Take the unbelievable light design of the Lenovo LaVie Z HZ550, add the multimode, convertible design of the Editors' Choice Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro, and you get the new LaVie Z 360 ($1,599 as tested). This convertible-hybrid laptop is an astonishingly lightweight ultraportable, but you'll pay extra, and you'll have to give up some performance capability.

Editors' Note: We have updated this review to reflect updated battery testing results.

Design
The system gets its 360 moniker thanks to two dual-axle hinges, similar to those seen on Lenovo's Yoga laptops, that allow the screen to open up a full 360-degree range and fold around into Tablet, Stand, Tent, and Laptop modes. Now, it's not exactly part of the Yoga product line—the LaVie Z line is licensed and sold by Lenovo, but designed by NEC. It's also extra thin and light, just like the clamshell-only Lenovo LaVie HZ550. Measuring 0.67 by 12.56 by 8.35 inches (HWD), it's smaller and thinner than the Dell Inspiron 13 7000 Series 2-in-1 Special Edition (7352), which measures 0.8 by 12.9 by 8.7 inches, but it's also more than a pound and a half lighter, weighing just 2.04 pounds to the Dell's 3.7 pounds. The difference in weight is astonishing, and that jaw-dropping lightness is the key selling point of the LaVie line.

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Like with the LaVie HZ550, every trick in the book has been used to cut weight on the LaVie Z 360. The chassis is made from ultralight magnesium-lithium alloy, and has been meticulously designed to remove any excess material. Despite the dimensions, the LaVie boasts a full 13.3-inch display, but the panel is bonded directly to the lid to reduce thickness and cut weight further. But, as you might expect, reducing weight so drastically does require making some compromises in terms of quality, feature set, and performance.

The 13.3-inch display boasts an In-Plane Switching (IPS) panel with 10-digit touch, as well as 2,560-by-1,440 (WQHD) resolution. That's not quite as high-res as the 3,200-by-1,800 screen found on the Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro, but it's on par with the Retina display found on the 12-inch Apple MacBook (2015), and much better than the full HD (1,920-by-1,080) display on the Dell Inspiron 13 7000 Series 2-in-1. The only issue I have with the display is the extremely reflective layer that covers the panel—you could use it as a mirror in a pinch—and also manages to pick up every fingerprint and smudge when touched, an unwelcome quirk in a touch screen.

There are a couple of points where the weight shaving and corner cutting do show through. The first is in sound quality, where the LaVie 360's built-in stereo speakers sound tinny, with poor quality that only gets worse at higher volumes. When so many other ultraportables and convertible systems offer good sound, it's a real disappointment to hear such poor audio quality here.

The other issue is construction. We
expressed the same concern with the LaVie HZ550, where the barely-there design resulted in a chassis that has very little flex in the frame, but feels flimsy when any pressure was put on the lid or underside. While that's not a big issue for a laptop that will mostly sit stationary, it's a huge issue for a device that will see a lot of handheld use, and that flimsiness is also felt in the hinges. It's nowhere near as stable and sturdy as Lenovo's own Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro or the Lenovo ThinkPad Yoga 12, and it feels cheap and poorly made as a result.

Finally, there's the keyboard. The chiclet-style design isn't necessarily bad to type on, though it's not as comfortable as Lenovo's usual AccuType keyboard, and the spacing is off, with small keys that are a little too widely spaced. The problems go beyond mere key feel, however, as the layout is simply a Japanese-style keyboard with English characters on the keys. As a result, there are some very odd quirks, like an extra large Enter key, Arrow keys that are crowded into one corner with half-width keys, and an unexpected FWD Space key where the Delete key might be. While the keyboard may be cramped and confusingly laid out, however, the accompanying touchpad is good. The matte finish looks fine, and the touch and gesture support gave me no problems during my evaluation.

Features
While you might expect a few ports and features to be dropped in the interest of thinness and lower weight, that's not really the case with the LaVie Z 360. On the right of the system are an HDMI-out port, two USB 3.0 ports, an SD card slot, and a headset audio jack. On the left are a case-lock slot and Lenovo's squared-off Power connector, along with the system's Power button and volume controls. Compared with the single USB-C port on the Apple MacBook, it's a wealth of ports, and it's a wider selection than what Lenovo puts on its own Yoga 3 Pro.