Lenovo ThinkPad L13 Yoga review – ThinkPad security with Yoga versatility and a Pen hiding in the chassis

Guys, today we have a very special product from Lenovo. It is a neat combination of a business device and an artist’s tool. By combining the security expertise of the ThinkPad family, and the versatility of the Yoga convertibles, they have created the ThinkPad L13 Yoga.

It is a laptop that is aimed at both the business environment, and at people that need to sketch a project on the go. At your disposal, you have a 13.3-inch Full HD IPS panel and a ThinkPad Pen Pro, which has its own slot inside the chassis.

Additionally, Lenovo relies on Intel’s Comet Lake U series, which delivers processors like the Core i7-10510U (and a couple of vPro models, as well). It’s petty that they don’t offer the device with AMD’s superior architecture, or at least with the Ice Lake CPU’s of Intel.

Nevertheless, let’s dig into the machine, and see if there are any compromises with the execution, or whether it is one of the best 2-in-1s on the market.

You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: https://laptopmedia.com/series/lenovo-thinkpad-l13-yoga/

Contents


Specs Sheet

Lenovo ThinkPad L13 Yoga - Specs

  • LG LP133WF7-SPA1
  • Color accuracy  5.5  1.2
  • HDD/SSD
  • up to 2000GB SSD
  • M.2 Slot
  • 1x 2280 PCIe NVMe 3.0 x4 
  • RAM
  • up to 16GB
  • OS
  • Windows 10 Home, Windows 10 Pro, Windows 11 Pro
  • Battery
  • 46Wh, 4-cell, 46Wh
  • Body material
  • Plastic / Polycarbonate, Aluminum, Glass Fiber, Magnesium alloy
  • Dimensions
  • 312 x 219 x 17.6 mm (12.28" x 8.62" x 0.69")
  • Weight
  • 1.43 kg (3.2 lbs)
  • Ports and connectivity
  • 2x USB Type-C
  • 3.2 Gen 1 (5 Gbps), Power Delivery (PD), DisplayPort
  • 1x USB Type-A
  • 3.2 Gen 1 (5 Gbps), Sleep and Charge
  • 1x USB Type-A
  • 3.2 Gen 1 (5 Gbps)
  • HDMI
  • 1.4b
  • Card reader
  • microSD
  • Wi-Fi
  • 802.11ac
  • Bluetooth
  • 5.0
  • Audio jack
  • combo audio / microphone jack
  • Features
  • Fingerprint reader
  • optional
  • Web camera
  • HD
  • Backlit keyboard
  • optional
  • Microphone
  • Speakers
  • 2x 2W
  • Optical drive
  • Security Lock slot

All Lenovo ThinkPad L13 Yoga configurations

#CommissionsEarned

What’s in the box?

Inside the package, we got some paper manuals, as well as a 65W USB Type-C power brick.


Design and construction

Once again, we have a ThinkPad that features premium building materials. On the lid, you will encounter either Magnesium or Aluminum, while the base is made out of Glass Fiber Reinforced Plastic. And despite the twisty base, we find the laptop on the sturdy side. In terms of measurements, the notebook has a profile of 17.6mm and weighs 1.43 kg.

Opening the lid is impossible with a single hand. On the other side, the hinges are rather strong and offer good support. Interestingly, looking at the lid, the laptop doesn’t look particularly modern in 2020, but there is a good reason for that. The top bezel happens to hide an IR face recognition camera with a 720p HD resolution.

Going to the base, we find another camera – this time a 5MP unit with autofocus. It sits above the keyboard, which makes it comfortable for use when you are in tablet mode. Speaking of tablet mode, the ThinkPad Pen Pro is located on the right, and it features 4096 points of pressure and two dedicated customizable buttons.

Now, the keyboard is a particularly interesting unit for this laptop. It has a backlight, spill-resistance, as well as a long key travel, and clicky feedback. Overall, it is one of the best keyboards we’ve used on a 2-in-1 device. Additionally, it has a Nipple, which is paired with some dedicated buttons above the touchpad.

As for the touchpad – it is extremely comfortable to use with its Mylar surface, which provides a decent gliding experience. Also, it uses ELAN drivers, as is the Red Nipple. By the way, this machine comes with a fingerprint reader as well.

Lastly, the laptop has its vents on the bottom panel, where you can also find the speaker cutouts. Thankfully, the hot air is exhausted from the backside of the base, which means that no matter in which position you use the device, you will never get warm air in your face, nor will you accidentally block the exhaust.

Ports

On the left side, you got two USB Type-C 3.2 (Gen. 1) ports (both can be used for charging and DisplayPort output), an Ethernet extension connector, a USB Type-A 3.2 (Gen. 1) port, and an audio jack. And on the right, there’s a security latch, an HDMI 1.4b, as well as another USB Type-A 3.2 (Gen. 1) port, a MicroSD card reader, and the Power button, that sits a bit flushed with the body, and gives hardly any feedback when pressed.


Disassembly, upgrade options, and maintenance

What is separating you from this laptop’s internals, are 9 Phillips-head captive screws, which are not detaching from the bottom plate, after being undone. After that, you need to remove the stylus, and then pry the panel away with a plastic tool, starting from the back.

Cooling-wise, we see the standard heat pipe and a single fan that blows the heat away from the notebook.

Sadly, you can see the memory modules just above the processor. This means that you won’t be able to upgrade it after you purchase the device, which leaves you with the 4, 8, or 16GB you paired the laptop initially. On the bright side, you can put a faster and larger SSD via the M.2 PCIe x4 slot.

And when it comes to the battery, you get a 46Wh unit.


Display quality

Lenovo ThinkPad L13 Yoga is equipped with a Full HD touchscreen IPS panel, LG LP133WF7-SPA1 (LEN4094). Its diagonal is 13.3-inch (33.78 cm), and the resolution – 1920 х 1080p. Additionally, the screen ratio is 16:9, the pixel density – 166 ppi, their pitch – 0.15 х 0.15 mm. The screen can be considered Retina when viewed from at least 50 cm (from this distance, the average human eye can’t see the individual pixels).

Viewing angles are comfortable. We offer images at different angles to evaluate the quality.

The maximum measured brightness is 318 nits (cd/m2) in the middle of the screen and also 299 nits (cd/m2) average across the surface with a maximum deviation of 14%. The Correlated Color Temperature on a white screen and at maximum brightness is 6350K – warmer than the 6500K temperature for sRGB.
In the illustration below you can see how the display performs from a uniformity perspective. The illustration below shows how matters are for operational brightness levels (approximately 140 nits) – in this particular case at 72% Brightness (White level = 143 cd/m2, Black level = 0.08 cd/m2).
Values of dE2000 over 4.0 should not occur, and this parameter is one of the first you should check if you intend to use the laptop for color-sensitive work (a maximum tolerance of 2.0 ). The contrast ratio is very good – 1700:1.

To make sure we are on the same page, we would like to give you a little introduction to the sRGB color gamut and the Adobe RGB. To start, there’s the CIE 1976 Uniform Chromaticity Diagram that represents the visible specter of colors by the human eye, giving you a better perception of the color gamut coverage and the color accuracy.

Inside the black triangle, you will see the standard color gamut (sRGB) that is being used by millions of people in HDTV and on the web. As for the Adobe RGB, this is used in professional cameras, monitors, etc for printing. Basically, colors inside the black triangle are used by everyone and this is the essential part of the color quality and color accuracy of a mainstream notebook.

Still, we’ve included other color spaces like the famous DCI-P3 standard used by movie studios, as well as the digital UHD Rec.2020 standard. Rec.2020, however, is still a thing of the future and it’s difficult for today’s displays to cover that well. We’ve also included the so-called Michael Pointer gamut, or Pointer’s gamut, which represents the colors that naturally occur around us every day.

The yellow dotted line shows Lenovo ThinkPad L13 Yoga’s color gamut coverage.

Its display covers 95% of the sRGB/ITU-R BT.709 (web/HDTV standard) in CIE1976.

Our “Design and Gaming” profile delivers optimal color temperature (6500K) at 140 cd/m2 luminance and sRGB gamma mode.

We tested the accuracy of the display with 24 commonly used colors like light and dark human skin, blue sky, green grass, orange, etc. You can check out the results at factory condition and also, with the “Design and Gaming” profile.

Below you can compare the scores of Lenovo ThinkPad L13 Yoga with the default settings (left), and with the “Gaming and Web design” profile (right).

The next figure shows how well the display is able to reproduce really dark parts of an image, which is essential when watching movies or playing games in low ambient light.

The left side of the image represents the display with stock settings, while the right one is with the “Gaming and Web Design” profile activated. On the horizontal axis, you will find the grayscale, and on the vertical axis – the luminance of the display. On the two graphs below you can easily check for yourself how your display handles the darkest nuances but keep in mind that this also depends on the settings of your current display, the calibration, the viewing angle, and the surrounding light conditions.

Response time (Gaming capabilities)

We test the reaction time of the pixels with the usual “black-to-white” and “white-to-black” method from 10% to 90% and vice versa.

We recorded Fall Time + Rise Time = 28 ms.


Health impact – PWM / Blue Light

PWM (Screen flickering)

Pulse-width modulation (PWM) is an easy way to control monitor brightness. When you lower the brightness, the light intensity of the backlight is not lowered, but instead turned off and on by the electronics with a frequency indistinguishable to the human eye. In these light impulses, the light/no-light time ratio varies, while brightness remains unchanged, which is harmful to your eyes. You can read more about that in our dedicated article on PWM.

Lenovo ThinkPad L13 Yoga’s display backlight doesn’t flicker at any brightness level, making it comfortable for extended work sessions in this aspect.

Blue light emissions

Installing our Health-Guard profile not only eliminates PWM but also reduces the harmful Blue Light emissions while keeping the colors of the screen perceptually accurate. If you’re not familiar with the Blue light, the TL;DR version is – emissions that negatively affect your eyes, skin, and your whole body. You can find more information about that in our dedicated article on Blue Light.

Conclusion

Lenovo ThinkPad L13 Yoga’s touchscreen IPS panel has a Full HD resolution, comfortable viewing angles, very good contrast ratio, and a 95% sRGB coverage. Thankfully, its backlight doesn’t flicker, and with the appropriate profile, you get standard-matching color accuracy. Shall your work include color-sensitive content, you can benefit by using this notebook’s display. On the other hand, it has a high deviation of the colors in the top right corner, compared to the middle part of the screen.

Buy our profiles

Since our profiles are tailored for each individual display model, this article and its respective profile package are meant for Lenovo ThinkPad L13 Yoga configurations with 13.3″ LG LP133WF7-SPA1 (FHD, 1920 × 1080) IPS panel.

*Should you have problems with downloading the purchased file, try using a different browser to open the link you’ll receive via e-mail. If the download target is a .php file instead of an archive, change the file extension to .zip or contact us at [email protected].

Read more about the profiles HERE.

In addition to receiving efficient and health-friendly profiles, by buying LaptopMedia's products you also support the development of our labs, where we test devices in order to produce the most objective reviews possible.

Office Work

Office Work should be used mostly by users who spend most of the time looking at pieces of text, tables or just surfing. This profile aims to deliver better distinctness and clarity by keeping a flat gamma curve (2.20), native color temperature and perceptually accurate colors.

Design and Gaming

This profile is aimed at designers who work with colors professionally, and for games and movies as well. Design and Gaming takes display panels to their limits, making them as accurate as possible in the sRGB IEC61966-2-1 standard for Web and HDTV, at white point D65.

Health-Guard

Health-Guard eliminates the harmful Pulse-Width Modulation (PWM) and reduces the negative Blue Light which affects our eyes and body. Since it’s custom tailored for every panel, it manages to keep the colors perceptually accurate. Health-Guard simulates paper so the pressure on the eyes is greatly reduced.

Get all 3 profiles with 33% discount


Sound

Lenovo ThinkPad L13 Yoga’s speakers produce a relatively loud sound with good quality. Its low, mid, and high tones are clear of deviations.


Drivers

All of the drivers and utilities for this notebook can be downloaded from here: https://pcsupport.lenovo.com/us/en/products/laptops-and-netbooks/thinkpad-l-series-laptops/thinkpad-l13-yoga-type-20r5-20r6/downloads/driver-list

Battery

Now, we conduct the battery tests with Windows Better performance setting turned on, screen brightness adjusted to 120 nits, and all other programs turned off except for the one we are testing the notebook with. Well, this device’s 46Wh battery lasts for 8 hours and 12 minutes of Web browsing and 8 hours and 28 minutes of video playback.

In order to simulate real-life conditions, we used our own script for automatic web browsing through over 70 websites.


CPU options

The processors you can get with this laptop are the Core i3-10110U (the only dual-core CPU), Core i5-10210U, Core i5-10310U, Core i7-10510U, Core i5-10610U.


GPU options

Respectively, the only graphics card of choice is the integrated Intel UHD Graphics, found in all of the aforementioned processors.


Gaming tests

cs-go-benchmarks

CS:GOHD 1080p, Low (Check settings)HD 1080p, Medium (Check settings)HD 1080p, MAX (Check settings)
Average FPS45 fps27 fps– fps

DOTA 2HD 1080p, Low (Check settings)HD 1080p, Normal (Check settings)HD 1080p, High (Check settings)
Average FPS59 fps31 fps– fps

Temperatures and comfort

Max CPU load

In this test we use 100% on the CPU cores, monitoring their frequencies and chip temperature. The first column shows a computer’s reaction to a short load (2-10 seconds), the second column simulates a serious task (between 15 and 30 seconds), and the third column is a good indicator of how good the laptop is for long loads such as video rendering.

Average core frequency (base frequency + X); CPU temp.

Intel Core i5-10210U (15W TDP)0:02 – 0:10 sec0:15 – 0:30 sec10:00 – 15:00 min
Lenovo ThinkPad L13 Yoga3.31 GHz (B+107%) @ 97°C2.37 GHz (B+48%) @ 97°C1.99 GHz (B+24%) @ 81°C
Lenovo ThinkPad X132.59 GHz (B+62%) @ 75°C1.84 GHz (B+15%) @ 74°C1.54 GHz @ 67°C
MSI Modern 142.33 GHz (B+46%) @ 61°C2.32 GHz (B+45%) @ 71°C2.07 GHz (B+29%) @ 80°C
HP Probook 440 G72.68 GHz (B+68%) @ 59°C2.68 GHz (B+68%) @ 67°C2.20 GHz (B+38%) @ 72°C
Lenovo ThinkBook 15-IML3.08 GHz (B+93%) @ 73°C3.00 GHz (B+88%) @ 82°C2.55 GHz (B+59%) @ 80°C
Lenovo ThinkPad L133.04 GHz (B+90%) @ 97°C2.10 GHz (B+31%) @ 97°C2.12 GHz (B+33%) @ 79°C
ASUS ZenBook Duo UX4813.26 GHz (B+104%) @ 94°C2.77 GHz (B+73%) @ 98°C2.06 GHz (B+29%) @ 71°C
Dell Vostro 55903.50 GHz (B+119%) @ 94°C2.68 GHz (B+68%) @ 97°C2.36 GHz (B+48%) @ 79°C

Well, this notebook reaches pretty high temperatures in the Prime95 torture test, but on the bright side, we see a very high frequency… at least initially.

Comfort during full load

Sadly, the notebook spins its fan even when it’s installing a program. And it is definitely audible, as well. Moreover, after 15 minutes of stress testing, we monitored a temperature on the keyboard of almost 50C.


Verdict

There is no lie, the ThinkPad L13 Yoga is not for everybody. If you are solely interested in the artistic properties of the device, there are cheaper and perhaps, more suitable laptops. And if business-related work is on your hand, you can surely find more cost-efficient solutions, like the ThinkPad E15, or the HP ProBook 430 G7.

Also, while the battery life is decent (providing a bit more than 8 hours of very light work), we’ve tested some Latitudes with more than 20 hours of autonomous use.

Other than that, you get a ThinkPad Pen Pro, that has its little housing inside the chassis, support of Wi-Fi 6, and premium materials when it comes to the build.

Lenovo ThinkPad L13 Yoga’s touchscreen IPS panel (LG LP133WF7-SPA1) has a Full HD resolution, comfortable viewing angles, very good contrast ratio, and a 95% sRGB coverage. Thankfully, its backlight doesn’t flicker, and with the appropriate profile, you get standard-matching color accuracy. Shall your work include color-sensitive content, you can benefit by using this notebook’s display. On the other hand, it has a high deviation of the colors in the top right corner, compared to the middle part of the screen.

Moreover, its memory cannot be upgraded, since it is soldered to the motherboard. Thankfully, all of the security features should be able to make you forget about that. Especially when you take into consideration the IR face recognition system and the fingerprint reader.

Not on the last place, this unit features a secondary camera, placed right above the keyboard, which makes this 2-in-1 device appear more like a tablet than most other convertibles. And of course, it complies with the MIL-STD-810G standard.

So, if you enjoy working with a great keyboard, and would like to have the opportunity of using the stylus, the ThinkPad L13 Yoga might actually not be a bad idea. However, keep in mind that there are far less expensive laptops if you only need to use one of its multifunctions.

Pros

  • ThinkPad Pen Pro has its home inside the chassis
  • It supports Wi-Fi 6 and its keyboard is backlit, spill-resistant, and comfortable for typing
  • The display doesn’t flicker at any brightness level (LG LP133WF7-SPA1)
  • Has a good contrast ratio and comfortable viewing angles (LG LP133WF7-SPA1)
  • Covers 92% of sRGB and color accuracy is greatly improved with our Gaming and Web design profile (LG LP133WF7-SPA1)
  • Very good build quality


Cons

  • Memory cannot be upgraded
  • Not the best cooling solution out there
  • Our unit had poor uniformity of the colors of its screen (LG LP133WF7-SPA1)

You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: https://laptopmedia.com/series/lenovo-thinkpad-l13-yoga/

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