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November 24, 2015

Lenovo ThinkPad T520i Battery

ã€€This is because, despite the more powerful processor, Toshiba outfitted this device with the exact same battery as before, so thereâ€™s a direct a tradeoff: better performance for worse battery life. Itâ€™s worth noting this is some of the worst battery life weâ€™ve seen in recent Chromebooks. This cannot be an all-day laptop without a power supply, but itâ€™s still got enough juice for a few extended coffee shop work sessions, or an evening on the couch.

You shouldnâ€™t have any trouble fitting this Chromebook into a messenger bag or backpack. It weighs less than three pounds, so you wonâ€™t notice it in your bag as you travel. And the textured case means itâ€™s easy to get a grip on it while youâ€™re pulling it out of your bag.
Quiet and cool computing
This is not a loud laptop. During the Peacekeeper benchmark, for example, we only occasionally heard the fan running. You can consistently get the fan running by opening a dozen heavy tabs, but itâ€™s never loud enough to hear over any music you might be listening to, and usually quiets down quickly once everything loads.
This Chromebook comes with a one-year standard limited warranty. You can add accidental damage service and another year of coverage for $68, and a total of three years for $100, but in either case the battery is only covered for one year.

Conclusion
If youâ€™ve tried Chromebooks before, and thought they were too weak to use, this latest Toshiba Chromebook 2 is what youâ€™ve been looking for. With the best Peacekeeper benchmark weâ€™ve ever seen on a Chromebook, and rare slowdowns in our day-to-day usage tests, itâ€™s more than good. Itâ€™s great! It feels like youâ€™re using Chrome on a much more expensive laptop.
However, the fast performance harms battery life. Toshiba is also asking $380 for this notebook, which is toward the high end of pricing. The hardware is worth the price, but anyone turning to Chrome OS for its bargain pricing will be surprised.
Toshibaâ€™s Core-powered Chromebook 2 shows what Chrome OS can do when it isnâ€™t built on a tight budget. If Chrome OS is what you want, and you donâ€™t feel like compromising (except on battery life), itâ€™s a great choice.

ã€€Last year ZDNet judged Lenovo's Yoga 3 Pro convertible to be 'very good'. The new 13.3-inch Yoga 900 advances the ball by a considerable margin: the characteristic 360-degree 'watchband' hinge mechanism remains, as does the sleek, lightweight ultrabook design. But with a serious uplift in processor power this premium device could be the new benchmark for other high-end ultrabook convertibles.

Convertible ultrabooks are no longer a new idea, and there are several takes on what 'convertible' actually means. On some devices -- also known as 'detachables' - the screen and keyboard separate completely, while others sport various 360-degree hinge mechanisms that allow the screen to lay flat against the keyboard, facing outwards in 'tablet' mode.

Lenovo has come up with one of the most complex (and with 813 individual components, arguably the most over-engineered) 360-degree mechanisms in the shape of the Watchband Hinge. It's very visible, and is coloured orange, gold or silver depending on the device's lid and base colour.

Whatever you think of the aesthetics, the watchband hinge is smooth, reliable and flexible. It also clamps the lid and base sections firmly together in a feature Lenovo calls Auto Lock. In the old days some laptops had physical locks to keep the clamshell safely closed when in transit. Auto Lock does a good job in this respect - although when Lenovo says it's easy to open the laptop one-handed, we disagree: Auto Lock makes a pretty tight closure, and two hands are needed to prise the lid and base apart.

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The hinge is tight enough to hold the screen in any orientation. Lenovo suggests four modes: laptop (conventional clamshell); tablet (with the screen rotated 360 degrees and the keyboard facing outwards); stand (a sort of reverse laptop mode with the keyboard facing down and the screen facing outwards) and tent (resting on its two long edges with the screen and keyboard facing outwards).

The Yoga 900 is one of the many convertibles whose keyboard does not lock when you use these clamshell-alternative modes. It doesn't register key presses, but the keys still physically depress, which could be an issue when you're working in tablet mode with the keyboard facing outwards. Although the Yoga 900 is an ultrabook and therefore relatively lightweight at 1.29kg, there's still a fair bit of weight to hold in one or two hands. The pressure on keys when doing this is not insubstantial, and certainly greater than when typing. We're always concerned about mid- to long-term keyboard issues with such devices.

Thin and light is the name of the game here, and at 1.49cm thick the Yoga 900 slips easily into a bag. The metal base and lid are not especially scratch resistant, but they certainly make for a rigid laptop that should travel well without a protective case.
The Yoga 900's desktop footprint of 32.4cm wide by 22.5cm deep is not unreasonable for a 13.3-inch laptop that requires a fair sized bezel to cater for tablet mode. That said, when working in laptop mode the hefty near-30mm bottom bezel housing the Windows button is particularly noticeable.

The screen itself is wonderful. The 3,200-by-1,800 pixel IPS panel is bright and sharp with very vibrant colours. It's the same 276 pixel-per-inch (ppi) resolution as its Yoga 3 Pro predecessor, but we're more than happy with the quality it delivers. Viewing angles are very good, and the only downside that it's quite reflective.

There's a button on the right side of the chassis that toggles the screen rotation lock. Inexplicably, using this caused a couple of problems with our review sample, which failed to resume autorotation unless restarted. These glitches coincided with a greyed-out on-screen rotation control, so maybe there's a software issue for Lenovo to iron out here.

Wi-fi (dual-band 802.11ac) and Bluetooth (4.0) are supported, as you'd expect, but there's no NFC or mobile broadband. Connections comprise a single USB-C port that supports video out, two USB 3.0 ports and a USB 2.0 port which doubles as the power connector. There's also a flash card reader and a headset jack. It's a minimal set for those who hanker for the likes of HDMI or DisplayPort, but it is functional.

Following last year's Superfish adware debacle, the Yoga 900 has an admirably lightweight software bundle. McAfee LiveSafe is here, along with a few Lenovo apps including Lenovo Photo Master and Lenovo Companion, which is a route to device support and optimisation.

Conclusions
This is an excellent ultrabook featuring high-end processors, a great screen, good audio and exemplary build quality. The watchband hinge may be quirky but it works well, and there's even a 512GB SSD option for those who need it. Just be a little wary of the 9-hour battery life claim.

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