A bold new Yoga gets even slimmer
The Lenovo Yoga 900S changes colors again, but also gets easier to carry.
- Author of the award-winning, NY Times-reviewed nonfiction book The Tetris Effect; Longtime consumer technology expert for CBS Mornings
It was only a few months ago that we saw the Lenovo Yoga 900, an excellent update to the long-serving Yoga line of hybrid Windows systems. Apparently that was enough time to cook up just a few more improvements, as the new Yoga 900S not only has a bold new color scheme, it's also thinner and lighter.
Lenovo calls the 12.5-inch 900S the world's thinnest convertible laptop, and it beats out the 13-inch Yoga 900, which was 14.9mm thick, at 12.8mm thick. A small difference, but every little bit helps. The weight tells a bigger story, dropping from 2.8 pounds (1.3kg) to 2.2 pounds (0.99kg). That's still not as light as the Lenovo/NEC LaVie laptops that so impressed us at CES 2015, but it's still much lighter than say, a MacBook Air.
Note, however, that under the chassis, this is a very different system than the Yoga 900. That mainstream hybrid was powered by the latest Intel Core i7 processors. In the slimmer, lighter 900S, Lenovo is making the move (back to) Intel's specialized Core M processors, designed for very thin premium-priced laptops, tablets and hybrids.
That's an especially bold move, as the 2014 Yoga 3 Pro was one of the first systems to use the original Intel Core M processor, and despite a killer design that everyone loved, that system fell short of expectation in both battery life and performance. By jumping into the second generation of Core M, Lenovo is showing a vote of confidence in the new Intel Core m7, and even promises 10.5 hours of battery life.
Lest we get all caught up in specs, let's not forget that this is also the boldest-looking Yoga yet, especially interesting for a company like Lenovo, so identified with the relatively staid look and feel of ThinkPad laptops. The Yoga 900S will be available in a more traditional silver, yes, but also a very eye-catching "champagne gold," which combines a black chassis with a gold-colored keyboard and matching watchband-style 360-degree hinge. The Yoga line, as well as Lenovo Y-series gaming machines have been a little looser in terms of color schemes over the past few years, but this is easily the most radical-looking Lenovo to date.
The Lenovo Yoga 900S will be available in March in the US, starting at $1,099.
See our complete CES 2016 coverage here.