Ideapad Yoga 11 with Windows RT - Issues

Question

Got my orange Yoga 11 with Windows RT a few days ago here in the UK, and I have to say that initial impressions are very good. No fan at all, barely gets wam, switches on from connected standby almost instantly, and battery life is really impressive. Build quality seems solid - no peeling paintwork, and keyboard is securely fastened, screen is great quality, there's some backlight bleed on the right side, but only visible when at 100% against a black background (i.e. never). There's a bit more flex and 'give' in the screen than I expected, but nothing I can't live with. Wifi signal is also strong and connections don't drop like others are seeing with the Yoga 13.
So, Windows RT ... still getting used to it, but here are some initial niggles:  there only appears to be one Lenovo RT settings app available in the Store, and it's fairly useless, since all it does is provide a switch to lock/unlock keyboard in different orientations (why?). No Lenovo drivers are available from here either, I guess these all come from Windows Update for the RT model instead?
The problems I'm having stem from not being able to tweak some system & hardware settings properly because of the above and the need to rely on stock driiver configs, specifically:
- Keyboard: it can be quite sluggish, and doesn't register repeat letters very well (like in 'tell' or 'soon') at my typing speed. I've never experienced this with any keyboard, nevermind a Lenovo one. The stock keyboard config under Control Panel does nothing to help this - changing the two options for Repeat delay/Repeat rate just make it worse. This is quite annoying, as I really have to slow down my typing speed to get any work done. It would currently be my no. 1 reason for returning it, depending on how I get on with it this week.
- Touchpad: no options are available to configure it that I can find. No tweaking multi-touch, like 2-finger scroll direction (which is reversed from the normal setting). It can also be very sluggish to respond sometimes, especially for pinch to zoom and similar gestures.
- Bluetooth: allthough I can pair with e.g. Jamboxes fine enough, the connection is dreadful - constantly skipping and dropping out with any audio source, basically unusable.  The Jamboxes work fine with every other device I own. Again no settings I can tweak here beyond the installation options, and no way to debug the problem.
Any help or advice with these niggles would be much appreciated, especially the keyboard issue.

Answer 1

Just to add a few more passing thoughts to this monlogue for anyone who may be thinking of buying this model instead of the 13. 
When it comes to Windows RT I'm finding myself more surprised every day by what I *can* rather than *can't* do with it.  Partly this is because I thought it would be something closer to a gimped Android or iOS experience.  Here are some things I didn't really expect to be available or usable, and that compare very well to those other OSes:
- Remote Desktop (& RemoteApps): this really works very nicely, so far if I need quick access to a non-RT app it's a doddle to remote login to a W7 machine. I was expecting this to be too slow to be practical, but actually it's very smooth, and no need to install a separate app (although the Store has a Metro version to complement the desktop UI).
- Windows Firewall with Advanced Security: I was expecting something dumbed-down, but this is the fully monty, completely configurable when you need it, otherwise less in your face than with W7. The same goes for Windows Defender, also included as standard.
- Local Group Policy: I'm still surprised this is included, given that it otherwise only comes with W8 Pro.
- Bitlocker: encrypts your drive by default OOB, no need to manage it at all.
- Network browsing & sharing: really it's just a doddle to set up, using HomeGroup or just browsing the local network, access to all your network files OOB without installing any apps.
- PlayTo: again, painless to set up and use, streaming all your media to DLNA devices.
- Flash support, works just fine, and easy enough to add 'supported' sites to the list.
- Explorer / File History / Disk management, really the whole suite is there without sandboxing or more apps needed for handling basic tasks.  So refreshing after iOS especially.
- Admin tools / Powershell: the list of is impressive - full Task Manager, Event Viewer & Performance Monitor all included - and I was delighted to find Powershell in there too, especially since it's finally integrated into Explorer properly. Such a great, under-rated utility!
- Media support: although I do miss a desktop media player with previews in Explorer, and better codec management, I was surprised by how quickly devs are stepping up to support different media types. Free apps already support mkvs and the like, and a VLC port is planned. I'm optimistic that this will get better.
So basically, once you get past the point of accepting that you can't install legacy desktop programs or drivers, it's pretty much a solid Windows experience. I think the keyboard & typing speed is now my only major issue ... but I've almost convinced myself I can live with it so probably won't be returning it.
Thanks for listening.