Is Lenovo Yoga 6 13ARE05 a good buy?

[Chiyawa]

Hi,

 

I was looking for a 2 in 1 laptop-tablet system, and this system, Lenovo Yoga 6 13ARE05, caught my eyes. Spotting a Ryzen 7 4700U with impressive 8 cores, an option to upgrade onboard RAM to 16GB at fairly reasonable price, as well as a cheap stylus and the system fits my budget perfectly, and this system probably checked everything on my checklist. The only downside, in Malaysia specifically, Lenovo estimated this thing takes more than 10 weeks to ship!

 

Anyway, I'm just curious, are there other system from other manufacturer with almost similar specs out there? Or should I just wait patiently for this system? Or should I wait for Ryzen 5000 series 2 in 1 laptop system? I'm not in a hurry to get this laptop, actually, so I can wait (but planning to get one in June or July).

 

Oh, my normal use case will be drawing (GIMP, MS Paint), watching Youtube, playing light games (Sandloft games made from the 90's such as Cake Mania, Tradewinds, and also some PopCap games and PlayFirst games such as Diner Dash), and mostly Office works. I know Ryzen 4700U is overkill for my use case and I would like to opt for 4500U, but they don't have that option.

 

Regards,

Benjamin Tan

[dizmo]

Kind of missed the most important part, the price. Can't really decide if something's a good buy without it.

[Chiyawa]

1 hour ago, dizmo said:

Kind of missed the most important part, the price. Can't really decide if something's a good buy without it.

I see. The cost is around USD 1200 (USD 1171 to be exact. Convert from Malaysian Ringgit to USD. This price includes tax, but not sure if it include shipping)

 

Anyway, for the specs:

AMD Ryzen 7 4700U

16GB DDR4 RAM chip soldered, no expansion available.

256GB M2 NVME 2242 SSD (upgradeable)

Integrated Graphic from AMD Ryzen

13.3" Full HD 10-point touch screen

Wi-Fi 6 AX and Bluetooth 5

Lenovo non-battery Stylus

720p web cam (no Windows Hello Face Recognition)

Windows 10 Pro

3 Years Premier support (On-site)

No anti-virus

Microsoft Office trial

60W 4-cell LiPo rechargeable battery

45W USB-C adapter

[rkv_2401]

Hi Chiyawa,

I had a Lenovo Yoga 3 14 that I bought back in 2015. Specs are in my signature.

 

I chose this one because there were essentially no other models that ticked all the boxes for me - an ultraportable laptop with a mid-end graphics card(940M), 8GB of RAM and an SSD - and the convertible functionality was an added bonus. I spent 80k INR (then the equivalent of 1280 USD) on it, which if you consider the degree to which electronics are overpriced in India, is actually a great bargain!

 

However, my years of ownership have been riddled with issues. Within 6 months of purchase, the back panel started to come off everytime I opened the laptop due to a design flaw with the hinge. A power-circuit related IC got shorted 2 times within the next 2 years, costing me the equivalent of 200 USD(15k INR, which is quite a lot!) worth in service costs. And more recently, the trackpad has been completely non-functional for over 2 years despite getting the module replaced multiple times. Finally, last week, the power circuit issue popped up again, and this time the local service people weren't able to fix it, stating that the short circuit killed the processor/motherboard.

 

I kept the laptop for as long as I did because it was powerful enough to play my games on(AAA games from 2015 or earlier, although even NFS Heat and Far Cry 5 were playable at 720p), portable enough for me to carry around to my friends' places/hangout spots, and still had decent battery life even after 5 years of use. But the course of it's life was anything but problem-free. I've spent more than a quarter of the price of the laptop in service costs, and I've always had to be very careful with it/nurse it around problems to get it to keep working. I know a friend who had a Yoga 2 that was broken at the hinge as well. These are merely my anecdotal experiences, however, and it stands to reason that by this iteration Lenovo could have fixed the design issues that the earlier models had.

[dizmo]

30 minutes ago, Chiyawa said:

I see. The cost is around USD 1200 (USD 1171 to be exact. Convert from Malaysian Ringgit to USD. This price includes tax, but not sure if it include shipping)

 

Anyway, for the specs:

AMD Ryzen 7 4700U

16GB DDR4 RAM chip soldered, no expansion available.

256GB M2 NVME 2242 SSD (upgradeable)

Integrated Graphic from AMD Ryzen

13.3" Full HD 10-point touch screen

Wi-Fi 6 AX and Bluetooth 5

Lenovo non-battery Stylus

720p web cam (no Windows Hello Face Recognition)

Windows 10 Pro

3 Years Premier support (On-site)

No anti-virus

Microsoft Office trial

60W 4-cell LiPo rechargeable battery

45W USB-C adapter

Quoting US pricing doesn't really help either, since it's not relevant to you. The only way to find out if it's a decent deal is to wait for someone who knows Malaysian markets and their pricing, and go from there.

[Chiyawa]

3 hours ago, rkv_2401 said:

Hi Chiyawa,

I had a Lenovo Yoga 3 14 that I bought back in 2015. Specs are in my signature.

 

I chose this one because there were essentially no other models that ticked all the boxes for me - an ultraportable laptop with a mid-end graphics card(940M), 8GB of RAM and an SSD - and the convertible functionality was an added bonus. I spent 80k INR (then the equivalent of 1280 USD) on it, which if you consider the degree to which electronics are overpriced in India, is actually a great bargain!

 

However, my years of ownership have been riddled with issues. Within 6 months of purchase, the back panel started to come off everytime I opened the laptop due to a design flaw with the hinge. A power-circuit related IC got shorted 2 times within the next 2 years, costing me the equivalent of 200 USD(15k INR, which is quite a lot!) worth in service costs. And more recently, the trackpad has been completely non-functional for over 2 years despite getting the module replaced multiple times. Finally, last week, the power circuit issue popped up again, and this time the local service people weren't able to fix it, stating that the short circuit killed the processor/motherboard.

 

I kept the laptop for as long as I did because it was powerful enough to play my games on(AAA games from 2015 or earlier, although even NFS Heat and Far Cry 5 were playable at 720p), portable enough for me to carry around to my friends' places/hangout spots, and still had decent battery life even after 5 years of use. But the course of it's life was anything but problem-free. I've spent more than a quarter of the price of the laptop in service costs, and I've always had to be very careful with it/nurse it around problems to get it to keep working. I know a friend who had a Yoga 2 that was broken at the hinge as well. These are merely my anecdotal experiences, however, and it stands to reason that by this iteration Lenovo could have fixed the design issues that the earlier models had.

I see. Thanks for your feedback. Yeah, I suppose cheap laptops do tend to have issues, but not just cheap laptop, even the more expensive Dell laptops do have some issues with the hinge, notably Latitude E5520, and some of the more recent Latitude 3570. It doesn't help that their newer laptop battery got bloated after 1 and a half year of usage, which may destroy the casing.

[Chiyawa]

3 hours ago, dizmo said:

Quoting US pricing doesn't really help either, since it's not relevant to you. The only way to find out if it's a decent deal is to wait for someone who knows Malaysian markets and their pricing, and go from there.

Okay. No worries. In Malaysia, Intel is still dominant in laptop sectors. Dell doesn't even carry 2 in 1 laptop with AMD processor, and HP does carry some, but their price are a bit expensive. So, there's not a lot I can compare for now.

[David1229]

Hi Benjamin , I'm David from Malaysia also ,I found yoga 6 at lenovo Malaysia for RM3500 (R7 4700/16/512) , around Rm4000 also can consider HP envy x360 , you can simply find one for RM4000 (R5 4500 /16/512) ... Design and build quality wise I think HP wins easily , lenovo tends to have hinge problem on all of its laptop , anyways worth checking out the HP if you still didn't buy .

[Chiyawa]

23 hours ago, David1229 said:

for RM3500 (R7 4700/16/512)

I think that one will be R5 4650G, 8GB. According to official Lenovo website at least.

 

HP Envy x360 is good, but I found it lacking USB 3.0 type A ports and headphone jack, which is a turn off for me.

 

Anyway, thanks for your suggestion. I have already purchased Lenovo Yoga 6. It's quite good for the price.