Lenovo Yoga Book C930 Review - Review 2022

With an E Ink brandish instead of a keyboard, plus an extraordinarily sparse chassis, the Lenovo Yoga Book C930 ($949.99) comes very close to being a futuristic tablet PC of the sort you might recognize from a Tv set show or movie like HBO'south Westworld. But despite looking 22nd-century and having novel features like the ability to interpret your drawings from an Eastward Ink screen to the main quad HD display, the Yoga Book is hobbled by its sluggish computing performance. That's especially unfortunate since the Yoga C930 is a significantly upgraded and more than expensive replacement for the original Yoga Book.

No Atoms Here

Gone is the Cantlet x5 processor of the original. Instead, the Yoga Book C930 offers an Intel Core i5 Y-series CPU. It's one of Intel's lowest-powered Core mobile chips, but it'due south still far more powerful than the Atom is. That should mean a much snappier Windows feel, especially when it comes to switching between apps and navigating through feature-rich websites, but in practise the Yoga Volume is still scarce in this area compared with its similarly priced competitors.

Lenovo Yoga Book C930 3

Too gone is the option to configure a Yoga Book with Android. The Yoga Book C930 is Windows-simply, which is probably a good thing considering that the era of using Android equally a tablet operating arrangement seems to be waning. PCMag reviewed the Android version of the original Yoga Book, which cost $499, and then the operating system and cost difference precludes a straight performance comparison between it and the C930.

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Even so, the Yoga Book'due south fundamental strength has cypher to practice with computing operation. Instead, you'll buy this unique auto mainly for its diminutive form factor—it's the only convertible hybrid laptop I've used that fits comfortably in ane hand—as well as its Due east Ink brandish that functions as the keyboard, a note-taking and sketch pad, and much more.

Lenovo Yoga Book C930 10

The entire package measures 0.39 by ten.25 past 7.1 inches (HWD) and weighs 1.71 pounds. That'due south incredibly thin and light for a Windows laptop, though slightly heavier than the i.52-pound original Yoga Book. The smallest convertibles PCMag has reviewed recently have 12-inch displays, such equally the Lenovo Yoga 720 (0.6 by 11.five by 8 inches, 2.53 pounds). The Yoga Book is so much smaller and lighter more often than not because of its smaller 10.8-inch display, a size that's more common in tablets like the Apple iPad than in traditional laptops.

Lenovo Yoga Book C930 7

Every bit brilliant and vivid as the quad Hard disk (2,560-by-1,600-pixel) display is, it's still non the nigh visually arresting part of the Yoga Volume. That honor belongs to the 2d display that faces information technology on the laptop's other half, where you'd look to find the keyboard on a conventional laptop. Information technology'south the same size equally the main screen, simply it uses Due east Ink instead of traditional LCDs or LEDs. The result is a monochrome display with a painfully slow refresh rate, but also i that consumes a minuscule amount of energy and is unaffected by bright ambient light.

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Lenovo Yoga Book C930 3

The Yoga Book C930'south E Ink display features three modes. Past default information technology's a keyboard, just y'all can tap a row of icons in the upper correct corner to transform it into a digital slate similar to the Wacom Bamboo Page, or an ereader similar to the Amazon Kindle.

Lenovo Yoga Book C930 4

The East Ink display on the original Yoga Book was bang-up as a pressure-sensitive drawing surface, but it suffered as an actual keyboard. Non and so with the new version. Although the keys themselves are even so flat and virtual, its response fourth dimension seems to be greatly improved, with none of the issues around boring auto-correct and overly powerful haptic feedback that were evident on the original Yoga Book. I certainly wouldn't write a novel on the Yoga Book C930, but other than the inability to find my manner around the keyboard by feel, I had no problems typing a few sentences at a time without making mistakes.

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Yous tin activate the vibrating feedback and turn response sounds on or off by tapping the settings menu in the upper right hand corner. There, yous'll as well observe options for customizing Lenovo's unique touchpad solution. Past default, the touchpad is subconscious and appears only when you tap in the expanse beneath the spacebar, which gives the keyboard more room. Y'all can likewise choose to shrink the keyboard to brand room for a permanent touchpad, but I don't recommend this since activating the touchpad whenever you lot need it is far easier than typing on cramped keys.

The included Wacom Active Pen offers 4,096 levels of pressure level sensitivity, connects via Bluetooth, and uses disposable AAA batteries. It attaches to the dorsum of the display lid with a powerful handy magnet when yous're non using information technology, and it's far more authentic and precise than a cheap capacitive stylus. Yous can employ information technology for cartoon or navigating through Windows 10 on the primary display, or use it on the E Ink display in Annotation style. The selling point here is that you tin flip the hinge 360 degrees, turn off the principal display, and take notes or make drawings while consuming very little power.

When y'all're done, you can and then draw a circle around your words or images and copy them to the clipboard, from which yous can then paste them into the Windows app of your choice, including an optical graphic symbol recognition (OCR) app. Information technology'due south a not bad and novel experience, but in my testing, drawing and writing on the E Ink display was no easier than using the stylus on the main display, due primarily to the sluggish refresh rate.

Lenovo Yoga Book C930

Equally novel is the possibility of using the E Ink display as an ereader. In fact, the Yoga Book C930 has the potential to replace your laptop, your tablet, and your Kindle. In practice, though, there'southward currently no back up for any ebook file formats, which limits you lot to displaying PDFs and epitome files. At least the process for transferring these files to the E Ink display is straightforward—you tin can navigate the Windows file structure straight on the display.

Lenovo plans to add support for ePub and Mobi ebook formats next year. Until that happens, the reader portion of the Yoga Book C930 is more often than not a gimmick.

The nearly contemporary feature of all, though, is the solution Lenovo came up with for opening the display lid. Since there'due south no lip of any kind, the 2 halves of the Yoga Book C930 line upward perfectly, making it nearly impossible to prise them open up with your fingertips. So, cheers to an ingenious utilise of magnets and motion detection, you tin knock twice on the outside of the chapeau to popular it open.

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It's quite futuristic—when it works, which unfortunately only happened near half of the time during several days of testing. More apropos, the Yoga Book C930 would occasionally pop open of its own accord when I set information technology downwardly firmly on a table. If you tin can't get it to open by knocking, you can likewise press twice on the side-mounted power button to pop open up the lid.

The ii halves of the Yoga Book C930 connect using Lenovo's iconic watchband-style hinge. Interestingly, this way of swivel is disappearing from Lenovo'due south flagship convertible laptop, the new Yoga C930, in favor of some other unique hinge design, this one with a built-in speaker.

Speaking of the Yoga C930, it will be very easy for the classification to misfile shoppers. The Yoga C930 is a larger fourteen-inch convertible laptop, with a more powerful U-series Intel Cadre i5 or Cadre i7 processor and a conventional keyboard. Add a "Book" to the proper noun, and y'all get the very different model I'm reviewing here, with the ten-inch screen and the East Ink lower half.

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For Nearly a M, Needs More Pep

Our review unit has 4GB of retention and a 128GB SSD, which precludes using it for marathon browsing sessions with lots of tabs open or as a repository for your 4K movie collection. The port selection amounts to ii USB Type-C ports, either of which can accuse the Yoga Book C930. They replace the micro USB and micro HDMI ports on the original Yoga Book, which means connecting to external displays will require a dongle.

On the plus side, at that place'due south a slot on the left edge that accepts both micro SD cards to boost storage and a SIM menu to provide cellular connectivity. As mentioned earlier, Lenovo says it plans to sell a 4G LTE version, something that it rarely offers with its other consumer laptops, although the review unit on hand hither is not then equipped. Bluetooth 4.two and 802.11ac Wi-Fi round out the wireless options.

Lenovo Yoga Book C930 Performance Chart

Inside, the Intel Core i5-7Y54 results in the Yoga Book C930 receiving disappointing functioning scores compared with other laptops in its cost range. The "Y" in the processor proper name indicates that this CPU is efficient plenty to require no cooling fan. That means the Yoga Volume C930 is almost silent under any workload, though information technology does get quite warm to the touch.

It also ways that this laptop is a significantly worse performer on specialized tasks such as multimedia editing. It was the slowest amongst a group of five competing convertible laptops on our Handbrake video-encoding test (iii minutes and 5 seconds) and Cinebench 3D rendering exam (a score of 236).

Lenovo Yoga Book C930 Graphics Performance Chart

Although it's articulate from the Yoga Book C930'south physical advent that it's designed for note-taking and doodling rather than 3D rendering, it'southward tough to tum that you lot could spend roughly the same corporeality of coin on a larger, more capable motorcar like the non-"Book" Yoga C930. Even the cheaper Dell Inspiron thirteen 7000 and Acer Spin 3 performed far ameliorate on the multimedia tests.

The story is much the same when information technology comes to the general-purpose PCMark 8 benchmark, which simulates mutual calculating tasks such as give-and-take processing and web browsing. The Yoga Volume C930's score of ii,661 on this test is far beneath the 3,000 minimum that represents lag-free everyday functioning.

Indeed, I did experience occasional languor during most of my real-world testing with the Yoga Volume C930. Everything from resizing app windows to navigating quickly back and forth between web pages and tabs in Microsoft Edge resulted in noticeable lag.

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Neither is the Yoga Volume C930 practiced at playing enervating games, although at least this is 1 deficiency that information technology shares with the rest of its competitors, almost all of which offer frame rates far beneath the minimum xxx frames per second we consider acceptable for shine gameplay on the Heaven and Valley gaming simulations.

The one bright spot when it comes to operation is battery life. Lasting x hours on our battery-rundown test means that you lot should be able to become through a full day of plugged-in use. The laptop actually lasted a full weekend away from a power outlet in my testing, although I used it only for brief web searches during that time.

A Specialized Laptop, a Flake Too Dearest

Unfortunately, 2 major downsides shadow Lenovo's improvements to the Yoga Book. Many prospective owners who program to use this laptop for light-duty tasks like taking notes will be able to live with the lackluster computing performance. But the price increment is harder to stomach.

The original Windows Yoga Book, which is no longer available for purchase, started at $549. The Yoga Book C930 is $949.99, a whopping 73 percent uptick. That means the Yoga Volume C930 is now competing with premium ultraportable laptops, in improver to tablets like the far less expensive Apple iPad.

The Eastward Ink display and other novel features but don't justify this additional expense. Ultimately, the Yoga Volume C930 is a corking chat piece if you can afford it, but sensible shoppers would exercise improve to buy a larger convertible laptop for roughly the same money. (Simply drop the "Book" from the name, and you have a corking alternative correct in that location.)