A poor display can undo an otherwise worthwhile laptop, and especially if you're planning to share content in the system's kiosk or tablet modes, it could be a dealbreaker. The screen doesn't get especially bright, and coupled with an excessively glossy overlay, that means it's virtually unusable, even in modest sunlight.īetween this model and the 11-inch Yoga 2, the difference in display quality is huge, even at a casual glance. With a 1,366x768-pixel native resolution, it's comparable to the 11-inch Yoga 2, the 11-inch MacBook Air, and many other 11-inch laptops, but the screen here is washed-out and often hard to see. Sarah Tew/CNETIt's that 11.6-inch touchscreen that holds the x360 back more than any other single feature. Multitouch gestures, such as two-finger scrolling, work surprisingly well, although on a system such as this, you're likely to do a lot of your on-screen nav from the touchscreen. It's a clickpad-style pad, giving you a larger touch surface without separate left and right mouse buttons, but the plastic surface doesn't feel as natural as more-expensive glass versions. The wide touchpad, another HP staple, also translates well in the budget version presented here. Still, it's better than decent for a budget laptop keyboard. The island-style keys have a tiny bit of texture to them, which helps grip the fingers, but the keys are also shallow and wiggle a good bit, even under light typing. Like many HP laptops, the top row of function keys are reversed, which means you can adjust the screen brightness, volume, and other features without holding down the Fn key. By way of comparison, the 11-inch MacBook Air is 2.4 pounds (1.1 kg).īut as a budget ultraportable laptop, the x360 works well, with a full-size keyboard and a large, wide, touchpad. The x360 weighs 3.3 pounds (1.5 kg), while the 11-inch Yoga 2 is only 2.8 pounds (1.3 kg). The rounded corners and playful design gives it an accessible, consumer-gadget feel, but holding it in one hand in tablet mode is awkward. Sarah Tew/CNETThe x360 is bigger and heavier than other 11-inch systems, hybrid or otherwise. In the end, this design seems to have won out, thanks to two reasons: it does the least to interfere with the traditional clamshell laptop design, and it's relatively inexpensive to engineer, compared to pull-apart or slider-style hybrid hinges. It's an appealing concept, and one we've supported since the original Lenovo Yoga model launched alongside Windows 8, paving the way for a burst of creativity in inventive hybrid designs that melded laptop and tablet. The idea of the 360-degree fold-back hinge is that you can use the system as a traditional laptop, then bend the lid backward, stopping at a kiosk or table-tent form in the middle or folding it all the way back into a tablet orientation. That said, the entry-level x360 is only $399, and that's a price Lenovo can't currently touch.ġ792MB (shared) Intel HD Graphics HD 4200 I'm inclined to lean toward the Yoga, thinking the easier-to-see display outweighs the small performance boost the extra RAM in the HP x360 gives you. For roughly the same price, you can get more RAM in the HP x360, or a smaller, lighter design and better screen in the Yoga 2. That's the trade-off between these two models. (Configuration options are not widely available outside of the US.) The Yoga 2, while slimmer and with a better screen, is $479 in a Best Buy configuration with only 4GB of RAM (other configurations are available on the sometimes-confusing Lenovo US website). Our configuration of the normally $399 x360 doubled the RAM from 4GB to 8GB, resulting in a final price of $474. The screen in particular has a budget feel, with poor off-axis viewing - especially troublesome for a tablet meant to be viewed from many angles.īut it's also less expensive than the otherwise similar 11-inch Yoga 2 from Lenovo. The look, while muted and modern, is bigger, thicker, and heavier than you may be used to from an 11-inch ultraportable. Sarah Tew/CNETThere are, of course, trade-offs with taking designs that started in $1,000-plus laptops and bringing them down below $500.
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