The original 12" Thinkpad Yoga (Haswell) had the very useful OneLink dock port, as did the previous generation (Broadwell) Thinkpad Yogas. The new Thinkpad Yogas appear to have lost this feature, leaving this generation with NO dedicated docking connector. USB 'docks' are sadly still pretty garbage in terms of performance and display quality, and do not take care of charging on the same cable.
The large connector next to the power socket on the Yoga 260 looks like a docking connector to me. It's definitely not any standard connector for anything else, at least. might be that they have redesigned the connector though, which is probably necessary from time to time with ever thinner designs.
I'm not sure about these new units but the older generation units had a mechanical connection that made the keyboard tray come up to meet the keys. The where barely above the tray so the surface area on the back felt more like a slightly bumpy textured area. It's not ideal but I think it's the best convertible design I've seen. I prefer to skip the convertible all together; I feel like it's not good enough as either a tablet or a laptop.
Convertibles are great if you do artistic work. Naturally, that implies the presence of a decent pressure sensitive stylus. Pure tablets are often too weak in specs (cpu and ram) to handle professional artist software, whereas convertibles, being bigger, do have the room to fit and displace the heat from more powerful cpus.
The slider is by far the most practical design, the touchpad is pretty much obsolete due to the presence of a touch screen. Due to the lack of a touchpad the slider is compact and the keyboard can be used even without tilting the screen as in "laptop mode", when the screen and the keyboard are flat at the same angle. The slider is also sturdier in laptop mode due to the extra support behind the screen.
I do realize tablets are 95% about content consumption, and very few people use them for serious work. But I don't care about content consumption, I care only for the professional aspect of using a device, so I care about the device being practical and useful. I don't mind the extra weight. Quite frankly, if all you are after is content consumption, get something light and thin. 2 in 1 devices are much better fit for people who are in content production.
A lot of smoke there... Tablets don't only consist of 8" HP Streams and Dell Venues, which you're not going to do any artwork on, but just take notes if you use the stylus at all. There are powerful tablets, the most obvious of which are MS Surface Pro 3/4, Sony VAIO Z Canvas (i7 CPU, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD), etc. that people use for artwork. Convertibles (a.k.a. 2-in-1's) are the best of both worlds, targeted for 'prosumers', which most users are, and they actually don't usually come with as good of styli for artwork. ThinkPad Yoga's are among the best for the prosumer category. The hinge mechanism works amazingly well in that all that rotation doesn't cause an iota of slack in the laptop mode, and the sturdiness of the screen is retained. But in that mode, you use the touchpad or the trackpoint more often than touches on the screen, as those are closer to the keyboard, since if you're getting a ThinkPad keyboard, you probably touch-type with 10 fingers. They have the Lift'n Lock mechanism in non-laptop modes where the keyboard frame in-between the keys is raised so the keys are not pressable on the back. (Otherwise MS Surface would have the "problem" when you wrap the keyboard back, but that also disables the keyboard.)
Get over it and stop spreading FUD, The Thinkpad line never came with that adware, Lenovo apologised and even the affected consumer models were updated and current models no longer come with that software.
460 looks like a gorgeous machine, especially for a road warrior who enjoys moderate gaming. <4 lbs, 10 hour battery, sweet spot monitor (1080 is the right choice for 14" on Windows or Linux right now), nice mid-range discrete GPU. Looking like a good birthday present come January :-)
Will the 460 also include the stylus? Last year's ThinkPad Yoga 14 did not; only the 12" had it.
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edzieba - Wednesday, September 2, 2015 - link
The original 12" Thinkpad Yoga (Haswell) had the very useful OneLink dock port, as did the previous generation (Broadwell) Thinkpad Yogas. The new Thinkpad Yogas appear to have lost this feature, leaving this generation with NO dedicated docking connector. USB 'docks' are sadly still pretty garbage in terms of performance and display quality, and do not take care of charging on the same cable.k3davis - Wednesday, September 2, 2015 - link
The OneLink+ Dock and Pro WiDi Adapter will be available in Q4 2015. - full press releaseValantar - Wednesday, September 2, 2015 - link
The large connector next to the power socket on the Yoga 260 looks like a docking connector to me. It's definitely not any standard connector for anything else, at least. might be that they have redesigned the connector though, which is probably necessary from time to time with ever thinner designs.Visual - Wednesday, September 2, 2015 - link
I hope there are 3e GPU options. What are the chances that will beat even the 940M?ddriver - Wednesday, September 2, 2015 - link
Having the keyboard on the underside in tablet mode is just silly. Come up with a decent slider design already, don't be lazy.Einy0 - Wednesday, September 2, 2015 - link
I'm not sure about these new units but the older generation units had a mechanical connection that made the keyboard tray come up to meet the keys. The where barely above the tray so the surface area on the back felt more like a slightly bumpy textured area. It's not ideal but I think it's the best convertible design I've seen. I prefer to skip the convertible all together; I feel like it's not good enough as either a tablet or a laptop.ddriver - Wednesday, September 2, 2015 - link
Convertibles are great if you do artistic work. Naturally, that implies the presence of a decent pressure sensitive stylus. Pure tablets are often too weak in specs (cpu and ram) to handle professional artist software, whereas convertibles, being bigger, do have the room to fit and displace the heat from more powerful cpus.The slider is by far the most practical design, the touchpad is pretty much obsolete due to the presence of a touch screen. Due to the lack of a touchpad the slider is compact and the keyboard can be used even without tilting the screen as in "laptop mode", when the screen and the keyboard are flat at the same angle. The slider is also sturdier in laptop mode due to the extra support behind the screen.
I do realize tablets are 95% about content consumption, and very few people use them for serious work. But I don't care about content consumption, I care only for the professional aspect of using a device, so I care about the device being practical and useful. I don't mind the extra weight. Quite frankly, if all you are after is content consumption, get something light and thin. 2 in 1 devices are much better fit for people who are in content production.
Arthur B. - Friday, December 18, 2015 - link
A lot of smoke there... Tablets don't only consist of 8" HP Streams and Dell Venues, which you're not going to do any artwork on, but just take notes if you use the stylus at all. There are powerful tablets, the most obvious of which are MS Surface Pro 3/4, Sony VAIO Z Canvas (i7 CPU, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD), etc. that people use for artwork.Convertibles (a.k.a. 2-in-1's) are the best of both worlds, targeted for 'prosumers', which most users are, and they actually don't usually come with as good of styli for artwork.
ThinkPad Yoga's are among the best for the prosumer category. The hinge mechanism works amazingly well in that all that rotation doesn't cause an iota of slack in the laptop mode, and the sturdiness of the screen is retained. But in that mode, you use the touchpad or the trackpoint more often than touches on the screen, as those are closer to the keyboard, since if you're getting a ThinkPad keyboard, you probably touch-type with 10 fingers.
They have the Lift'n Lock mechanism in non-laptop modes where the keyboard frame in-between the keys is raised so the keys are not pressable on the back. (Otherwise MS Surface would have the "problem" when you wrap the keyboard back, but that also disables the keyboard.)
kaidenshi - Wednesday, September 2, 2015 - link
Do they all come with a free spyware/rootkit upgrade as well? Can't have a Lenovo without that!ddriver - Wednesday, September 2, 2015 - link
Well, it does come with windows 10, so that goes without saying.BMNify - Wednesday, September 2, 2015 - link
Get over it and stop spreading FUD, The Thinkpad line never came with that adware, Lenovo apologised and even the affected consumer models were updated and current models no longer come with that software.GreenMeters - Wednesday, September 2, 2015 - link
460 looks like a gorgeous machine, especially for a road warrior who enjoys moderate gaming. <4 lbs, 10 hour battery, sweet spot monitor (1080 is the right choice for 14" on Windows or Linux right now), nice mid-range discrete GPU. Looking like a good birthday present come January :-)Will the 460 also include the stylus? Last year's ThinkPad Yoga 14 did not; only the 12" had it.
BMNify - Wednesday, September 2, 2015 - link
Thinkpad Yoga 14/260 with Full HD at 1.8 KG is the perfect sweetspot for me.ET - Thursday, September 3, 2015 - link
A Yoga 260 with a Carrizo would be nice.