I’m in the market for a new laptop and am considering the Lenovo Yoga 730. I’ve never used a Lenovo. Anyone have any experience with Lenovo? Opinions?
More broadly, which PC laptop would you recommend? I’ll be running Adobe CC apps and MS Office apps. No gaming. Plenty of internet. So at least 8 GB memory, 256 GB hard drive, upgradable, SSD. Price range no more than $1100, which means I can’t get the Dell XPS 
Matt, my wife has a Lenovo Yoga 710 with a 256 GB hard drive. It is about two years old and she has been very happy with it…no problems so far. I do not use it (I use a Mac) so I can’t relate my personal experience. It has a touch screen (she loves that feature) and a right shift key that is in an unusual location. As far as photo editing I cannot say. I only use my laptop to drive a larger monitor for editing. I was going to suggest the Dell XPS. I would also suggest looking at the Microsoft Surface Book2 or Surface Pro 6. I am not sure if they are upgradable though. Hopefully this helps.
Lenovo is a good brand and I’ve heard good things about the Yoga.
Something else to consider is looking for a used Macbook, I just picked up a 2015 Macbook Pro 16gb ram, 1tb ssd, 2.8ghz processor for $1200 and it’s a fantastic computer. Granted this was a smoking deal I found on Fred Miranda, but there are still deals to be found. Not trying to start a debate of Mac vs. Windows, but I was an adept Windows user for 30 years and now I will never go back.
Whichever laptop you choose Matt, I’d seriously look into this option. I hadn’t ventured into the realm until recently, but was surprised at the ease and comparatively low cost decent monitors these days. You don’t have to spend an arm and a leg to increase the size and utility of your editing screen. I’ve been using mine for book layout chores, but look forward to photo editing once that’s finished.
@David_Kingham, I am also not trying to start a debate, but I am shocked (no judgement) you retired your beloved Dell PC and switched teams.
Your used idea idea is a very good one.
3 posts were split to a new topic: Why did you choose a Mac over a PC?
I’ve had 4 Lenovo laptops over the last 12 years and have never had a problem. They work. No issues. This year I switched to an LG gram with 15 inch touchscreen. It weighs about 2 pounds.
It is fast, runs Adobe apps as well as my desktop.
The only reason I switched was the weight. Both Lenovo and LG make fine products.
I’ve several Lenovos. I started with a Yoga 910 14" 4K 16GB 512GB SSD 7th Gen i7, and it was super light - only 14mm thick and 3 lbs. I bought it “Open Box” at BestBuy and the metal chassis was a little dinged near the charger plugin (USB-C) when I got it. It worked great for about 8 months, and then it would not charge. I sent it into Lenovo and they repaired it under warranty.
I needed something in the meantime so I bought a Yoga 720 15" 4K 16GB 256GB SSD, 7th Gen i7. 19mm thick and 4.4 lbs. Again Best Buy Open Box. That was 18 months ago and it’s working great. Battery life is the best of any laptop I’ve had.
When the 910 came back, I speed tested them and the 720 was a bit faster so I kept it and I could sell the 910 for the price I paid for the 720.
I just bought my daughter an open box Yoga 730 13" HD 8GB 256GB SSD 8th Gen i7. It had issues with wifi connection (I suspect that’s why it was open boxed) so I bought an Intel WIFI card and installed that and now it works perfectly. It’s not a powerhouse, but for only $650 it’s a small and light computer with a touch screen.
I have a pen for the 720 to use with the touch screen, but I’ve not used it much. I really prefer a desktop for editing, but when traveling, it’s a great option. And it’s cool to see 4K animations displayed at 4K.
@Alan_Kreyger, @David_Kingham, @Hank_Pennington, @David_Schoen, @kirk Thanks for all the great feedback and new ideas. The Lenovo 730 appears to be a good product, from your personal experience as well as from Trusted Reviews. It was #11 on their Best Laptops 2019 list. They consider it a second best to the Dell XPS.
I like the idea of a used Mac, too, and will look into that. It’s been about 15 years since I had a Mac and I recall how much I enjoyed it then. On the conversation of Why did you choose a Mac over a PC? split off from this one, I especially appreciated @David_Kingham’s comments on why he prefers the Mac. Just what I needed to hear. I rarely read such adetailed explanation for why anyone prefers Mac.
I, too, use a stand-alone monitor for editing so that comment seems to characterize many of us.
The Lenovo I’m considering is also “Open Box” for about 10% less. I’m willing to get lower RAM and hard drive space because I’m going to upgrade both for less than the model that includes them, plus I run my laptop off a G-Tech G Drive 4 TB external for primary storage, so the laptop’s capacity isn’t a primary need.
I’m also buying at Best Buy, but I’m curious where others buy. I’ll start a new conversation about that.
I had a bad experience at Best Buy. I purchased a new lens there. I had the sales person open the box to be sure it was ok. They failed to tell me once the box is opened, there is a 15% restocking fee. Although this was a new lens, the box had clearly been opened previously. I took it home and never opened the box after I left the store. I went on a trip for two weeks and decided to return the lens after I got back. When I tried they hit me with the restocking fee ($300 on a $2000 lens). So I kept it but would never do business with them again.
I have a Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga (14") with i7 and 16gb ram, 64 bit, and a 1 TB ssd. It’s about 3 years old, and I bought directly from Lenovo. I had issues early on with a graphics driver, but it’s been great since then. At the time that I purchased it, it was in the top two for screen resolution, dynamic range, and color gamut, all of which are important to me since I use the laptop monitor for processing. I like 14" because I can’t stand having a number pad, and I like the compact size and light weight.
It was not cheap (around 2k when I bought it, which is the most I had spent on a computer since the 90s when I bought my first Windows Compaq desktop with a whopping 256k of ram!)
Mine came with the pen and has the touch screen/fully articulating screen, and since I teach, I like being able to make my own white board diagrams on the fly.
ML
Thank you, @Marylynne_Diggs. That computer you describe is indeed a whopper and I envy you for having it. So far this Lenovo is working out well and I’m going to upgrade its RAM to 16 GB.