Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 13 refurbished - $636 AC + tax Shipped

Thanks. Bought one. The biggest selling point to me is that the Yoga is easily upgradable. You can upgrade the RAM to 8GB. You can even add ANOTHER SSD to the spare PCIe slot. None of the other ultrabooks in the same class offer this flexibility. The Asus Prime Touch is nice but you're stuck with their config. You can't even upgrade the RAM.

The decision is tough between the X230 Tablet I got yesterday and the Yoga.....
Tempted to get them both and test it out before making a decision which one to keep.

I can't speak to the refurb aspect since I bought new, but I have this model from Best Buy and freaking love it. Best computer I've ever had by far. I've never noticed the fan being a problem.

Quote from dQn : So would you buy it again at this price?

I was tempted to, then realized that I would still have a hard time living with the issues even when its 300$ less!!

Quote from swa2k4 : the yoga is turbo and very fast... btw it is back in stock

My mistake, it turbos to 2.4?ghz dual core , though the graphics base clock is far lower and boosts to lower clocks max and sustained by a large margin (800-850mhz typically). The 3320m goes to 3.1ghz dual core and graphics at 1200-1250mhz.

Regarding if this is a good buy as other posters asked , I have not personally seen one. That said, if you want a thin and light convertible and don't need Wacom tech, I think it is a nice machine by most accounts.

And no, I don't work for lenovo or any manufacturer . I am a game developer.

I played with it bit in Best Buyandthe amount of overall flex was a little worrisome. Not horrible, but I'm not sure it would withstand a few years of my abuse.

Every single one of these that I have seen on display at a retail store has had broken hinges.

It's a fairly new laptop model too, so that's rather worrisome. Especially since the hinge design is rather idiot proof, no special tricks to get it to fold very far, just keep folding it...

I realize a display model is going to get a hell of a lot of abuse, but a lifetime (several years) of opening and closing this laptop could be comparable. It might not last a few years...

Out of curiosity, would people prefer the Thinkpad Twist over the Ideapad Yoga? The Twist is part of their business line, so its built with higher quality parts (I'm not talking hardware, necessarily, but rather stronger hinges, for example), and I've heard that Lenovo gives better support for their business line (Thinkpad) rather than their consumer line (Ideapad). Sadly, the Twist is not much of a looker compared to the Yoga.

Get a Twist. Looked at a Yoga, tablet mode is weird because of the keyboard. HDD partitions are also all f 'ed up on the stock SSD. I bought a Twist on Black Friday for 700 plus tax. Has REAL i5 processor, hybrid HDD w/ SSD cache (I don't believe it is mSATA; non-upgradeable), 2x2 WiFi N antenna (better reception; seems to be much faster than single antenna), Bluetooth 4.0, USB 3.0 w/ charging port, mini-Displayport, mini-HDMI, and all the business goodies on Lenovo laptops (supports TPM/Bitlocker, Trackpoint, Pretty good touchpad). Touchscreen is responsive (only 5 point, while Yoga is 10...but who actually touch types with 10 fingers, especially when you have a keyboard). Keyboard is really good (I type a lot on this). I think this form-factor is better for an actual a work machine because of the old "twist" style mechanism for the screen. The screen hinge is solid and works really well. The laptop itself is nice. Lightweight, grippy coating on all exterior surfaces (fingerprinty as all get out, can leave it looking greasy but I use this for work not show). Windows 8 is pretty nice on this laptop. Touch drivers work well, and touchscreen is nice due to edge to edge Gorilla Glass screen. Boots very fast (under 20 seconds from post) partially due to SSD cache on standard drive and partly due to Windows 8 (desktop applications do not load until you actually go to the desktop). This is not an iPad, so don't expect to hold it like one. I use touchscreen in my lap at home or at work, and carry it around with me like a clipboard when I use if out in the field at work. Flip the display around, connect another monitor, and you have a great touchscreen dual desktop with Metro on laptop and desktop applications on second screen. HDD is upgradeable to SSD (7mm drive height only); however RAM is soldered in (non-upgradeable). For the record, 4 GB of RAM is plenty for Windows 8. I have multiple Chrome tabs w/ multiple windows open, Acrobat Pro converting multiple PDFs, photo resizing programs running in the background, HD video playing simultaneously and RAM usage never goes above 65%. This is not for Photoshop or AutoCAD. If you do regular work (word processing, web browsing, file conversion, etc.), this is a great laptop. Battery is 4 hours on full blast, 6.5 hours w/ brightness turned down doing average things (audio streams, word processing, watching HD videos etc.) in the real world. Plus, people are amazed when you turn the screen toward them to show them something. I use this everyday for work (storm restoration sales) and it works great for sales presentations. People with Apple products look at you with envy because your laptop swivels and has a touchscreen. Best 700 bucks ever.

Forgot screen resolution. Both have IPS screen. Yoga resolution is higher. Twist screen is fine though. Adjust ClearType settings and font size in Windows and you are good to go. 1080p screens are nice, but at that resolution I read shit (tiny print sucks). To the guy two posts above....it actually does look pretty nice out in the wild (wish it didn't have the chrome plastic trim on the screen portion though). Also, it has a full size Ethernet port and I almost forgot about the HSPA+ radio and SIM card tray (Staples BF model has it at least). Once again, really nice laptop for the money.

Quote from roofproashley : Get a Twist. Looked at a Yoga, tablet mode is weird because of the keyboard. HDD partitions are also all f 'ed up on the stock SSD. I bought a Twist on Black Friday for 700 plus tax. Has REAL i5 processor, hybrid HDD w/ SSD cache (I don't believe it is mSATA; non-upgradeable), 2x2 WiFi N antenna (better reception; seems to be much faster than single antenna), Bluetooth 4.0, USB 3.0 w/ charging port, mini-Displayport, mini-HDMI, and all the business goodies on Lenovo laptops (supports TPM/Bitlocker, Trackpoint, Pretty good touchpad). Touchscreen is responsive (only 5 point, while Yoga is 10...but who actually touch types with 10 fingers, especially when you have a keyboard). Keyboard is really good (I type a lot on this). I think this form-factor is better for an actual a work machine because of the old "twist" style mechanism for the screen. The screen hinge is solid and works really well. The laptop itself is nice. Lightweight, grippy coating on all exterior surfaces (fingerprinty as all get out, can leave it looking greasy but I use this for work not show). Windows 8 is pretty nice on this laptop. Touch drivers work well, and touchscreen is nice due to edge to edge Gorilla Glass screen. Boots very fast (under 20 seconds from post) partially due to SSD cache on standard drive and partly due to Windows 8 (desktop applications do not load until you actually go to the desktop). This is not an iPad, so don't expect to hold it like one. I use touchscreen in my lap at home or at work, and carry it around with me like a clipboard when I use if out in the field at work. Flip the display around, connect another monitor, and you have a great touchscreen dual desktop with Metro on laptop and desktop applications on second screen. HDD is upgradeable to SSD (7mm drive height only); however RAM is soldered in (non-upgradeable). For the record, 4 GB of RAM is plenty for Windows 8. I have multiple Chrome tabs w/ multiple windows open, Acrobat Pro converting multiple PDFs, photo resizing programs running in the background, HD video playing simultaneously and RAM usage never goes above 65%. This is not for Photoshop or AutoCAD. If you do regular work (word processing, web browsing, file conversion, etc.), this is a great laptop. Battery is 4 hours on full blast, 6.5 hours w/ brightness turned down doing average things (audio streams, word processing, watching HD videos etc.) in the real world. Plus, people are amazed when you turn the screen toward them to show them something. I use this everyday for work (storm restoration sales) and it works great for sales presentations. People with Apple products look at you with envy because your laptop swivels and has a touchscreen. Best 700 bucks ever.

How do I read this, it's like a giant wall of apostrophes and parenthesis

Quote from roofproashley : Get a Twist. Looked at a Yoga, tablet mode is weird because of the keyboard. HDD partitions are also all f 'ed up on the stock SSD. I bought a Twist on Black Friday for 700 plus tax. Has REAL i5 processor, hybrid HDD w/ SSD cache (I don't believe it is mSATA; non-upgradeable), 2x2 WiFi N antenna (better reception; seems to be much faster than single antenna), Bluetooth 4.0, USB 3.0 w/ charging port, mini-Displayport, mini-HDMI, and all the business goodies on Lenovo laptops (supports TPM/Bitlocker, Trackpoint, Pretty good touchpad). Touchscreen is responsive (only 5 point, while Yoga is 10...but who actually touch types with 10 fingers, especially when you have a keyboard). Keyboard is really good (I type a lot on this). I think this form-factor is better for an actual a work machine because of the old "twist" style mechanism for the screen. The screen hinge is solid and works really well. The laptop itself is nice. Lightweight, grippy coating on all exterior surfaces (fingerprinty as all get out, can leave it looking greasy but I use this for work not show). Windows 8 is pretty nice on this laptop. Touch drivers work well, and touchscreen is nice due to edge to edge Gorilla Glass screen. Boots very fast (under 20 seconds from post) partially due to SSD cache on standard drive and partly due to Windows 8 (desktop applications do not load until you actually go to the desktop). This is not an iPad, so don't expect to hold it like one. I use touchscreen in my lap at home or at work, and carry it around with me like a clipboard when I use if out in the field at work. Flip the display around, connect another monitor, and you have a great touchscreen dual desktop with Metro on laptop and desktop applications on second screen. HDD is upgradeable to SSD (7mm drive height only); however RAM is soldered in (non-upgradeable). For the record, 4 GB of RAM is plenty for Windows 8. I have multiple Chrome tabs w/ multiple windows open, Acrobat Pro converting multiple PDFs, photo resizing programs running in the background, HD video playing simultaneously and RAM usage never goes above 65%. This is not for Photoshop or AutoCAD. If you do regular work (word processing, web browsing, file conversion, etc.), this is a great laptop. Battery is 4 hours on full blast, 6.5 hours w/ brightness turned down doing average things (audio streams, word processing, watching HD videos etc.) in the real world. Plus, people are amazed when you turn the screen toward them to show them something. I use this everyday for work (storm restoration sales) and it works great for sales presentations. People with Apple products look at you with envy because your laptop swivels and has a touchscreen. Best 700 bucks ever.

But... the yoga is sexier

Quote from sueshake : Just got an open box Yoga at $808 after tax from BB. Should I get this refurbished instead?

Open box is most likely a better deal. Someone probably bought it, played with it for a day, and returned it. If it looks new, keep it.

Quote from aznhero913 : Absolutely love my yoga!! Best purchase I have ever made on a cpu!!

I'll take this opinion with a grain of salt.