Screen and Sound
At its center is a 12.5-inch touch screen.
It is coated in Gorilla Glass, like many other monitors we tested recently,
which means it can stand up well against scratches. The 350-nit brightness
rating is above average for a laptop and indeed, especially the brightness
cranked up, we do not have any problems when viewing the screen from strange
angles. Even if you do not have a bunch of friends gathered around to watch
movies from Netflix, that wide visibility proved to be very useful if you place
the tablet face up on a flat surface - the possible scenarios when your arm get
tired using this 3.48pound computer in tablet mode.
At
its center is a 12.5-inch touch screen
Meanwhile straight viewing angle is
particularly good if you are working with a computer in the palm; you will not
need to find a neutral position to avoid the color dilution. One thing that
might ruffle some shopper's feathers is the total number of pixels 1,366x768,
especially since Lenovo's Yoga 13 starts at $1,000 with 1,600x900 pixel screen.
Meanwhile, the Zenbook Prime Asus's Ultrabook has a 1080p screen, and you can
buy for $1,000.
When it comes to sound quality, it tinny
just like you expected, though it's not worse than what you would get from
other Ultrabook. The only notable difference is its volume levels are more
subdued than on other laptops we've tested.
Lenovo ThinkPad Twist (Core i5-3317U
1.7GHz, Intel HD 4000)
·
PCMark7: 3,113
·
3DMark06: 4,066
·
3DMark11: E1033/P549
·
ATTO (the maximum drive speed): 136MB/s (read);
130MB/s (write)
Acer Aspire S7 (Core i7-3517U 1.9GHz, Intel HD 4000)
·
PCMark7: 5,011
·
3DMark06: 4,918
·
3DMark11: E1035/P620/X208
·
ATTO (the maximum drive speed): 934MB/s (read);
686MBs/s (write)
Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 13 (Core i5-3317U 1.7GHz, Intel HD 4000)
·
PCMark7: 4,422
·
3DMark06: 4,415
·
3DMark11: E917/P572
·
ATTO (the maximum drive speed): 278MB/s (read);
263MB/s (write)
Toshiba Satellite U925t (Core i5-3317U 1.7GHz, Intel HD 4000)
·
PCMark7: 4,381
·
3DMark06: 4,210
·
3DMark11: E989/P563
·
ATTO (the maximum drive speed): 521MB/s (read);
265MB/s (write)
Dell XPS 12 (Core i5-3317U 1.7GHz, Intel HD 4000)
·
PCMark7: 4,673
·
3DMark06: 4,520
·
3DMark11: N/A
·
ATTO (the maximum drive speed): 516MB/s (read);
263MB/s (write)
Although we
tested a $900 Staples configuration with Core i5-3317U CPU which is similar to
many other ultraportable we've tested recently, it has hybrid repository
instead of SSD - especially, 500GB hard drive (7200rpm) with 24GB of flash
storage. As you'd expect, its performance score is lower than what it can
achieve with SSDs inside. For example, in PCMark 7, it reached 3,113 - at least
1,000 points lower than your typical Ivy Bridge Ultrabook.
Naturally, its I/O performance is modest:
in ATTO disk tests, it achieved the highest read speed 136MB/s and write speeds
up to 130MB/s, while most of the SSD-powered Ultrabooks are capable of at least
twice the write speeds, and 2 to 3 times the reading rates. Although 24GB SSDs
are there to help speed up boot time, 17 seconds startup time of Twist is still
about 50% slower than other Windows 8 machines we've tested recently. However,
if you are old enough to remember minute-long boot sequences, it will not
really matter.
About graphics power, Twist is on par with
ultraportable machines we've tested recently, which is quite reasonable because
they all use Intel's integrated HD 4000 graphics. That is if you like playing
games, you better stick with the old game, and select minimum setting. For
example, in Call of Duty 4, we have managed between 18fps and 20fps, and that
was with a resolution down to 1,024x768. On the other hand, the machine is
still relatively quiet, which we can’t say of every Ultrabook we tested
recently. The bad news: it becomes slightly warm. Not pants-scorchingly hot,
but warm enough so that your legs can start to feel a little toasty. Even when
we are streaming music from Grooveshark without running other applications, we
can still feel the warm air coming from its vents on the side.
Before receiving those Windows 8 PCs to
evaluate, we have to know the battery life on touch screen system will be
shorter than what we can see from un-touch models. What we did not realize is
how those differences will amaze. We've tested convertible computers which had
lasted through over 5 and a half hour of video playback. In case of Twist, we
were lucky to make it through four hours. For one repeated video, Wi-Fi open
and brightness fixed at 65% (our standard conditions), our best running time
reached a total of 4 hours and 18 minutes. However, sometimes the 43Wh battery
ran out before reaching the four hour mark. It seems these results are normal:
after running a series of similar tests, Lenovo's own products also show that
the battery life results are in 4 hour range.
In
case of Twist, we were lucky to make it through four hours
Twist is not an ultra-thin system, with
room for the smallest battery. It does not even have a higher resolution
screen. And yet, this is the second-worst showing that we've seen on an
Ultrabook. Meanwhile, Dell XPS 12, which is lighter and has a full HD screen,
has lasted 1 hour longer in the same test. So that leaves us with a question:
we know the touchscreens are bad news for battery life, but why does the Twist
in particular fare so poorly?
Software and warranty
Inside,
you have Evernote, Amazon's Kindle app, Skype, AccuWeather, etc.
While Twist is not completely free of
bloatware, the list of pre-installed applications is much shorter than what
you'll find on other new PCs. Inside, you have Evernote, Amazon's Kindle app,
Skype, AccuWeather, eBay, service streaming rara.com and shortcuts for the
Intel AppUp store. Other applications include Microsoft Office, Norton Internet
Security trial version, Lenovo Support and Lenovo Solutions for Small Business,
which includes backup and recovery options, a USB blocker, a profile of energy
efficiency and tweaking utilities (such as deleting cookies and defragmenting
your hard disk). Finally, Lenovo Cloud Storage, which is powered by SugarSync
behind the scenes.
These are applications that are installed
on the system, but there's another one you can download through Lenovo's
supported website if you like. It is called the QuickLaunch and as you can see
in the screen shot above, it brings back the old style Start Menu that many of
you still missed it. If you really want to avoid the new tiled Start Screen,
you can pin your favorite applications to the taskbar, or create shortcuts on
your desktop. However, it's great to have the search option in the old way. As
an additional feature, there's another shortcut to turn off computer.
There's
another shortcut to turn off computer.
Although the more advanced business
computer warranty 3 years, Twist warranty 1 year. That's pretty standard for
most PC (consumer and etc.), especially at this price.
