The Lenovo Yoga C930 Review: Atmos Acoustics
by Brett Howse on March 1, 2019 8:00 AM ESTFinal Words
The Lenovo Yoga C930 has taken the platform another step forward, offering an incredibly sleek design with a fantastic build quality. The ingenious idea of adding a Dolby Atmos sound bar has proved again that Lenovo is an innovator in this product segment. The Yoga brand has been a hit right from day one, and with every generational update, Lenovo has moved the design forward.
The Yoga C930 offers the same advantages of a traditional clamshell laptop, and adds in the versatility of a 2-in-1. There is no other convertible design that works as well, or as easily, as the Yoga. You can switch from laptop to stand mode and back in just a few seconds, with no fiddling around with detachable parts. As a hand-held tablet it is not as strong as a detachable keyboard based tablet, but with Stand and Tent mode, you can get most of the benefits of a touch device without having to hold onto it.
Although the pen isn’t going to set the artistic world on fire, thanks to it being thin enough to fit into the laptop chassis, it still adds yet another helping of versatility. The fact that it lives inside the tablet also has the benefit of it always being charged, and it’s a lot less likely to get lost.
One of the most impressive features was the performance of this Core i7-8550U model, thanks to elevated PL states, but even with the higher power draw, Lenovo’s cooling solution keeps the notebook cool, and most importantly, quiet.
The performance doesn’t come with a loss in battery life either, with the Yoga C930 offering great longevity from its 60 Wh battery when paired with the 1920x1080 display, and insane battery life under movie playback. But about that display…
The FHD display is the one sore spot on the Yoga C930. Despite offering Dolby Vision capabilities, the 1920x1080 panel is dim, offers limited contrast, and is wildly inaccurate out of the box. Calibration will help some, but with the amount of calibration necessary, there will certainly be side effects. Lenovo has done a great job shrinking the side and top bezels, but the poor contrast is immediately noticeable, and the display is a red herring in an otherwise well-thought-out laptop. We didn’t get a chance to test the UHD version, but since Lenovo does say it supports HDR, that should mean the brightness and contrast are improved.
Lenovo has added a lot of features to this notebook, including two USB-C Thunderbolt 3 connections, 160 MHz wireless in the Intel 9260 chipset, and up to a whopping two terabytes of NVMe storage. There’s a fingerprint reader for Windows Hello authentication, and even a couple of color options. Even better, the minimum RAM is 8 GB and the minimum storage is 256 GB. . Features like the Dolby Atmos sound bar really make it shine. Add in the included active pen, and the versatility of a convertible laptop, and the Yoga C930 is a solid contender. As to how much of a contender, that depends on what features you value over others.
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HStewart - Friday, March 1, 2019 - link
But Intel completion is upper end of laptops is really subpar in performance level. They might want to believe they compete on that level but manufactures understand this and they are not going waste there time - on a product that fans want in mobile industry but they don't buy mobile but instead purchase desktops. There are of course exceptionCHUWI - in my experience with them they are trying to implied that they have high end competitor but actually use the lower end chips. To me this is misleading the customer - to have a Surface Pro looking device with a lower end performance.
Windows for ARM tablets - this is strange part of mobile industry, I personally think a better fit would Chromebooks where native x86 performance is likely not required - but to fool a customer to think they have a full speed notebook to run existing apps is insane. I think they do have limited uses if only web browsing, and Microsoft office applications required. They do have good battery life but the latest generation of notebooks come very close and with Intel Lakefield on the horizon, I believe battery advantage will be gone. But there is not much on this but I believe a combination of 4 low power efficient cores combine with Sunny Cove performance core combine with Gen 11 graphics core - with close to discrete level performance in size of chip that can fit on tip of your finger is going to be quite awesome. This is likely going to remind of days when Intel went from Core 2 to i7 technology.
I loved the EMiB technology and with Lakefield they take it step farther with Foveres technology is going being better. Just image a notebook with more IO on one level, power mult-core logic on next level and high performance discrete GPU on next level. With this technology they could package 100 if not 1000's of cores on desktop size chip.
ChickenLegsxx - Thursday, June 20, 2019 - link
Download Popcorn Time for android from this page https://getpopcorntimeapk.comUpSpin - Friday, March 1, 2019 - link
It the Pen WACOM AES, or N-Trig or Synaptics or ....How does the pen get charged? Inductive in the storage slot? Are you sure? Maybe it's Wacom EMR, as in the Wacom Intuos series/Samsung Galaxy tablets/Samsung Note smartphones, then there's no need to charge the pen at all, because it's coupled inductively with the display.
How good is the accuracy of the pen? Can you draw straight lines or do they wobble?
How is the pressure sensitivity of the pen? How many levels, how sensitive?
Does the pen have an eraser on the back? Does the pen have some buttons? Does the peen offer some other functionality.
How does the pen feel on the display? Is the surface good to write on?
How does the pen perform on the edges of the display?
Please, it's a tablet you can write on, why don't you include this in your review. Just because the delivered pen is small doesn't mean the you can't buy a better larger one afterwards, as long as you know which one. Maybe the HP Active Styli work, or do we need N-Trig?
Brett Howse - Friday, March 1, 2019 - link
It's Wacom AES and feels good on the display and works well. It's not a top-tier stylus but for writing it's great.Thud2 - Friday, March 1, 2019 - link
Are you practicing your typing skills. 300 words to say "What about the pen?"heffeque - Saturday, March 2, 2019 - link
Laughed harder than I should have.Prestissimo - Friday, March 1, 2019 - link
Wacom AES 2.0 technology, 4096 pressure levels, official name is Lenovo Active Pen 2.For compatibility with both Wacom AES and N-Trig / MPP, get the Bamboo Ink Pen which is currently regarded as the best 2-in-1 laptop stylus you can buy.
imaheadcase - Saturday, March 2, 2019 - link
Because most our touch screen and no one uses a pen is why. loleastcoast_pete - Friday, March 1, 2019 - link
@Brett: Thanks for this review. Question: In addition to the soundbar, what kind of audio chipset does this Yoga use? Dolby Atmos usually implies 7+1 or more channels to get the Atmos surround effects. I don't expect that from the built-in speakers, of course, but can this thing provide 7+1 or 9+1 output to amplifiers to really get Atmos surround sound? To member the Atmos branding implies that. Thanks!Brett Howse - Friday, March 1, 2019 - link
Dolby Atmos on PC doesn't require or imply 7+1. Even in the HT world you can get Atmos sound bars. Will it be as immersive as a 7 channel setup with true height speakers? No of course not. But it still provides a wider sound stage from the included speakers in this sound bar.You can get more info from Dolby's website.
The laptop has an Intel audio chipset (SST) and Realtek codec. As for outputting to a receiver, there's no specific digital audio output like HDMI to carry the signal. You'd have to go over the USB/TB3 connections.