Yoga 3 Pro: Preinstalled software

This article talks about preinstalled software on the Yoga 3 Pro notebook. You can also read my full review here.

As you open up your Yoga 3 Pro for the first time, you will find a lot of software has been preinstalled. If you read this article and you do not find all of this on your Yoga 3 Pro, it might be because Lenovo is committed to bringing you a clean PC experience sometime in the future.

So here is a list of applications and my comments for them.

• Nitro Pro. This is a PDF manipulation suite. You can start a trial as this suite only works if you pay for it. While offering some neat things like editing and creating PDFs, this also means there is no free PDF reader installed (apart from Microsofts own Reader application, which I consider a little bit too simple). As my needs are served by Office (creating PDFs) I was not ready to pay 136€ for something new. As such, I uninstalled Nitro Pro, and replaced it with Adobe Reader.
• Lenovo Reach (REACHit). This software tries to consolidate your different cloud storage locations by indexing them all and allowing you to search them at the same time. You decide if you need it.
• Lenovo SHAREit. A file sharing application. With SHAREit you can share your files between your own devices or with your friends and family who are nearby. Beats using an USB file stick, and is also faster. Try it!
• OneKey Optimizer. From Lenovo. This is a neat system utility that provides notifications for software and firmware update, offers some limited power management features and also display a battery icon on the task bar (a’la Power Manager for ThinkPads). I found it useful.
• Pokki / PC AppStore / Start menu / Host App Service. Pokki offers (yet another) application store and a start menu replacement. I found this to be completely useless to me, and I recommend uninstalling this software. There are some complaints online regarding Pokki as well.
• Phone Companion. From Lenovo. Having no Android phone I did not try this app.
• Lenovo Companion App. This app provides tips and articles to read, offers support options, displays warranty information. Useful.
• Lenovo Browser Guard. Makes sure your browser home does not change. I find this a little agressive, and removed it at once.
• Lenovo Messenger. Displays messages from Lenovo (like remember to register your system). It does not take up a lot of resources so I decided to leave it.
• Hightail for Lenovo. Yet another file sharing / cloud service. No need for more.
• Lenovo Photo Master. I will admit to not even giving this a chance, but between IrfanView and Lightroom, I am pretty sure I can manage my photos 🙂
• Harmony. From Lenovo. This app serves as a helper app to take advantage of the different operating modes of the Yoga 3 Pro. While I find it a little useless, my Yoga did behave strangely when uninstalled, and I ended up installing it again (If you are curious, the Yoga 3 Pro started eating the battery while in sleep mode. This side effect went away when I reinstalled Harmony. I will admit this would need more testing, but I am used to Harmony now.)
• Dragon Assistant 3. If you want to dictate.
• Yoga 3 Pro demo. A bunch of videos showing you the Yoga 3 Pro. Safe to remove after viewing them.
• Microsoft Office 2013. You need to have your own key to activate Office. Based on your key, Office will enable various parts of itself.

There are some Windows Store apps also installed by default. Here is a almost complete list:

• EverNote touch (needs account)
• OneNote (works with Microsoft account)
• TripAdvisor
• Kindle
• The Telegraph for Lenovo
• The Weather Channel
• Zinio (digital magazine distribution service)
• DailyMotion

Windows Store apps are easier to remove thatn the regular apps and also most of these actually can be pretty useful 🙂