Despite the success of the Lenovo X1 Carbon, Lenovo has without a doubt been ask very often about why that model could not swivel all the way to 360-degrees. It is a vindication of Lenovo’s YOGA original design, and now it has become a reality. With the Lenovo X1 YOGA, there is finally an X1 model that is rugged, MilSpecs-tested, and…. 360-degrees convertible.
The external design resembles the Carbon X1, but very quickly you will realize that the display hinges are different, and inspired from the YOGA Pro 2. With this proven design, the YOGA X1 is capable of using all four modes (Laptop, Stand, Tent, Tablet) to accommodate the best position required at the moment. Fly for 15 hours to Hong Kong in coach, and you will immediately see what I mean.
Regarding specifications, it matches the new 2016 X1 Carbon: Intel Core i7 vPro, up to 16GTB of RAM, up to 1TB of PCIe NVMe SSD storage and optional 4G LTE-Advanced wireless broadband.
The 2560×1440 14-inch OLED display is the obvious difference. As you can expect, using OLED is a huge game-changer for the X1 line. As you may have noticed, the display of the X1-Series has had slightly lower image quality when compared to the consumer YOGA line of laptops. That’s because the displays had to pass the critical Military Specifications for ruggedness.
With this new OLED screen, the X1 line can have both excellent image quality and amazing contrast AND MilSpecs certification (there’s also an IPS LCD option). In addition to the YOGA 360-degree screen, Lenovo has also added a Stylus Pen, which is not present on the X1 Carbon. The creative types will appreciate although we need to dig a little more into the capabilities of that pen. What Lenovo says is that it will work in any app, and there will be an on-the-fly handwriting recognition. It charges and docks inside the laptop. Apparently, 5 seconds of charging yields 100mn of use. I guess that battery life won’t be a problem with this one. The ThinkPad X1 YOGA is now the most expensive ThinkPad X1 and starts at $1449.
