Lenovo YOGA 500 14-Inch HD Touchscreen Notebook (AMD A8-7410 2.2 GHz, 8 GB RAM, 1 TB HDD, WLAN, Bluetooth, Camera, ATI Exo Pro R5 2G Graphics, Windows 8.1) - Black

For the past year I have been using my Lenovo FLEX 10 touchscreen notebook. I have had no problems with this since upgrading to windows 10 but wanted something with a bigger screen and more power. That is exactly what I got with the YOGA 500, not only a four inches bigger screen but 3x as much hard drive and twice as much RAM, as well as ATI graphics.First impressions are that compared to the flex is has similar flexibility in the modes, with the addition that it folds completely into the tablet mode which is incredibly handy for taking note with the OneNote and also very useful for playing some of the touch games available on the MS store. This really is just like having a very large tablet. Very easy to use in bed at night when playing games.The battery life is about 6 hours which is plenty for me as I don't roam far from outlets very often. In terms of weight it is not bad - not very heavy for such a large screen at all. This is a full sized notebook and for that it is pretty light. The picture for movies etc is excellent thanks to the dedicated 2G graphics ram dedicated to it so it doesn't steal the system memory as other laptops often do. I must say this is the best I've seen in this price range for playing games and watching films and videos. For all round working, playing and media laptop it is great value for money and you get a lot of graphics for your money.This is the most versatile device I have, I have looked into the range before buying and was considering the intel i3 version but was put off by a review which mentioned the AMD was better regarding the speed and connectivity. I am grateful to the reviewer as I have had no problems as this came pre installed with windows 10 and the performance has been spotless.As for build, this doesn't seem to have been skimped on at all considering the price. The case is really solid and in tablet mode is is very robust indeed. In all the positions it stays in place brilliantly and no problems slipping or shifting. It has a full keyboard layout and the mouse function is fine. When the keyboard and touchpad are face down on the desk, they are fully disabled and I use an external wireless mouse and the touchscreen and this works perfectly well. I mostly use it in stand or tablet mode.There have been comments on the amount of lenovo software that is included in the default settings (bloatware), the first thing I do is uninstall the free McAfee trial as this is useless but the rest of it doesn't seem to take up too many resources and is not too intrusive. I signed up for the lenovo ID and lenovo REACHit and SHAREit and both of these are useful. SHARE is just a way of connecting to your phone over wifi and sharing pictures and files, you can also use your phone as a controller for this. REACH is a way of sharing information between your computers on the local network and on the internet. The battery gauge is very useful, as is the Dolby sound.There is other lenovo software on it, I think they're pretty useful overall and they don't get in the way. You can always uninstall them.The laptop detects which YOGA mode it is positioned in and disables the touchpad and keyboard automatically, this is such a useful feature for me as I often carry it around and this would normally press the keyboard.Overall this is a really versatile, solid, well thought out device that is so useful to me it was well worth the surprisingly low price. I really like Lenovo as a brand and have several of their tablet/notebooks, this is the most useful for me as it is full size with all the small size features and advantages. Brilliant.

**UPDATE**Things are no better, I've followed all Lenovo's Tech Support recommendations. Today the wireless adaptor has just vanished completely meaning no wireless connection at all. I've downloaded the driver from the Lenovo site - no difference. I've also checked the BIOS version is the latest, which it is and has the wireless enabled. This is the final straw - this is by far the worst laptop experience I've ever had personally or seen for someone else. I've started the returns process even though I've had this product for 7 weeks. I'll await the response from the Amazon seller. I'll be going back to pcspecialists.co.uk where I buy my business, music and gaming spec laptops from.----------------------------------------------I own two other Lenovo's and both are excellent. I bought this as a replacement for my old ailing laptop used by my wife. She only requires email and browsing - no other app usage at all really other than perhaps storing/viewing photos. The Yogo looks good, feels well buiilt and asthetically is very pleasing. However, the performance is appauling for the spec. Boot up, and loading of browser and any other factory installed software is shockingly slow. No quicker than my old Dell Inspiron. A real disappointment. I've disabled what I can (safely) from the startup config but no improvement. I've watched the processor and memory usage and can't see anything untowards happening and the laptop is pretty as it is out of the box. Terrible. Although I've worked in IT for 30 years and know my way around PC's this has beaten me and I'm going to have to take it to an expert to see if something can be done (for which I'll have to pay handsomely no doubt). Real disappointment - maybe I just got a 'badden'.

Overall the performance of this is product is disappointing. It is not a full laptop, its an Ideapad and as such suffers when asked to do anything that remotely requires a bit of power. It has a very sensitive touchpad and a common fault is the network card randomly turning itself off. Otherwise its OK, screen is good and touch works well, but only suitable for casual use.There are better products for the money.

Not even remotely impressed, the laptop looks very nice from the outside until you use it. There are 3 main issues I found in the first hour:1. battery did not last more then two hours of browsing,2. the screen is simply bad, viewing angle is terrible, colours are washed out and generally not pleasant to look at.3. there is significant confusion when using the touch pad or touch, on occasion clicks don't register, occasionally touch doesn't or there is a large lag creating more confusion.I'm considering returning this, since I got it for my wife it will depend on whether she will get along with it.Update.............I have now returned this laptop, Amazon were perfect as always on the return, in the first 3 days the laptop crashed about 2 hours into use on 3 occasions, this maybe drivers, hardware or just bugs in the OS, updates didn't seem to help. Never the less it convinced me I would spend all my time listening to my wife complain. I opted to get her a Chromebook with online word and excell its all she needs.

I am very with the performance and it is has very handy features. However, battery life is a lot less than what I expected (2-3 hours), which is quite disappointing, so not ideal for working during travelling.