Author: Adam Fowler

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga Gen1 Review

Posted on April 7, 2016September 4, 2019 by Adam Fowler

Lenovo has recently released the 2016 lineup of ThinkPad X series laptops. Previously this was only the X1 Carbon, which was a highly regarded laptop. I have a feeling that success has lead to extending the range for 2016 to:

Lenovo X1 Carbon (Gen4)
Lenovo X1 Tablet
Lenovo X260
Lenovo X1 Yoga

A wide variety of laptops to meet different needs. My pick of the crop is the Lenovo X1 Yoga, and here’s why:

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga

Specs
I always like to look at the hardware specs of the device first, so here’s the table of options:

DESCRIPTION	THINKPAD X1 YOGA CONVERTIBLE ULTRABOOK
Processor	Intel® Core™ i5-6200U Processor (3M Cache, 2.3GHz), Turbo Boost 2.0 (2.8GHz) Intel Core i5-6300U Processor (3M Cache, 2.4GHz), Turbo Boost 2.0 (3.0GHz) Intel Core i7-6500U Processor (4M Cache, 2.5GHz), Turbo Boost 2.0 (3.1GHz) Intel Core i7-6600U Processor (4M Cache, 2.6GHz), Turbo Boost 2.0 (3.4GHz)
Operating system	Windows 10 Home 64-bit Windows 10 Pro 64-bit Windows 7 Professional 64-bit preinstalled through downgrade rights in Windows 10 Pro 64-bit
Display	14″ FHD (1920×1080), 300 nits, 16:9 aspect ratio, IPS, 10-point Multi-Touch 14” WQHD (2560×1440), 300 nits, 16:9 aspect ratio, IPS, 10-point Multi-Touch
Hinge / mode	Yoga hinge, 360 degree / Laptop, tent, stand and tablet
Stylus Pen	ThinkPad Pen Pro, active pen for multi-touch display, docks inside laptop and auto recharges.
Graphics	Intel HD Graphics 520 in processor only, supports external digital monitor via HDMI, Mini DisplayPort; supports dual independent display Max resolution: 3840×2160 (Mini DisplayPort)@60Hz 4096×2160 (HDMI)@24Hz
Onelink+ Adaptor (optional)	HDMI to VGA Adaptor Mini DisplayPort to VGA Adaptor
Memory	Up to 8GB / up to 16GB for i7-6600U model, LPDDR3 1866MHz, non-parity, 1 x 204-pin SO-DIMM socket, max 16GB
Webcam	HD720p resolution, fixed focus
Storage¹	128GB / 192GB / 512GB SSD, SATA3 256GB SSD, SATA3 Opal 2.0 Capable 512GB SSD PCIe NVMe
Optical drive	None
Dimensions (W x D x H)	333 x 229 x 16.8 mm
Weight	Starting at 1.36 kg
Case material	Display cover: Carbon-Fibre Reinforced Plastic + Glass-Fibre Reinforced Plastic; Bottom: Magnesium/Aluminum
Case colour	Midnight Black
Battery	4-cell Li-Polymer battery (52Wh)
Battery life²	Up to 11 hours³
AC adaptor	65W AC adapter
Keyboard	6-row, LED backlit, spill-resistant, multimedia Fn keys
UltraNav™	TrackPoint® pointing device and multi-touch with 3+2 buttons click pad
ThinkLight ™	None
Fingerprint reader	Integrated touch style fingerprint reader
Audio support	HD Audio, Realtek® ALC3232 codec / stereo speakers, 1 watt x 2 / dual array microphone, combo audio/microphone jack
Security chip	Trusted Platform Module (Software TPM & Hardware dTPM enabled)
Manageability	Intel vPro technology
Ethernet	None
Wireless LAN	Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 8260, 2×2, Wi-Fi + Bluetooth® 4.1, no vPro
Wireless WAN (optional)	Huawei ME906S (4G LTE/WCDMA/HSPA/GSM/GPRS/EDGE/GNSS), M.2 Card
SIM card	None
NFC	None
Ports	3 x USB 3.0 (1 x Always On) Mini DisplayPort™ HDMI Onelink+ connector MicroSD, supports UHS-I SD card Combo audio/microphone jack Security keyhole Optional Card Reader

This is all pretty standard with good options these days, nothing underpowered or missing in my opinion. Here’s some interesting points:

Stylus Pen

This is a very nice to have, a discreet stylus hidden in the chassis of the Yoga X1. It’s a bit larger than the one I found in the Yoga 260, but still much smaller than a Surface Pro 4 pen. It also charges while docked, and won’t go flat in a year like the Surface Pen :) For more details on the pen, check out this YouTube review

X1 Yoga Pen

Battery
We’re really getting into good devices with a working day’s battery life. This device was left on a desk for two weeks with frequent but short usage, but always in at least standby mode and still had half it’s battery left. Nothing unique to this particular laptop, but it’s a compelling consideration to upgrade if you’ve got something that hasn’t got an Intel 6th Gen CPU in it.

Storage
We’re now seeing more devices having hte PCIe NVMe SSD option – a lot faster than SATA3. For an idea on the difference, read this review. For most people you won’t ‘need’ a faster SSD, but if you’re doing work with lots of local IO, it’s going to be a worthwhile upgrade.

Weight
1.36kg – that’s 0.05kg heavier than the X1 Carbon Gen3, but 0.18kg heavier than the 1.18 kg X1 Carbon Gen4. Keep in mind, the X1 Carbon Gen4 doesn’t have touchscreen, and as a comparison the Apple MacBook Air 2015 13″ weighs 1.35 kg, so these are all really light laptops. Lenovo have managed to design enough toughness into the hinges for the full flipped Yoga experience, which previously was really clunky.

It’s a lot less chunky too than older X1 Carbons, here’s a comparison with the X1 Carbon Gen1 where there’s quite a bit of height difference (the Carbon is designed to appear thinner, but is perfectly flat on the table):

Left to right: X1 Yoga, X1 Carbon Gen1

Ports
On the left side, we have power, OneLink+ dock connection (which will only take a OneLink+ dock connector, not the older OneLink), Mini DisplayPort and USB 3.0:

X1 Yoga Left Side

Right side has stylus pen, power, volume up/down, 3.5mm audio jack, 2x USB 3.0 and full size HDMI:

X1 Yoga Right Side

The back has the fan out slot, and a panel that hides a MicroSD and SIM card slot:

X1 Yoga Back

Keyboard
It’s very similar to the X1 Carbon keyboards in layout and feel, but also the keys will retract when folded into Yoga mode to protect them against wear. You can see the little rubber mounts pop out in the top corners too, which will touch the table when this is face down:

Keyboard in Yoga Mode

Laptop Mode

Hardware aside, why do I think this is the best in the X series now? This is around my personal tastes, but everyone has their own requirements. Here’s the standout reasons for me:

X1 Yoga vs X1 Carbon 4th Gen – Carbon is lighter and thinner, but doesn’t fully flip around. There’s also no touchscreen option anymore!

X1 Yoga vs X1 Tablet – Tablet has some awesome additions like a projector, but personally I don’t like the more flimsy style of keyboard (similar to Surface 4, but a bit better). Tablet mode is cool, but the X1 Yoga flipping around is light and thin enough already without taking away the proper laptop experience. Just wish I could have a projector in it! On top of that, the tablet is using the m7 series of Intel CPU which isn’t going to be as powerful as the i series.

X1 Yoga vs X260 – Has 25 hours battery life!! But, Smaller 12.5″ again with no touchscreen, or ability to Yoga. Weighs the same despite this. It is hard to get past the 25 hour battery life, but only needed if you’re not near a power point for a very long time.

The X1 Yoga will also soon have an OLED option for the screen – that should be a big jump in screen quality. As I haven’t seen this yet I’ll refrain from making further statements around it, but expect to be impressed.

For a high end laptop, the X1 Yoga is an all rounder that I’d strongly recommend anyone to consider. It’s definitely one of the best all rounder business grade machine available.

If you have any questions or comments please post below!

If you want some more information and visuals, MobileTechReview have a video on the Yoga too:

Lenovo Yoga Home 500

Posted on April 1, 2016September 12, 2021 by Adam Fowler

Lenovo has been on fire with their Yoga range in the last few months for home and business laptops (with my top picks being the Yoga 900 and the Thinkpad Yoga X1). Yoga being ‘on fire’ That makes me think of this:

Not to digress any further, the latest product I’ve been sent in the Yoga range (Thanks Lenovo!), is the Yoga Home 500.

When I first heard about it, all I knew was that it was an all-in-one PC. That didn’t sound too exciting – A screen and desktop box in a single unit, a form factor that had been around for many years, but I’d never actually had one to check out. What arrived was much more than what my expectations were.

Firstly yes, the Yoga Home 500 is an all-in-one PC. But it’s also a tablet. And a gaming box. And a family device hub for photos and videos.

I’ll start with the PC side of things. We have a 21.5″ screen, with a computer build into the chassis. Here’s the specs, I’ve underlined the ones I have in this model which seem to be the best possible :)

Lenovo Yoga Home 500Tech Specs

DESCRIPTION	LENOVO™ YOGA™ HOME 500
Processor	5^th Generation Intel^® Core™ i5-5200U Processor 5^th Generation Intel^® Core™ i3-5010U Processor 5^th Generation Intel^® Core™ i3-5005U Processor Intel^® Pentium^® Dual-Core Processor
Operating System	Windows 10 Home
Graphics	Intel^® Broadwell Integrated Graphics Up to NVIDIA^® GeForce^® 920A Discrete Graphics 1 GB DDR3-VRAM (gDDR3)
Memory	Up to 8 GB (4 GB / 8 GB) DDR3 – 1600 MHz
Webcam	1080p with Dual-array Microphone 1080p Light Sensor
Storage	Up to 500 GB / 1 TB HDD Up to 500 GB / 1 TB SSHD
Audio	Integrated 2 x 2.8 W Speakers
Battery	Up to 3 Hours with 4-cell 48 WHr Battery
Display	21.5″ FHD, 10-point Multitouch, LED Panel
Dimensions (W x D x H)	(mm) : 526.4 x 39.5 x 318.6 (inches) : 20.72″ x 1.55″ x 12.54″
Weight	Starting at 10.1 lbs (4.6 kg)
WLAN	WiFi 802.11 a/c or b/g/n, Bluetooth^® 4.0, Near Field Communication (NFC)
Ports	3 x USB 3.0 1 x Headphone / Microphone 1 x Power DC-in 1 x HDMI-in 6-in-1 Multi Card Reader

Some notes on the specs and hardware – There are two RAM slots, but with 8GB it was a single stick, meaning this can easily be upgraded to 16GB, assuming the RAM isn’t soldered in – I can’t find any videos or photos of the insides of this, and there’s no screws to be seen so most likely comes apart like an Apple iMac using a plunger.

The hard drive appears to be a hybrid with 8GB SSD cache, and close to 1TB for the rest. This gives a bit of a better performance than your standard platter HDD, but not as good as an SSD. I found it fairly snappy overall despite this.

The screen seems of high quality, touch response was great. The dedicated NVIDIA Geforce 920A graphics card is a nice touch too, especially for being able to at least game with lower settings.

Yoga Home 500 Front

So yes, it seems to function quite fine as an all-in-one PC, and does everything you’d expect from a Windows 10 box. On the right hand side of the chassis is the power and volume up/down buttons:

Right Hand Side

… and on the left hand side is a Multi-Card Reader, Audio 3.5mm Jack, Three USB 3.0 ports, a HDMI in (so you can just use this as a monitor) and power in, using the standard rectangle plug that most (but not all) Lenovo products have these days:

Left Hand Side

As you can see from those photos, there’s a cool kickstand that holds the monitor up. This is fully adjustable (as in, you can set it to any position in it’s range, rather than just having a few locked options) and goes all the way down to tablet mode:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTR28suT5FY&feature=youtu.be

Tablet mode – this is where things start to get interesting. It’s a giant tablet, that has a 3 hour battery. Lenovo provides software called Aura along with a bunch of apps and games, and an app store for free. From what I can tell, the idea of this is to have a device in the middle of the table that a family or group of friends can sit around and have fun with. 4 player touch games, along with using the paddles and joysticks that come free with the Yoga Home 500, or going through photos and videos is where this device shows it’s strengths. I can see this being really useful for coming back from a holiday and showing photos off, flicking through and telling a story about what happened.

I thought I’d do a quick video on this, where it shows objects in Aura can be flicked across the screen, and orientated whichever way you like:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcfvST4jPRg&feature=youtu.be

The games that come with this are actually quite decent, rather than being crappy low end games. Here you can see an asteroid type game that can take up to 4 players, using touch, joysticks or even bring your own controllers:

The app store seems to have a variety of different games, and yes there’s Air Hockey!

Other items that come with the Yoga Home 500 are a keyboard and mouse (both paired already to the device, no little bluetooth dongle required):

Stylish mouse with touch sensitive scrollwheel

Thin keyboard

There’s also the paddles and joysticks for playing games:

Joystick has plunger, paddles have 4 touchpads

And of course, because you’ll be putting your grubby mitts all over this thing, there’s a screen cleaner:

Official Lenovo Screen Cleaner

All together this is a pretty cool piece of kit. The 3 hours battery life means you can take this wherever you like in the house and play on it, but you’ve also got a giant screen and a lot of power under the hood for a particularly large portable device.

The Lenovo Yoga Home 500 is an all-rounder device, but does all those things quite well, rather than falling into the trap of doing all things averagely. It’s easy to use, has a multitude of use cases and due to it’s small footprint, it isn’t hard to find it a home somewhere around the house.

Any comments or questions about this, please respond below!

Lenovo P50 RAM Install

Posted on March 30, 2016April 12, 2016 by Adam Fowler

After reviewing the Lenovo ThinkPad P50, I decided to double the RAM from 16GB to 32GB. You can buy it with more RAM, or install it aftermarket. The RAM that came with mine was Samsung brand, but I bought and added Kingston DDR4 RAM with no issue.

Depending on your RAM configuration, you may just need to add RAM to the bottom of the laptop – as mine already had the sticks under the keyboard.

Lenovo have some great guides on how to take the laptop apart, which I followed:

Step 1 – Remove Battery

Step 2 – Remove Bottom Cover

Step 3 – Take Keyboard Off

Here’s a video I created on opening up the laptop and adding the RAM based on this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cnrinaquPc

Any questions please ask below!

Update: As Eric Xu pointed out to me, there’s also the great Lenovo Service Training Guide you can check out too :)

Instagram to Twitter With Images

Posted on March 30, 2016 by Adam Fowler

Instagram to Twitter integration sucks.

If you post a picture to Instagram, and use the inbuilt Twitter option, your tweet will end up looking like this:

Laptop Keyboard https://t.co/3Osq5NPuid

— Adam Fowler (@AdamFowler_IT) March 29, 2016

A link to your Instagram photo rather than the photo itself. However, there are ways you can have your Instagram photo embedded in the tweet, along with a link back to the Instagram post if you like:

Laptop Keyboard 2 https://t.co/CyIh64yv9H pic.twitter.com/mOxFPcGAsp

— Adam Fowler (@AdamFowler_IT) March 29, 2016

A third party app is required to do this, but the good news is that it’s free, automated and runs in the cloud.

If This Then That (IFTTT) can do a bunch of cool automations, called ‘recipes’. It will read off hundreds of different platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. The recipe I’m using is “Share your Instagram pics as native Twitter photos” which will monitor your Instagram posts, and automatically copy and tweet anything you do with the Instagram image embedded. You don’t need to use the Twitter option on Instagram itself, as Instagram isn’t doing the work here.

To set this up:
1. Sign up for IFTTT (free), either ignore or go through their introduction.

2. Go to the Recipe and ‘Connect’ to each channel for Instagram and Twitter

3. Click ‘Add’ on the Recipe window (this shows up once the channels

4. Go to ‘My Recipes’ in the top bar. You’ll see the recipe where you can turn it off, run now (not needed to do since it runs when a new image is posted on your Instagram only) and you can edit the recipe if you want it changed, such as using different text.

That’s it. Post a photo on Instagram and see what happens!

Intel NUC 6th Gen

Posted on March 23, 2016September 12, 2021 by Adam Fowler

Almost two years ago, I wrote about my Media Player Quest. The end result hardware wise was an Intel NUC, which has been dutifully serving me media content and left on 24/7 for over two years.

It’s time to upgrade that now, and check out Intel’s newer lineup of NUCs that have the 6th generation Intel CPU inside.

The unit I received was the NUC6I5SYK – there’s also the NUC6I3SYK which is identical apart from having an i3 CPU rather than the i5 I received (a big step up from the Celeron in my old unit!).

There’s a bunch of different NUCs both old and new, but in the latest batch there are 5 to choose from. The cheaper ‘Pentium’ powered NUC NUC5PGYH, the NUC6i3SYH and NUC6I5SYH which are i3 and i5 powered NUCs with 2.5″ drive support, and the two I mentioned above, which are identical but don’t have 2.5″ drive support. All other specs are the same.

At this point you may be wondering which is best or which one to choose. Luckily this is pretty clear cut – if you don’t need much grunt, go for the NUC5PGYH. This still takes a 2.5″ drive, so you may be able to find a cheap small SSD to use. Otherwise, i3 and i5 are both pretty good, you’ll only need an i5 if you want to use it like a proper PC and play games or edit photos and videos, or other CPU intensive tasks. Finally, the SSD – go 2.5″ if you already have one to save money, or don’t care about the extra height. The M.2 version is a lot sleeker, but there should only be a small difference in SSD performance, which you probably won’t notice based on the common use cases for a NUC. If you’re hiding it behind a monitor, it’ll be easier to fit the M.2 version next to a wall.

My unit isn’t as tall as the 2.5″ models, because instead it takes a M.2 SSD instead. They look similar to RAM, but have the slot on the short side, rather than on the long side (see below). Don’t get these confused with mSATA – M.2 is the next generation of those and they have different connections. There’s a lot more technical information about this, if you’re interested check this guide out.

It’s worth pointing out that an Intel NUC isn’t a fully working PC out of the box. You’ll need to provide your own RAM and drive (HDD/SSD), but they are incredibly easy to install. 4 screws need unscrewing to take the bottom plate off:

and you’ll need to add two types of components:

1 & 2 are DDR4 SODIMM RAM sticks. 2 x 2GB in this one but they’ll take a maximum of 2 x 16GB = 32GB – more than enough! 3 is the M.2 SSD, mine of which (as you can see from the label) has a capacity of 120GB. I’m not storing too much locally – apart from Windows 10 and a few software installs, the media I’ll be playing is streamed either from the internet (care of services like Netflix) or via local network (care of Kodi).

Once those are added (and they’re incredibly easy to obtain from any PC parts supplier) the NUC is ready to go – at least, ready to have your OS of choice installed on it.

Port wise, the Intel NUC has more than enough for it’s small 115mm x 111mm x 32mm size.

Front: USB 3.0, USB 3.0 + charging, Audio In/Out 3.5mm jack, Power light, Infrared sensor

Right: Kensington lock, SDXC Card Slot

Back: Power, Air vents, HDMI, 1000mbit NIC, 2x USB 3.0 , DisplayPort

Also on top is power and HDD/SDD light:

This new NUC is a lot short than my previous unit, so I thought I’d introduce them to each other before sending the old one away:

Once I had the new NUC up and running, I did notice a smoother experience. The old one wasn’t actually slow for general Windows 10 usage, but things felt snappier and more responsive with the much updated hardware.

Overall I can’t fault this unit. I loved the last one, and this just gives a refresh with newer hardware and more connection types. What isn’t there to like about this? VESA mounts are included too, which will turn a screen into an all in one PC with ease. Other Mini PCs exist, but Intel support their own hardware well and let you decide on your own RAM and storage requirements, rather than bundling the lot.

Intel know this makes a great Media Box and have created some Intel only apps, such as the “Intel® Remote Keyboard” which lets you use your phone as a keyboard and mouse which I’ll cover seperately soon.

Any questions about the NUCs? Comment below!

The Intel NUC covered in this post was provided by Intel Australia.

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