The Lenovo started in the right direction when it released their Yoga series. The company made a successful bid in the ultrabook market. Nonetheless, many felt that the first Yoga series offered more in style than functionality. The laptop can bend according to a user's preference but it did not deliver much in terms of specs. With Lenovo's Yoga 2 Pro, the company made the right turn both in specs and style.

The first generation Yoga ran on Ivy Bridge processor and provided a low resolution display at 1600 x 900. This combination will not grab any recognition for Lenovo especially in performance and graphics. Fortunately, the company decided to release a better and more flexible Yoga: the Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro.

When the device was announced at the IFA 2013, the Lenovo Yoga 2 proved to be a better version of its predecessor. The screen went through a dramatic transformation. Screen size is at 13.3 inches while resolution increased to 3200 x 1800. This makes the screen one of the brightest on the market at 350 nits.

Lenovo also made sure they revamped the chassis. While it appears the same, the device sports a thinner chassis at 1.5mm compared to 1.71mm before. Lenovo's makeover took off a lot of weight improving portability of the device. The Yoga 2 Pro weighs 1.4kg. The weight is comparable to many ultrabooks that does not offer the flip capabilities.

Yoga 2 Pro runs on Intel Haswell processor up to Core i7 and comes with a 8GB RAM up to 521GB SSD. This ensures users fast and smooth performance. What is interesting is that Lenovo wants to target the professional crowd with its Yoga 2. Analysts say it wants to compete directly with Apple's MacBook Pro.

The display and performance is top notch. It is certainly a considerable improvement from the original Yoga. The device also comes with a backlit keyboard which folds and hides perfectly when the Yoga 2 Pro switches to tablet mode. However, users may have to get used to the chunkier feel of the device when in slate orientation.

2013 Haswell MacBook Pro

Apple's new 13-Inch Retina MacBook Pro also went through some impressive transformation. The product line now runs on Intel Iris integrated graphics. Macworld tested both entry-level and high-end variants of the 13-inch Retina MacBook against the 2013 Ivy Bridge model. The latter model runs on Intel's older HD 4000 graphics.

According to tests under Unigine Valley Benchmark and Cinebench r15, the latest Retina MacBook Pro offered 45 to 50% improvement in frame rate. In fact, results posted under Unigine Heaven Benchmark showed 65% improvement. That is as impressive as it can get.

The GPU gains coincide with Intel's predictions in May. The company claimed that the Iris graphics can double or triple what Ivy Bridge Intel HD Graphics 4000 brought to the table. Macworld also conducted a number of CPU benchmarks for the higher-end Retina MacBook Pro revealing five percent improvement with regards to Cinebench CPU and 8 percent for MathematicaMark 8.

The lower end model, on the other hand, revealed a percent improvement compared to Ivy Bridge processors.

Macworld also tested the newest PCIe storage on the product line. This revealed 33% improvement for the 256GB higher-end MacBook compared to the Ivy Bridge-based line. There are no speed gains reported so far about the lower end MacBook Pro and its flash storage.

Other tech specs for the MacBook Pro include:

  • 2560 by 1600 pixels (Retina) with supported scaled resolutions for 1680 by 1050, 1440 by 900, and 1024 by 640 pixels (13-inch)
  • 2880 by 1800 pixels (Retina) with supported scaled resolutions for 1920 by 1200, 1680 by 1050, 1280 by 800, and 1024 by 640 pixels (15-inch)
  • Processor configurations for 13-inch: 2.4GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor (Turbo Boost up to 2.9GHz) with 3MB shared L3 cache, 2.4GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor (Turbo Boost up to 2.9GHz) with 3MB shared L3 cache and 2.6GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor (Turbo Boost up to 3.1GHz) with 3MB shared L3 cache
  • Processor configurations for 15-inch: 2.0GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 processor (Turbo Boost up to 3.2GHz) with 6MB shared L3 cache and 2.3GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 processor (Turbo Boost up to 3.5GHz) with 6MB shared L3 cache
  • Memory options for 13-inch: 4GB of 1600MHz DDR3L onboard memory and 8GB of 1600MHz DDR3L onboard memory
  • Memory options for 15-inch: 8GB of 1600MHz DDR3L onboard memory and 16GB of 1600MHz DDR3L onboard memory

Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro is catching up to Apple but it will need to bump up the features to be at par with the MacBook Pro series.