ISSUE387|COMPUTERSHOPPER|MAY2020 25
LAPTOP MAKERS AREbeginning to adopt
Intel’s 10th generation processors en masse,
and the latest to do so is Lenovo,with its
Yoga C940 series of laptops. Availablewith a
14in display, the company’s flagship
convertible goes head to head with the Dell
XPS 13 2-in-1 (Shopper386), which has also
recently updated to Intel’s latest silicon.
Both laptops have fully rotating hinges,
which allows forusage in several different,
tablet-like configurations, but the Yoga C940
differs in that it comes with an active stylus
stowed awayneatlyinaslot in the spine of
the machine.The Dell is stylus-compatible,
but doesn’t come with one in the box and
doesn’t have aslotinthe chassisfor it.
Another thing the Yoga C940 has that the
Dell device doesn’t is an integrated cover
forthe 720p webcam, which you can slide
across forprivacy.
This camera isn’t compatible with the
facial recognition of Windows Hello,but
there is afingerprint reader that sits just
below the bottom right-hand corner of the
keyboard forspeedy unlocking.
SIX SHOOTER
The keyboard is pleasant enough to type on;
we’d prefermore travel and more positive
feedback but it feels solid and robust enough,
and there’s agood amount of space
surrounding each key, ensuring typosare
kept to aminimum. The touchpad,too,is
large and responsive.
Connectivity is limited, as you might
expect of alaptop with ultraportable
dimensions like this, but you do get alittle
more than you do on the XPS 13 2-in-1.
There’s afull-size USB3.1port sat alongside a
pair of Thunderbolt 3-enabled USB Type-C
ports on the leftedge of the machine,and
it’s also good to see the new Wi-Fi 6(aka
LENOVOYogaC940
★★★★★
£1,335•Fromwww.lenovo.comWINDOWS10 CONVERTIBLE
802.11ax) wireless
standard supported.
The Yoga C940 can be
cccooonfiggguuureeedddwitttheeeitttheeeraaa 1000888000 pppooor4K
display.Bothhaveanaspectratioof 16 :9and
both arestylus-compatible.Wewere sent the
former,and it performed reasonably well in
our displaytesting.
If you’re going to use the displayfor any
kind of photoediting or colour-critical work,
however,doseek out the Intel Graphics
Control Panel by searching foritinthe
Windows 10 Start menu. We foundthat,
with the power-saving settings enabled,
dynamic contrast kicked in, dimming the
displaynoticeably when there was alot of
dark content on the screen.
With this disabled, brightness peaks at
369cd/m^2 ,which is good: afair notch behind
the Dell XPS 2-in-1’s 538cd/m^2 ,admittedly,
but around the same as the 13.5in Microsoft
Surface Laptop 3(Shopper385). The contrast
ratio is excellent at 1,635:1, while sRGB
coverage is fine but not amazing at 91.4%.RAISINGTHE BAR
Where the Lenovo Yoga C940 sets itself apart
from the crowd is its speakers, which take the
form of aDolby Atmos-branded ‘soundbar’
that stretches across the centre of the laptop,
in the crease between the screen and
keyboard. Theydon’t produce much bass but
can pump out audio with asurprising amount
of body and volume –good enough, at least,
forwatching video or listening to podcasts.
We’ve so farbeen impressed with Intel’s
10th-gggeneration mobile CPUs, and the Core
i7-1065GGG7inthe Yoga C940 is no exception.
Backeduuupwith16GB of RAM in this
configuration and a256GB Samsung SSD,
the C 999 40 performed impressively in our
4K beeenchmarks.
IIIts overall score worked out to 102,
jussstthree points ahead of the XPS 13
222 -in-1 –though this could be expected,
as both models we tested had the
same CPU. In any case,it’s a
commanding performance for
such aslimlaptop.
The Yoga C940 uses integrated
gggraaappphicccsss,but these are Intel Iris Plusgraphics,sowhile
wewouldn’tadvise
ruuunningggmooosssttt 333 Dgggaaameeesss,,,
it does outperform 10th-gen
Core i5 chips with lower-spec GPUs. The Acer
Swift 5(Shopper386), forexample,produced
31fps in the GFXBench Car Chase offscreen
test to the Yoga C940’s 59fps.
The Yoga C940 put in astrong
performance in our storage tests, too, its
Samsung SSD achieving sequential read and
writespeeds well in advance of the XPS 13
2-in-1 and 13.5in Surface Laptop 3, with
2,585MB/s and 2,062MB/s respectively.
Battery lifewas even more impressive.
The Yoga C940 lasted for11h 13minour
looped video test, hours longer than both
the Dell and Microsoftlaptops.HINGE BENEFITS
Whichever wayyou slice it, then, theLenovo
Yoga C940 is amighty fine convertible.It’s as
fast as all its rivals in all the relevant metrics
and outlasts them all when it comes to
battery life. It hasgoodlevels of connectivity,
highly impressive speakers and, although the
displayisn’t outstanding, the quality is still
very good overall.
Couple that with asleek, lightweight
chassis, asolid 360° hinge and abundled
stylus, and you have alaptop that combines
great performance and good looks with a
keen sense of value.
JonathanBrayVERDICT
Thispowerfulhybridmanagestooutperform
andoutlastthebestofitscompetition
SPECIFICATIONS
Windowsoverall
Multitasking
Batterylife
0% -50 Reference + 50 + 100
Seepage88for performance detailsPROCESSORQuad-core1.3GHzIntelCorei7-1065G7•RAM
16GB•DIMENSIONS308x223x14.5mm•WEIGHT1.3kg•
SCREENSIZE13.5in•SCREENRESOLUTION2,256x1,504•
GRAPHICSADAPTORIntelIrisPlusGraphics•TOTAL
STORAGE256GBSSD•OPERATINGSYSTEMWindows10
Home•WARRANTYOneyearRTB•DETAILSwww.lenovo.
com•PARTCODE81Q9CTO1WWENGB011h13m