus, Lenovo has not put compact size high on its list of requirements. The same can be said for its predecessor from last year, which has an identical footprint while being a little thicker than today's test unit. 

The slim MS Surface Book 2 is the longest and thickest device of our comparison (height of 23 mm/~0.9 in). The Asus ZenBook 3 Deluxe requires the least space and is only 12.9 mm (~0.5 in) thick, while the second place is taken by the HP EliteBook x360 G2, which is only 2 mm (~ 0.07 in) thicker.

The port selection is lavish and leaves absolutely nothing to be desired. Apart from HDMI, audio and NFC, the device also offers no less than 2 USB 3.0 Type-A ports and 2 USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-C ports, which both support Thunderbolt 3 (4 lanes) and DisplayPort. This will please not only users who enjoy using (several) external screens with resolutions of up to 4K. Lenovo has included an RJ45 adapter for the proprietary mini-Ethernet port. Even port zombie VGA has taken care of by adding an HDMI-to-VGA adapter to the box. The device is not compatible with Lenovo's new SideDock connector.

The positioning of this marvelous port selection is not perfect, but not a big issue either. At least there cannot be any collisions with cables or sticks towards the front of the sides.

In line with the stellar port selection, the UHS-II-capable SD card reader, which seems to be connected via PCIe, does an excellent job and is among the top 10 fastest card readers of or database in the JPG copy test. This is not the case for sequential reading, but the Lenovo ThinkPad Yoga still reaches great rates in this area as well. Its predecessor, on the other hand, was rather slow and only reached USB 3.0 speeds. Not only photographers will appreciate this great improvement. All our measurements were made with our reference card, the Toshiba Exceria Pro SDXC 64 GB UHS-II. We do have to criticize the placement of the SD card reader, as it is hidden behind a cover at the back of the device.

Lenovo has made a good choice in the area of wireless communications as well, and has treated the new ThinkPad X1 Yoga with the tried and tested Intel Dual Bank Wireless-AC 8265, which reaches a maximum gross transmission rate of 867 MBit/s thanks to its MIM 2x2 antenna construction, and includes Bluetooth 4.2. If you take into account the usual overhead of about 200 MBit/s, the test unit shows very good, although not perfect, transmission rates when connected to our reference router Linksys EA8500 (distance of 1 meter/~3.3 ft).

Like most other competitors, the X1 Yoga 2018 is a little weaker when sending data. The Toshiba Portégé X20W shows that more is possible, although this device has rather disappointing speeds when receiving data.

The security features include an up-to-date TPM 2.0 chip as well as a fingerprint reader, although this played up a little when setting up Windows Hello. Nonetheless, it locks and unlocks the convertible quickly and reliably. If you decide to get the Windows 10 Pro version, you will also be equipped with the BitLocker hard drive encryption feature. If you worry about the webcam being active by mistake, or being hacked, you can slide the ThinkShutter over and simply block its vision.

Apart from the obligatory power supply and QuickStart guide, our test unit also comes with two adapters, one for HDMI to VGA and one for mini Ethernet to RJ45, as well as a stylus that can be inserted into the case. Lenovo does not offer further accessories specific to the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga.

Due to the lack of maintenance hatches and the fact that the battery is not accessible from outside, any maintenance work will require the removal of the bottom cover, which is held in place by eight Philipps screws. This should not pose any difficulties, but could affect warranty. As our test unit is on loan, we have not tried to take it apart. The RAM is firmly soldered on and cannot be expanded (nor does it need to be). The device does not have room for additional storage devices either. You can take a look at the insides of our device's predecessor here.

Lenovo offers a three-year on-site warranty for the ThinkPad X1 Yoga 2018. Please see our Guarantees, Return Policies and Warranties FAQ for country-specific information.

One of the many highlights of the new Lenovo X1 Yoga is, of course, the 14-inch Dolby Vision HDR display with a resolution of 2160x1440 (WQHD, 185 ppi). As it is a touchscreen, the display is reflective. The same panel has already been tested in the new Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon 2018, so please take a look at our review of that device for general remarks on the panel. 

Unlike for the predecessor's OLED screen, Lenovo has not used PWM in this device. The average brightness is 522 cd/m², which is great for a notebook and even beats the already great luminosity of the Toshiba Portégé. The X1 Yoga 2017 cannot even reach half that value. Brightness distribution is fine, but there is quite a bit of clouding in the corners on all-black content, and blacks generally do not appear very deep. Alternatively, the convertible is also available with a Full-HD IPS panel and a usual WQHD IPS panel.

The Intel Core i7-8550U (4x 1.8 - 4 GHz, hyper-threading, TDP 15 W) is a ULV quad-core processor from the current Kaby Lake Refresh generation, which, for the first time, combines four physical cores with a low TDP of 15 watts. Its maximum turbo clock rate of 4 GHz makes it potentially the fastest ULV quad-core processor that Intel currently has to offer after the i7-8650U (4x 1.9 - 4.2 GHz). Apart from a DDR4 memory controller, the chip, which was first presented in August 2017, also features the integrated Intel UHD Graphics 620.

The performance of the i7-8550U can vary depending on the cooling system as well as duration and type of load. This did not apply in the same way to ULV dual-cores from the recent Kaby Lake generation, as they often did not reach their TDP. The model in our test unit shows this nicely: During the first run of our Cinebench loop, the device reached a great score of 678 points. But the second round already saw rates drop to about 644 points, where the results remained (more or less) for the next few rounds.

The wide fluctuations which are typical for the Kaby Lake Refresh series begin in round 10. But even in the rounds with very low results, the turbo still seems to be used in part and the X1 Yoga remains significantly faster than it could have been with the last version's top-quality ULV i7-7660U. Lenovo has clearly succeded at implementing this CPU. On battery, the device reached a Cinebench R15 score of 538 points.

There is not much to analyze when comparing the very similar scores that the convertibles in this comparison received from the PCMark 8 benchmark. All devices perform on a high level and neither the quad-core devices, nor those with particularly fast SSDs manage to separate themselves from the crowd. The subjective differences we felt should conform with the measured results.

Subjectively, the absolutely smooth operation with lightning-fast OS and program starts that can keep up with the speeds of gaming devices with fast storage, an NVMe SSD and 45-watt-TDP processor, are absolutely worth the high price of the ThinkPad.

The Intel UHD Graphics 620 is simply a new name for the same Intel HD Graphics 620, which was already used in the previous generation. There are no technical changes. The maximum turbo clock rate is a little higher now at 1150 MHz and, like all current Intel HD graphics cards, the chip profits from the available dual-channel RAM, which the GPU shares with the CPU. For more information, see the links at the beginning of this paragraph. 

As expected, our competitor's HD graphics cards cannot keep up with the UHD Graphics 620 in the i7-8550U and they are up to 28% slower in both 3DMarks. The graphics performance of our Yoga is still 73% above the class average. Of course, the dedicated mid-range graphics card Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 in the MS Surface Book 2 is in another league. On battery, the overall score of the Cloud Gate benchmarks dropped only slightly to 8588 points. 

Even if the Intel (U)HD Graphics speeds up slightly with every generation, the GPU cannot display current 3D games smoothly, even at minimum settings and resolutions of 1024x768 or 1280x720. The graphically undemanding Faming Simulator 17 is one of the exceptions. Isometric games such as Diablo III or StarCraft II are more promising - they can often reach over 30 fps at high presets.

If the device is not under load, or only has occasional load peaks (idle), the cooling fan of the test unit remains still. It started running for a short period towards the end of the browser benchmark Kraken 1.1, at which point you could hear a light humming from a distance of half a meter.

After starting the stress test (Prime95 + FurMark), the cooling fan turned up after about 7 seconds. A few seconds later, it had already reached its maximum rotation speed. The noise remains light and not too disturbing that can maybe be heard from a distance of about 3-4 meters in a silent environment. There was no bothersome background noise. All in all, the Lenovo Yoga X1 2018 is a calm, quiet companion that protects your nerves even under load. When using the device for normal office applications, the device will often work silently.

A few seconds after starting our usual music test, the left of the two speakers positioned on the bottom of the test unit failed. We were therefore unable to analyze the sound quality as neither volume nor sound can be judged accurately based on only one of two speakers. As our first impression of the soundsystem was, that it reminded us of the speakers of the X1 Yoga 2017, we have taken our evaluation of this part from the predecessor's review.

Frequency diagram in comparison (check boxes can be turned on/off!)

Although the Kaby Lake Refresh quad-core processors have the same low TDP of 15 watts, they tend to consume more power than dual-core CPUs with comparable clock rates from the older Kaby Lake generation. After all, the improvements in performance need to come from somewhere. The table below confirms this tendency.

If you leave out the Surface Book 2 with its dedicated GPU, and the X1 Yoga 2017 due to its OLED display, you can see that our test unit indulges in 34-41% more power than its other competitors, with the increased consumption being higher under load than while idling. The slightly larger screen, which also offers higher resolution, probably plays a part in these high consumption rates. The power supply with a maximum rated output of 65 watts is large enough for the needs of this device.

While the battery capacities of the predecessor and our current test unit are almost identical, today's unit manages 27-35% longer runtimes in the categories Idle, H.264 and Wi-Fi (our test criteria), which is probably due to the OLED screen, as we cannot find another explanation. Under load, however, the predecessor manages 32% longer battery runtimes. This, in turn, is probably due to the more energy-efficient CPU.

We believe that the increased performance that the quad-core processor offers, is not as important in a business convertible as long battery runtimes are, therefore we were particularly disappointed when comparing the device with the HP EliteBook G2, as this convertible runs for no less than 56% longer despite identical battery capacities - although the difference is "only" 22% in our practical Wi-Fi test. Another example is the Toshiba Portégé X20W-D-10R, which also manages significantly longer runtimes in the Wi-Fi test despite its smaller 22-Wh battery. 

Although the Wi-Fi test runtimes lie at almost 9 hours, which should offer most users a day of work, these results are not good compared to the device's competition.