In the front rank of corporate convertibles
The 14-inch ThinkPad X1 Yoga (starts at $1,377; $2,592 as tested) is Lenovo’s flagship 2-in-1 hybrid laptop for business, the convertible cousin of the multiple-award-winning ThinkPad X1 Carbon. Like its corporate rivals the Dell Latitude 9410 2-in-1 and the HP EliteBook x360 1040 G7, it features impeccable engineering and design, plus all the manageability an IT department could desire. Also like them, it’s painfully expensive compared with consumer convertibles—next to the X1 Yoga, the HP Spectre x360 14 that just won our Editors’ Choice honors among premium 2-in-1s offers a richer OLED display with a more eye-pleasing 3:2 aspect ratio, a faster processor, and twice the storage for almost $900 less. The Face Is Familiar Compared to the Gen 4 model we reviewed in September 2019, the ThinkPad X1 Yoga Gen 5 seen here upgrades from 8th to 10th Generation Intel silicon and from Wi-Fi 5 to 6. The $1,377 base model has a Core i5 processor,8GB of RAM, a 256GB solid-state drive, and a touch screen with full HD resolution. My test unit, $2,592 at CDW, flaunts a quad-core,1.8GHz (4.9GHz turbo) Core i7-10610U vPro CPU,16GB of memory, a 512GB NVMe SSD, and a 4K (3,840-by-2,160-pixel) IPS Dolby Vision HDR 400 touch panel with 500 nits of brightness. Two in-between screens are available, one a 1080p privacy screen and the other with WQHD (2,560 by 1,440) resolution, as is a 1TB drive. Windows 10 Pro is standard, though you can save a few bucks by opting for Windows 10 Home or Ubuntu Linux; LTE mobile broadband is optional. Like other ThinkPads’, the X1 Yoga’s machined aluminum chassis is clad in conservative matte black and has survived MIL-STD 810G torture tests for shock, vibration, sand and dust ingress, and temperature and humidity extremes. The screen barely wobbles when tapped in laptop mode, and there’s virtually no flex if you grasp its corners or press the keyboard deck. At 3 pounds, the Lenovo is relatively light for a 14-inch convertible, though heftier than the 2.4-pound ThinkPad X1 Carbon clamshell. It measures 0.59 by 12 by 8.5 inches, giving or taking half an inch to the Latitude 9410 2-in-1 (0.59 by 12.6 by 7.9 inches). Except for an SD or microSD card slot, the X1 Yoga has all the ports and connectors you could ask for. Two Thunderbolt 3 ports, either suitable for the USB Type-C power adapter, are on the left, along with USB 3.2 Type-A and HDMI ports, an audio jack, and a connector for a proprietary Ethernet dongle ($35). The right edge holds a Kensington lock slot, an always-on USB-A 3.2 port, the niche for storing and recharging the provided pen, and the power button. A fingerprint reader and a face-recognition webcam give you two ways to access Windows Hello logins. Nobody Types It Better Except for tablets like the ThinkPad X1 Fold, ThinkPads have the finest keyboards in portable computing, and the X1 Yoga is no exception. The backlit keyboard has a snappy typing feel, with cursor arrow keys in the proper inverted T and dedicated Home, End, Page Up, and Page Down keys, as well as handy top-row keys for controlling brightness, volume, microphone mute, and placing and ending Skype for Business and Microsoft Teams calls. You might prefer to swap the placement of the Fn and Control keys at lower left, which the supplied Lenovo Vantage utility lets you do.
