The best laptop of last year adds HDR, facial recognition, and 8th-gen processors

Enlarge / Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga 3rd generation (credit: Lenovo)

I was a huge fan of the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga when I reviewed it last year. For me, it was the perfect combination of technology, form factor, and good looks.

This January, the machine is receiving a modest, third-generation refresh that threatens to make the best laptop even better. The basic size and concept remain the same as before—a 14-inch laptop with a 360-degree hinge and integrated stylus. This update is a refresh driven by a generational update of its CPU—the processor is being bumped from 7th-generation Kaby Lake to 8th-generation Kaby Lake-R, giving it four cores and eight threads. But Lenovo has also made a number of small modifications beyond this, addressing perhaps my one quibble from last year’s model, and more.

My gripe with Yoga was that the webcam didn’t support infrared and hence didn’t offer Windows Hello facial recognition. I’ve grown to love these features from my time using Surface devices and the Logitech Brio webcam on my desktop PC; the convenience of unlocking simply by sitting at the machine is hard to beat. The new 3rd-generation Yoga addresses this: while it continues to offer fingerprint authentication, it now also has an option of an IR camera for Windows Hello facial recognition. Lenovo has also built a physical shutter for the camera to ensure privacy when you’re not using it.

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Ars Technica

Post Author: martin

Martin is an enthusiastic programmer, a webdeveloper and a young entrepreneur. He is intereted into computers for a long time. In the age of 10 he has programmed his first website and since then he has been working on web technologies until now. He is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of BriefNews.eu and PCHealthBoost.info Online Magazines. His colleagues appreciate him as a passionate workhorse, a fan of new technologies, an eternal optimist and a dreamer, but especially the soul of the team for whom he can do anything in the world.

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