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Lenovo Yo g a C 9 3 0
Is Lenovo’s latest convertible as flexible as ever,
or have its new changes bent it out of shape?
T
he Lenovo’s Yoga
series has a
premium pedigree
to lean on, but in a
space as competitive as the
2-in-1 convertible scene,
you need more than just
good quality components to
stand out. The C930’s
headline feature is a new
hinge design that manages
to maintain smooth,
fully-rotatable
functionality, while
incorporating a set of Dolby
Atmos speakers. This novel
hinge speaker design is
perfectly positioned for
general laptop audio, but it
also manages to improve
speaker positioning when
in tent, picture frame or
tablet modes.
The Yoga C930 doesn’t just
look business ready, it’s also
got a nicely weighted
10-keyless keyboard and a
dedicated fingerprint
scanner that offers
enhanced productivity and
security. The trackpad is soft
to touch and there’s also a
stylus that resides in a sealed
charging compartment inthe same processor we
expect this to equate to
around a 1 hour and 20
minute reduction in FullHD
movie playback lifespan
form the Yoga 920’s 8.5
hours. This is a considerable
cut and the only real
sacrifice on the updated
Yoga, but even with this the
Yoga C930 is still one of the
longest lasting professional
laptops available. Since we
tested the FullHD version of
the Yoga C930 rather than
the power hungry 4K model,
the 1080p movie playback
lifespan was actually longer
here, lasting 9 hours and 17
minutes. Comparing apples
to apples however, you’ll see
a 15% overall reduction
in lifespan.
A lot of premium 2-in-1
devices boast a 4K screen,
and you can configure the
Yoga C930 to have a 4K
display for an extra $210, but
the 13.9-inch 1920 by 1080
pixel display will look
vibrant and will be detailed
enough for most users. This
is in part because of a Dolby
Vision HDR colourthe rear of the device, so
you’ll always have it handy.
These finer details are all
desirable perks, but the
premium Yoga brand has
been built on a solid
foundation of powerful
components. The Yoga C930
we tested wasn’t the top of
the line configuration, but it
was still running a powerful
Core i7-8550U quad-core
processor. While this
efficient chip did get a little
hot at 980, it performed
surprisingly well in testing,
outpacing some higher
clocked Core i7-8560U CPUs
and even some devices with
larger R AM allocations. In
PCMark 8’s Work accelerated
benchmark the Yoga C930
scored 4793, which was
around 8% better than the
average premium ultrabook
running a quad-core i7. This
means it’s more than capable
of breezing through general
work and home tasks.
On paper the battery
capacity of the Yoga C930 is
60Wh, 10Wh lower than the
Yoga 920 we tested last year.
Considering the two shareenhancement that has been
applied to both screen
variations, giving a much
wider overall colour gamut
and more vivid colours. This
combined with the glossy
screen and compact bezels
make the FullHD screen
excellent for working on.
The Yoga C930 has gone
backwards on battery life
and most models come with
only 8GB of R AM, but
equivalent devices are about
$350 cheaper than their
predecessors. A fair trade as
far as we’re concerned. On
the other hand there have
been some considerable
improvements to the
speakers, the stylus and the
display, sowe’dsayonthe
whole it’sa stepintheright
direction. Joel BurgessVerdic t
The Yoga C930 takes a small battery hit,
but gains some innovative features and
a more appealing price-point.LAPTOP
$2,399.10 | LENOVO.COM/AU/EN/PCMARK8 - HOME(SCORE)
LENOVO YOGA C930 3405
LENOVO YOGA 920 (4K) 3288
0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000BATTERYLIFE- 1080PVIDEOPLAYBACK(H:MIN)
LENOVO YOGA C930 09:17
LENOVO YOGA 920 (4K) 08:30
0 2 4 6 8 10PCMARK 10 - OVERALL(SCORE)
LENOVO YOGA C930 4,023
LENOVO YOGA 920 (4K) 3,658
0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000CRYSTALDISKMARKREAD(MB/S)
LENOVO YOGA C930 3485.8
LENOVO YOGA 920 (4K) 3379.8
0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000CINEBENCH R15 - CPU (MULTI-THREADED)
LENOVO YOGA C930 613
LENOVO YOGA 920 (4K) 519
0 200 400 600 800 1000PEAK CPU TEMPERATURE (ºC)
LENOVO YOGA C930 98
LENOVO YOGA 920 (4K) 91
0 20 40 60 80 1003DMARK FIRE STRIKE (SCORE)
LENOVO YOGA C930 1,145
LENOVO YOGA 920 (4K) 1,106
0 300 600 900 1200 1500CRYSTALDISKMARK WRITE (MB/S)
LENOVO YOGA C930 1630
LENOVO YOGA 920 (4K) 1966.7
0 400 800 1200 1600 2000LABS BENCHMARK RESULTS