Author Archives: topmahof

About topmahof

I'm a hands on guy. I'm comfortable taking a laptop apart and putting it back together. I'm a Community Moderator at Lenovo Forums and a Lenovo Insider. I have my own business repairing Hot Tubs and I also work a full time job at Central PA Concrete Leveling. I love playing with new Tech.

X1 ThinkPad Yoga Gen 5 Review

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  • Beautiful 4K touch screen
  • Exemplary keyboard
  • Stylus pen onboard
  • Top-quality construction
  • Great connectivity

LENOVO THINKPAD X1 YOGA GEN 5 SPECS

Laptop ClassConvertible 2-in-1, Business
ProcessorIntel Core i7-10610U
Processor Speed1.8 GHz
RAM (as Tested)16 GB
Boot Drive TypeSSD
Boot Drive Capacity (as Tested)512 GB
Screen Size14 inches
Native Display Resolution3840 by 2160
Touch Screen
Panel TechnologyIPS
Variable Refresh SupportNone
Screen Refresh Rate60 Hz
Graphics ProcessorIntel UHD Graphics
Wireless Networking802.11ax (Wi-Fi 6), Bluetooth
Dimensions (HWD)0.59 by 12 by 8.5 inches
Weight3 lbs
Operating SystemWindows 10 Pro
Tested Battery Life (Hours:Minutes)7:47

The 14-inch ThinkPad X1 Yoga is Lenovo’s flagship 2 in one Hybrid laptop for business, the convertible cousin of the multiple-award-winning ThinkPad X1 Carbon. It features impeccable engineering and design, plus all the manageability an IT department could desire. The ThinkPad X1 Yoga Gen 5 seen here upgrades from 8th to 10th Generation Intel silicon and from Wi-Fi 5 to 6.

This machine has a quad-core, 1.8GHz (4.9GHz turbo) Core i7-10610U vPro CPU, 16GB of memory, a 512GB NVMe SSD, and a 4K (3,840-by-2,160-pixel) IPS Dolby Vision HDR 400 touch panel with 500 nits of brightness. Two in-between screens are available, one a 1080p privacy screen and the other with WQHD (2,560 by 1,440) resolution, as is a 1TB drive. Windows 10 Pro is standard, mobile broadband is optional. 

Specs are here: https://psref.lenovo.com/syspool/Sys/PDF/ThinkPad/ThinkPad_X1_Yoga_Gen_5/ThinkPad_X1_Yoga_Gen_5_Spec.PDF

Like other ThinkPads’, the X1 Yoga’s machined aluminum chassis has survived MIL-STD 810G torture tests for shock, vibration, sand and dust, and temperature and humidity extremes. The screen barely wobbles when tapped in laptop mode, and there’s virtually no flex if you grasp its corners or press the keyboard deck. At 3 pounds, the Lenovo is relatively light for a 14-inch convertible, though heftier than the 2.4-pound ThinkPad Carbon clamshell. It measures 0.59 by 12 by 8.5 inches.

Two Thunderbolt 3 ports, either suitable for the USB Type-C power adapter, are on the left, along with USB 3.2 Type-A and HDMI ports, an audio jack, and a connector for a proprietary Ethernet dongle ($35). The right edge holds a Kensington lock slot, an always-on USB-A 3.2 port, the niche for storing and recharging the provided pen, and the power button. A fingerprint reader and a face-recognition webcam give you two ways to access Windows Hello logins.

ThinkPads have the finest keyboards in portable computing, and the X1 Yoga is no exception. The backlit keyboard has a snappy typing feel, with cursor arrow keys in the proper inverted T and dedicated Home, End, Page Up, and Page Down keys, as well as handy top-row keys for controlling brightness, volume, microphone mute. You have a choice of the embedded TrackPoint pointing stick, with its three buttons south of the space bar, or a buttonless touchpad. Both glide smoothly and navigate easily.

The 4K touch screen is a highlight, with plenty of brightness, good contrast, and nicely white backgrounds. Colors are rich and well saturated (Lenovo says the display covers 90% of the DCI-P3 gamut), and fine details crystal clear. Viewing angles are broad. A tiny sliding shutter covers the 720p webcam. Speakers on the bottom front of the machine have an excellent loud sound. Battery life gets just shy of 8 hours which isn’t bad for a laptop with a 4K display.

There’s a lot to like about the ThinkPad Yoga Gen 5, and its keyboard and screen are simply as good as it gets among business convertibles. It is a desirable 2-in-1 laptop for the enterprise.

Lenovo ThinkPad X13 AMD Gen 3 Further Testing

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I thought it was time to do a little testing on the Power Management, Temps, and speed of this machine. It is built to deliver speed, reliability, and quality. I wanted to see what would happen if I stressed the machine. It handled everything very well.

I mentioned this in the first look, but it deserves more credit. Lenovo replaced the dedicated port for the Ethernet adapter with a standard USB-C 3.2 port, which allows much more usage. It shows that Lenovo does listen to the user feedback. Anything that isn’t covered in this write-up should have been included in the First Look Write-up which is here:

https://topmahof.com/2022/08/07/thinkpad-x13-amd-gen-3-first-look/
Power in on the left, USB-C 3.2 next to it.

The first thing I did was take a reading of everything at idle, one browser window open and OneDrive downloading in the background.

At idle.

The next thing to do was to stress it. This is it being stressed within 10 minutes of starting the test.

Temps at 60C, Fan still slow, not noisy at all.

This image is of running the stressing for 40 minutes. At no time did the temps get above 70C. There was some throttling of the CPU.

After 40 minutes of stressing.

This last image is the machine back to idle.

At the end.

It looks to me like Lenovo and AMD have figured out the Power Management issues that plagued early AMD machines. There was no lagging, throttling, or freezing while this was going on. Hardly any fan noise at all, there was heat coming out of the vent, but the fans didn’t make much noise at all.

With everything considered, this is a very powerful cool running computer in a small form factor. So much power in such a small machine. I would like to see how the Intel version stacks up against this one. I ran this test on battery only to see what the battery draw would be and it lost about 10% during the hour of testing. So, battery life for this machine should be very long even if you are stressing the machine.

ThinkPad X13 AMD Gen 3 First Look

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The new ThinkPad X13 is designed to deliver speed and reliability. This AMD version has excellent cooling and very good battery life. This computer can be configured in many different ways. This machine has the following specs:

AMD Ryzen 7 6000 Pro

Windows 11 Pro

Integraded Radeon 600M Graphics

FHD IR camera with webcam privacy shutter and HPD (Human Presence Detection)

32GB LPDDR5 Dual Channel RAM

54.7Wh Battery

XQXGA 16:10 Display (2560×1650) Low Power IPS

Datasheet is below:

It came with a USB-C to Ethernet adapter and the USB-C Power supply. (65 Watt)

As for ports, on the left side is from left to right: USB-C 4.0, USB-C 3.2, Full size HDMI 2.0b, USB-A 3.2, and 1x Audio (headphone and microphone combo jack)

On the right side is a USB-C 3.2 port and a Nano Kensington lock slot.

This machine supports Windows Hello, the IR camera supports Facial Recognition, (1080p) and the start button incorporates a Fingerprint Reader. It has ThinkPad PrivacyGuard.

It also has a backlit keyboard.

The following image shows the differences between the Generation 2 and the Generation 3.

This comes with a User Facing Dolby Audio Speaker system and 2x FarField Microphones. The Microphones are at the top of the display on either side of the camera.

There is no screen wobble, no chassis flex, this machine feels sturdy for how thin it is. At no time do the screen colors look like anything except the colors that they are. You can order this in Black or Storm Grey. Battery life on this machine is great, I was able to get 10 hours while running 3 YouTube movies and having about 25 tabs open in Chrome. At no time did the temps go over 65 degrees C while doing this.

AMD has come a long way from their early days, it looks like they have gotten it down to a science. The only thing I see lacking is Thunderbolt support for the USB-C ports. The temps and power work together nicely, this is an excellent machine.

Lenovo ThinkPad X13 Gen 2 i

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The new ThinkPad X13 Gen 2 i is built to deliver speed and reliability while maintaining very good battery life and extreme portability. There are many great improvements this year and one of the best ones is the move to 16:10 panels. This machine can be configured in many different ways. This unit has the following specs:

  • 11th gen Intel i7 vPro CPU
  • 13.3″ XQXGA Low Power IPS (400 nit, 100%sRGB, Low Blue Light Display
  • 16GB RAM LPDDR4x (4266Mhz)
  • 1TB SSD PCIe Gen 4
  • WQXGA display
  • FHD IR hybrid camera with webcam privacy shutter
  • Wifi 6E
  • 5G Wireless
  • Larger 55WHr battery
  • Backlit (Optional) keyboard with 1.5mm stroke

The X13 offers many ways to customize components. Between processor, memory, storage, and display options, the ThinkPad X13 Gen 2 i gives you nearly limitless configurations to help build the ideal machine.

Side viewing angles on the screen are very good, even with direct light shining on it. The added real estate to the screen from the 16:10 is excellent.

Other hardware that came in the box with this were the 65 Watt USB-C Power Adapter and the cable adapter for the Ethernet.

Ports on the left side of the X13 from left to right include: USB-C Thunderbolt 4 Power, Thunderbolt 4, Ethernet port for the adapter, HDMI, USB-A, and a microphone headphone combo jack.

Port on the right side is a USB-A. The heat exhaust is next to it. There is a micro kensington lock slot to the right of the exhaust.

This comes with a User Facing Dolby Audio Speaker system and 2x FarField Microphones. The Microphones are at the top of the display on either side of the camera.

This comes with a 115 x 61mm TouchPad and it also has the optional backlit keyboard with 1.5mm stroke.

If you are looking for the Fingerprint reader, you won’t find it. It is incorporated into the start button, that should give you almost instant login potential. I found that the Infrared camera with the facial recognition also gives an almost instant login. This one also came with the optional human presence detection that locks the PC when you step away.

There is no screen wobble, no chassis flex, this machine feels sturdy for how thin it is. At no time do the screen colors look like anything except the colors that they are. You can order this in Black or Storm Grey.

Docking systems that are compatible with this machine are the Thunderbolt 4 dock, USB cable dock, and the side mechanical dock.

Yoga 900 Review and First Thoughts

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I was privileged to receive a Yoga 900 for testing and review. This is the newest addition to Lenovo’s line of convertible laptops and based on what I have observed after some use of it, Lenovo has listened to and incorporated changes based on user feedback concerning the previous versions of this line.

All in – the Yoga 900 is a tiny bit thicker and a bit heavier then its predecessor, the Yoga 3 Pro, but there are reasons for this.

The first reason is that there is a new keyboard – the keys have a bit more travel to them and it also inludes a 6th row of keys. It now has a dedicated Function (F) row. By default, the hotkey functions are accessible by pressing the appropriate hotkey. However, you can disable the hotkey mode in the BIOS setup utility. There is slightly more travel to the keys and they seem easier to type on than previous versions.

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It also has Intel’s latest line of processors, the 2-Core Skylake i7-6500U @ 2.40 GHz which has resulted in a definite increase in performance over the M Processor which was in the Yoga 3 Pro.  This is coupled with 8 GB of RAM and Intel HD Graphics 520.

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The display is a 3200 x 1800 resolution 13 inch capacitive screen and has excellent vciewing angles, as well as a full 10-finger touch.  The response to touch is flawless: at no time did the display ever register any ghost touches or act any way that it wasn’t supposed to.  The display is viewable in sunlight but there is some reflection.  However, at no time was I unable to view the screen.

The hard drive in this machine is the Samsung MANLN512HCJHOOOOL2 aand is at 512 GB (SATA-600) and runs very fast.

This also comes with a great selection of ports.  On the left side of the laptop are the power port, a USB 3.0 port, a memory card slot, and it now has a Type-C port which supports USB 3.0, Native display port 1.2 video output and VGA/HDMI adapter which is sold separately.  On the right side is a Battery and Power status indicator, the power button, the Novo button, the rotation lock button, the combo audio jack and another USB 3.0 port.

There are a variety of modes that this machine can be used in, laptop mode, tent mode Both shown above and tablet mode shown below.  The screen rotates 360 degrees and in tablet mode the keyboard is disabled.

The battery is now a 67000 mWh and it should give at least six hours watching movies or using power intensive programs.  I got 7 hours just surfing the internet and that is without having any power saving enabled.

The machine comes with Windows 10 Pro preloaded and it runs fast and smooth.  I haven’t found any issues yet with the preload.  The number of preloaded apps has been reduced significantly, again possibly as a result of user feedback.  There aren’t many third party programs loaded and the ones that are, are useful.

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Tablet Mode

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Tent Mode

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Yoga 3 Pro and Yoga 900

Here you can see the slight thickness difference.

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Above is the Yoga 900 with the new 6 row keyboard.

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And that beautiful watchband hinge.

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All in all, Lenovo certainly has listened to the feedback and changed some things that needed changed but kept the features that made the convertible laptops great.  One of these was the watchband hinge, which I really like a lot.  Power management handles the fan pretty well, under high load the fan speeds up like it is supposed to and powers back down under light load just like it is supposed to.

Lenovo has put together a well rounded convertible laptop that is powerful and smooth running.  I like the silver gray color also.

Lenovo Z500 Touch

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At first glance, the Lenovo IdeaPad Z500 Touch doesn’t look like anything out of the ordinary. It has a large form factor and it has a little weight to it. But, this laptop has a few things up its sleeve that lets it get the job done whether it is gaming, coding, video editing, or just about whatever you throw at it, plus it has the added benefit of having a full 10 point touch screen.

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It should be said up front that this machine doesn’t have Intel’s just released new processor. It has a third generation processor, the Core i7-3632QN Ivy Bridge, and it has some very nice features.

It also has another trick to it, discrete switchable graphics. So, it’s up against other machines with the same specs. except that the Z500 won’t break your pocketbook. The price tag isn’t big like you would think with a laptop with these kinds of features. The i7 model will set you back about $1099.00 US.

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True to form, the styling is a bit sober, no shiny chrome edges and no shiny surfaces.  Anybody who has had to clean fingerprints and smudges off of the lid and palmrest area will appreciate the styling. This comes with the Accutype Keyboard.  Key placement is good and the keys that I use a lot are a bit bigger than the rest.  This machine didn’t come with a backlit keyboard and I would have liked to see the numbers a bit brighter white than they are.

Just looking at this, you wouldn’t think that there would be anything special under the hood. The surprises are that it has a quad-core chip with a frequency of 2.2Ghz and only has a thermal envelope of 35W. It also packs an Nvidia GeForce GT 740M which is from the most recent Nvidia chips.  The GPU has 2GB of DDR3 RAM and it has a core operating frequency of 980Mhz, so it’s no slouch in the graphics department.

All this is coupled with a 1366 x 768 screen, which doesn’t seem very great considering the prevalence of 1080p screens around, but there’s a good reason for it.  You won’t be playing all the latest games at the highest settings, but lower those settings down just a bit and you can get very good frame rates.  So, the graphics system is paired fairly well with the lower resolution screen.

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Left to right viewing angles are fine, vertical angles are fine when viewing normally.  Outside viewing on the glossy screen is fine in the shade and in low light, it’s a little hard to see in bright sunlight, but still viewable.

DSC01012Lenovo includes a nice variety of ports with this machine, Ethernet and wireless, Bluetooth 4.0, 2 USB 2.0 ports, 1 USB 3.0, HDMI, a card reader. a combo headphone and mic port and a DVD dual-layer burner.  The sizeable 1TB 5,400 rpm hard drive provides plenty of storage.  The speed of the machine covers the slower hard drive fairly well.

The four core processor supports multi-threading, so it offers 8 threads.  More and more software makers are making software that supports multi-threading, so this machine should stay right up there on top of the heap.

There’s a nice selection of software that goes along with this package, Cyberlink YouCam, Lenovo Energy Management with a dedusting button, OneKey Theater, Power2Go, PowerDVD, OneKey Recovery and more.

DSC01007     Three hours battery life for a machine of this size and power viewing 720p videos isn’t too bad in my opinion.  The machine at just shy of 6 lbs. isn’t totally portable, but I’ve been taking it back and forth to work and the weight is just a slight inconvenience.

You can game with this machine and go slogging through Windows along with doing your daily mundane tasks without missing a beat.  And do it with a touchscreen.  This is a well-built sturdy laptop with very good specs.

Fixing up the summer home

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This is a pretty nice place now, but it sure wasn’t when I got it. It needed a whole lot of work.  The decks were green, the plumbing was shot, the roof leaked, the steps were  torn away from high water and there were things growing in the refrigerator.This is what it looked like when I arrived.  Pretty rough, inside wasn’t much better. The people who had it must have liked couches.

The first thing for me is a fireplace. Luckily for me, my previous employee called me and wanted to know if I wanted a fireplace. YES, I said. So I got rid of the blue couch and laid ceramic tile down.

Remember, this is an island, I loaded the fireplace, the chimmey pipe, the firebricks, everything on my little boat and brought it over by myself.  This is the result.

The kitchen wasn’t too bad, the basics were there, just no stove. So, I found a little antique stove that that fit perfect and just dressed up the kitchen.

Next was cleaning and staining the nasty decks. It took 2 days to pressure wash and 12 gallons of stain to get it right.

Oh yeh, I jacked the lower deck up and got it out of the ground, it was pretty well sunk in.I think it came out pretty good, if I do say so myself. The next step was making a beach and building steps and docks.  I had to build these knowing that the river was going to cover them sometimes in high water.  I’m on the highest point of the island, but even so, the river can and has gotten a little weird sometimes. The last flood we had covered the lower deck  that the table and chairs are on.

The first thing that I did was scrounge up carpet to put on the beach.  Carpet keeps the sand underneath from eroding and the river will actually give you sand on top of the carpet. Over the years I keep layering it on, people look at me funny when I stop and pick up their nasty carpet that they have out for the trash.

As for the docks, I found a couple of old aluminum airplane gasoline drop tanks and I built a dock with these as floats and I made it so that my boat would fit under the dock between them. This makes a nice little barge, more on that later.

Before

After

Ariel likes to watch the boats.