Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro
Lenovo
has swapped the Intel Core M5Y70 on the original Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro for a newer
Intel Core M5Y71. The latter has a slightly higher base/boost clock speed
(1.1/2.6GHz vs 1.2/2.9GHz) so you get a bit more oomph. This hasn't trickled to
the UK
though till now. The company has also cut the price of the cheaper model from
£999.95 to £799.95 in the UK
after a £200 cashback offer with places like John Lewis offering a three-year
warranty. Note that there is also a new BIOS update that was
rolled out only a few days ago. The
Yoga 3 Pro adds a unique new hinge to be thinner and lighter than ever. The
high-resolution screen looks fantastic, and the hybrid design still works great
as a laptop. Lenovo's third-generation Yoga laptop is as versatile as
ever, except it's noticeably thinner and lighter -- so much so that it's now
one of the slimmest Ultrabooks on the market. The battery life has improved
too, but it still lags behind the competition, no doubt because that slim
design doesn't leave room for a bigger cell. But,This first outing with Intel's new Core M processor fails to
impress, with mediocre performance and battery life.
Specifications: The Yoga 3 Pro gets a QHD+ display,
which totes the same 3200 x 1800 pixel resolution found on the Yoga 2 Pro.
You'll want to adjust the magnification settings in Windows 8.1 to 150% or
higher make fonts and text clearly legible.
Sticking to higher resolutions gives you more desktop
real-estate to edit multimedia files and snap documents side-by-side. In some
scenarios it can be a real productivity boon, but overall the resolution still
feels like overkill at 13 inches.
One option is to lower the resolution to 2048 x 1152 (16:9), a
notch under the native resolution, which keeps everything looking sharp while
remaining readable with magnification set to 100%.
The display's 300 nits is sufficiently bright for indoor use,
but slightly too dim for outside conditions. It's an IPS panel with very good
viewing angles - a crucial factor for a device designed to be used in many
positions. The
Yoga 3 Pro is one of the most portable Ultrabooks around, coming in 17% slimmer
and 14% lighter than the Yoga 2 Pro, by Lenovo's measurements.
It weighs just 2.62 pounds, making it lighter than the 13-inch
MacBook Air's 2.69 pounds, and it's slightly thicker along the middle of the
left and right edges, as opposed to the tapered design of Apple's machine.
It's roughly the same
weight as Samsung's Series 9 900X3C, and only the ageing Toshiba Portege Z930/Z935
and Sony
Vaio Pro 13 come in
lighter in the 13-inch category, at 2.50 pounds and 2.34 pounds respectively. THE
BOTTOM LINe The Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro has a breakthrough design, but requires
careful consideration of the trade-offs required, particularly battery life
VS
iPad Pro
The
iPad Pro is a much bigger device than the average tablet – with a 12.9-inch
display, it's always going to be a bit hefty.The design language follows on
strongly from the rest of the iPad family, with the same ceramic-like metal on
the back, the curved edges and TouchID home button above the Lightning port.The
new iPad Pro is the biggest and fastest Apple tablet to date. The
pressure-sensitive Pencil stylus offers superior sketching and drawing, and the
Pro's gorgeous giant screen and quad speakers are ideal for split-screen apps,
multitasking and watching movies.
PERFORMANCE:
In terms of the engine Apple's stuck
inside the iPad Pro, the company has gone all out here. The Pro features an A9X
chip inside, coupled with 4GB of RAM (according to Geekbench, although Apple
hasn't confirmed this).
This makes the iPad Pro easily the most powerful non-Mac device
Apple's ever made by some distance. What that means in real life is two fold:
you can execute multiple apps at once without a hint of slowdown, with heavy
titles like Adobe Photoshop working in an instant and the ability to do many
things at once a really slick experience.
The Split Screen mode
of iOS
9, introduced in June at WWDC 2015, seemed like an odd thing - the
9.7-inch size of the iPad Air sort of made sense with two apps
running at the same time, but now we've got this whopping screen to play with
it makes a lot more sense.
If we're talking raw numbers, and I know that's why some of you
cheeky people are here, then you're in for a treat. Using Geekbench 3 to test,
the iPad Pro scores 5472, which is well ahead of the 4506 from the iPad Air 2
and the 4974 of the next-most powerful device, the Galaxy Note 5.
That won't mean much in day to day use, but it gives the iPad Pro a
massive boost in terms of future proofing it. The apps to come are going to make
more and more of that impressive chipset running at the heart of the tablet,
and having the raw grunt to keep up will mean that you're going to keep getting
a decent performance for years to come.
The interface is nothing special though - I don't mean that
critically, as the simplicity of iOS is something that's one of the selling
points of Apple's devices. However, some people looking at the iPad Pro as a
dedicated professional device will be a little disappointed as it still runs
the same way as the iPad Air 2, albeit with a lot of accessories to play around
with. The same grid of apps prevails,
with the notifications shade above and the Control Center
below for easy access to messages and commonly used actions.
The larger screen means
you need to move your hand further to achieve these, but it's not like you're
being asked to throw yourself over a waterfall in a barrel, just moving your
finger a little further up and down.
However, it's worth
noting as it is one of the drawbacks of having a larger device like this, and
you'll need to be aware of them before purchase.
The
Bottom Line The iPad Pro is a dream machine for graphic designers and media
mavens, but this elegant tablet needs more optimized apps and accessories
before it can fully achieve laptop-killer status.
Key Features: 12.9-inch 2048 x 2732 screen; A9X
2.26GHz dual-core processor ; 4GB RAM; 8 megapixel rear camera; 1.2-megapixel
FaceTime camera; 4 stereo speakers; iOS 9
Manufacturer:
Apple
$799
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