Design and Features
The Yoga 700$799.99 at Best Buy is fairly thin, measuring 0.72 by 9 by 13.2 inches (HWD), and weighing in at 3.6 pounds. That makes it virtually identical in size to the Lenovo Yoga 3 14. It’s a bit lighter and thinner than the Acer Aspire R 14 (0.73 by 13.5 by 9.6 inches and 4.07 pounds), but a little heavier and thicker than the HP Spectre x360 13t (13-4003)$899.99 at HP.com. The system is large and bulky in Tablet mode, making it a bit tiring to hold with one hand for long periods.
The black polycarbonate lid has a business-like look, while the palm rest is a black brushed aluminum that adds a little flair to the laptop’s body. A small Yoga logo sits at the bottom right of the palm rest. On the back of the system is a small fan grid for cooling. The screen rests atop two sturdy silver hinges that allow the panel to rotate 360 degrees, into either Laptop, Tablet, Tent, or Stand mode. In Tablet mode, the keyboard is folded all the way behind the screen, while Tent mode has the system propped on its edges, with the display facing out. Stand mode has the keyboard facing down, with the screen pointing outward.
The screen on the Yoga 700 shares the same 1,920-by-1,080 resolution as the Lenovo Yoga 3 14. It uses In-Plane Switching (IPS) technology, which provides wide viewing angles. The panel is bright and sharp for watching 1080p videos, and colors look vivid. The touch screen is responsive—important for when the Yoga 700 is in Tablet or Tent mode, and you have to rely primarily on touch commands.
On the right edge of the laptop are a power button, an auto-rotation lock button for the screen, volume buttons, a micro HDMI port, and a USB 3.0 port. On the left are a card reader that can read MMC, SDHC, SDXC, and SD cards, as well as an audio jack, another USB 3.0 port, and a DC-in/USB 2.0 port for charging and data transfer. Unlike on the Acer Aspire R 14 and the high-end Lenovo Yoga 900, there is no USB-C port. For wireless connectivity, you get dual-band 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0.
The full-size, chiclet-style keyboard has curved and scalloped keys with a shallow keystroke. Typing is comfortable and satisfying. Each key has a smooth finish, but my fingers didn’t slip, even when typing quickly during testing. The touchpad has integrated mouse buttons and works smoothly.
Our review unit shipped with a 256GB solid-state drive (SSD), with almost 52GB is taken up by Windows 10 and other apps. Preinstalled are a 30-day trial of McAfee LifeSafe software and Twitter, both of which can be removed. It also comes with programs from Lenovo, such as SHAREit, which lets you wirelessly share data between Lenovo devices. Lenovo covers the laptop with a one-year warranty.
Performance
The Yoga 700 comes with a sixth-generation Intel Core i5-6200U clocked at 2.3GHz, with 8GB of RAM. This is the same internal setup as the Acer Aspire R 14, and an upgrade from the Intel Core i5-5200U processor found in the Lenovo Yoga 3 14. The system scored 2,762 points in the PCMark 8 Work Conventional test, which measures overall work performance. That’s neck-and-neck with the Acer Aspire R 14 (2,780) and similar to the Toshiba Satellite Radius 12 (P20W-CST3N01)$1,099.99 at Toshiba Direct (2,921), the Acer Aspire R 13 (R7-371T-50ZE)$734.89 at Amazon (2,730), and the HP Spectre x360 (2,707). The Yoga 700’s performance is typical for the category. It can run multiple programs well, but will start to slow down with too many complicated processes occurring simultaneously.
In our 3D graphics tests, the Yoga 700 showed middling performance. With its integrated Intel HD Graphics 520, the system scored 5,043 on the 3DMark Cloud Gate test, a little behind the Acer Aspire R 14 (5,482), but similar to the HP Spectre x360 (5,213). It was well ahead of the Lenovo Yoga 3 14 (4,558) and the Toshiba Satellite Radius 14 E45W-C4200X$429.58 at Amazon (4,454).
In the Heaven and Valley tests at Medium-quality settings, the Yoga 700 scored a decent 16 frames per second (fps) on both. That’s slightly lower than the Acer Aspire R 14 (20fps in Heaven; 24fps in Valley), but a little better than the HP Spectre (15fps in Heaven; 15fps in Valley), and well ahead of the Lenovo Yoga 3 14 (13fps in Heaven; 14fps in Valley). You likely won’t be able to play many graphics-intensive games on this system, but convertible-hybrid laptops aren’t really built for hardcore gaming, so these results don’t come as much of a surprise.
The Yoga 700 fared better on our multimedia tests. It finished our Handbrake video-encoding test in 2 minutes 34 seconds, just behind the Acer Aspire R 14 (2:31), but besting the HP Spectre x360 (2:57) and the Lenovo Yoga 3 14 (3:04). On Cinebench, the Yoga 700 scored a decent 286, the same as the Acer Aspire R 14, and slightly ahead of the HP Spectre x360 (258) and the Toshiba Satellite Radius 14 (216). It did not fare as well on the Photoshop CS6 test, however, at 5 minutes 16 seconds. The HP Spectre (4:25) and the Toshiba Satellite Radius 12 (4:32) were a little faster. In any case, the Yoga 700 should be able to handle multimedia tasks, such as transcoding videos, with ease.
Battery life is not the Yoga 700’s strong suit. The laptop lasted 7 hours 58 minutes on our battery rundown test, behind both the Acer R 14 (9:37) and the HP Spectre x360 (8:45). It’s good enough for all-day computing, but many midrange convertible-hybrid laptops can last for much longer.
Conclusion
The Lenovo Yoga 700-14ISK packs the latest Intel Core i5 processor, a bright screen, and a stylish case for a decent price. While it did well on some of our multimedia tests, its overall performance was average, and battery life was shorter than the competition. All in all, it doesn’t really stand out in the very crowded field. The Acer Aspire R 14 remains our Editors’ Choice midrange convertible-hybrid laptop for its performance gains and USB-C support, for $200 less.
