Lenovo Yoga 314 Hybrid Notebook Review

Nowadays, everyone is looking for a multipurpose device which is lightweight and portable. Lenovo have been introducing innovative devices, under the Yoga series. The Lenovo Yoga 3 14 is a premium hybrid device. This is a pocket-friendly machine with a bigger 14-inch screen and better battery life.

A thin and light-weight hybrid offers premium look

Yoga 314 looks premium though it features a simple design. With utilitarian design and chunky hinge, it has a matte-plastic lid with a silver Lenovo logo in the upper right. Under the lid, it has a a black, brushed-aluminum deck. It gets large vents toward the back, meaning while using it in laptop mode, you are not going to feel any heat on your laps.

Lenovo added a discrete button for screen rotation sandwiched between the volume rocker and the power button and Novo button next to the rotation lock. The Novo lock initiates a factory reset and recovery functions, so be careful with this while using the device.

Though, it looks like a traditional laptop with its simple design, yet comprises all the benefits of hybrid device. Apart from laptop mode, this can be transformed into Stand Mode, Tent and Tablet modes. However, the screen is non-detachable, but just like HP Elite X2 1011, still you can operate the device easily in tablet mode using the touch screen, as its quite lightweight.

14-inch Full HD touch-screen that produces vibrant colors

Yoga 314 comes with a 14-inch 1920X1080 FHD touch screen. The display produces vibrant colors but looks a little dim. You can enjoy videos and games on it with friends and family as it offers a wide viewing angle. Whether you are using it in tilt, stand or any other mode, texts and videos are clearly visible, just adjust the brightness level as per your convenience, as the screen is a little dull. The touch display responded well with the quick response time. Meaning, it can be easily operated in any mode.

The loud hybrid device with well-spaced keyboard and touch-pad

The Yoga 3 is equipped with JBL stereo speakers that produces rich and loud sound. You can enjoy a variety of music with this, even when you keep it on full volume.

It comes with a well-spaced back-lit keyboard which feels quite comfortable. The back-lit allows you to use the device even in dark. Though, it can feel a little numb as the short key travel (1.1 millimeters), but after using it for one or two days you can easily surpass your typing speed.

Yoga 314 comes with a silky-smooth 4.1 x 2.75 inches touch-pad. Though it dosent have any, left or right buttons, yet gestures like two-finger scrolling and pinch to zoom were swift and responsive.

Seamless Performance

The combination of 5th Gen Intel Core i7 CPU, 8 GB DDR3 RAM, Nvidia Graphics, 500 GB SSHD, andWindows 8.1 OS, make the system powerful enough to run almost every daily productivity apps without any performance lag. During typical use, I had no problem streaming videos, surfing Internet, etc. To test its capability, we simultaneously ran two browsers (Firefox and Chrome) with 20 tabs each. There was no lag in the performance and we were able to switch between apps swiftly.

Yoga 314 comes with inbuilt HD graphics that enables you to play light games easily like Hotline Miami 2. It is a pretty cool device in terms of looks and performance, yet the heat is there. The keyboard and deck was pretty cool, but the rear bottom panel, where heat vents are placed started heating up after running some of the apps. It comes with 720p webcam which clicks decent photos in daylight or bright lighting conditions. Unfortunately, it attracts noise and often pictures came out too dark.

In our benchmark testing, it scored well and resulted in P2270 on 3DMark and 3081 on PCMark. In battery test, it lasted for more than 7 hours in moderate usage, surfing net, watching video, etc. and running Battery Mark, it resulted with 3 hours 19 minutes.