Editor’s Rating: 9/10
A solid 2-in-1 laptop that combines strong performance, functionality, and stylish design.
The Good
The soundbar hinge increased this model’s functionality without sacrificing its stylish design. Combine that with long battery life, great features, and a powerful CPU, this may be one of the best 2-in-1 laptops in the market that’s great for both work and entertainment purposes.
The Bad
The mediocre graphics card doesn’t make this model a good option for gaming. The display screen can also be slightly improved in terms of brightness and color, and there’s no SD card reader.
Detailed Review of Lenovo Yoga C930 (2019)
Is it a good idea to replace a signature design in a laptop and replace it with a more functional feature?
That’s what Lenovo thought with the Lenovo Yoga C930 when they replaced the watchband-style 360-degree hinge, a signature design on premium Yoga models that allows it to be thinner, with a soundbar hinge for added functionality. Fortunately, they hit the mark on that, adding functionality without compromising on style and appearance.
The laptop also features a powerful Core i7 processor with solid battery life, making it a great laptop option for doing various tasks like writing and editing documents, doing photo and video editing, and even watching movies and videos.
Of course, this stylish laptop doesn’t come without a few compromises as its mediocre graphics card is not something you would expect from a premium model.
Lenovo Yoga C930 Configuration In Review
Processor: Intel Core i7-8550U (up to 4GHz with Turbo Boost) | RAM: 16GB DDR4 | Storage: 1TB PCIe SSD | Graphics: Integrated Intel UHD Graphics 620 | Display: 13.9” Ultra HD touch screen, 3840 x 2160 pixels resolution | Operating System: Windows 10 Home | Battery Life: Up to 11 Hours | Weight: 3 lbs | Other Features: Backlit Keyboard, Fingerprint reader, Lenovo Active Pen
A Functional But Still Beautifully Designed Device
Let’s take a closer look at what this hybrid laptop has to offer.
The use of the soundbar hinge does reduce the Lenovo Yoga C930’s stylish design. The metal watchband-style hinge would definitely look way better on this 2-in-1 device. But this doesn’t mean that this model is ugly
…soundbar, together with the downward-firing speakers near the front of the keyboard, provides good sound quality…
The C930 still features a sleek design with its simple gray lid and chrome Yoga logo at the top left, making it look premium. The soundbar hinge itself is not hideous, as its gray coating and smooth surface with dozens of tiny holes, fits just right on the laptop.
Opening the lid and you will see the same grey coating on the deck, touchpad, and keyboard, which adds to the overall simple but sleek look of this model. Though the overall design is simple, you can feel that the laptop is well-built and durable, as the alloy materials feel premium and sturdy.
Even without the watchband-style hinge, this model is still thin with a thickness of only 0.6 inches. It’s thicker than most of the model’s competitors, but it’s still a think laptop. It’s also a bit light at only 3.1 lbs.
But aside from maintaining a sleek design, Lenovo also made sure that the laptop provides good functionality. The soundbar, together with the downward-firing speakers near the front of the keyboard, provides good sound quality.
To further improve this model’s sound, it comes with a pre-installed Dolby Atmos app to make it easier to tweak and adjust the laptop’s sound settings and improve its quality. Despite these additions, thumping bass is still not that good, but other than that, it provides good quality sounds.
The rotating hinge also allows the device to provide good sounds regardless if it’s in laptop mode, tent mode, or tablet mode. The Lenovo C930 also comes with an active pen and garage at the back right edge of the body to make it easier to store the stylus pen when not in use.
The garage also acts as the charging station for the pen, providing further functionality other than as storage space. Flexible connection options might be an issue here as Lenovo only placed a few ports.
All of them are located on the left side of the device and these are 2 Thunderbolt 3 Type-C ports, a USB 3.1 Type-A port, and a headphone jack. The right side only contains the power button.
Good Power and Decent Features
In terms of display, the Yoga C930 is equipped with a 13.9-inch full HD display.
It provides good details, so you will enjoy using this laptop to watch movies, videos, or view pictures. But there’s nothing that really stands out about the display, and it does fall short when it comes to the vividness of the color, compared to other premium models.
…powerful specs will allow you to do almost any kind of daily work without experiencing any slowdown…
The webcam takes decent pictures, able to accurately capture the color. But it does have a lot of visual noise, so don’t expect to take HD pictures with the webcam. It’s good enough, though, for video conferencing or taking quick snapshots. It’s also equipped with a Privacy Shutter, which allows you to cover the webcam and protect your privacy.
The touchscreen is on point and accurate and we didn’t encounter any issues while using it. Using the pen on the screen also feels smooth and it is quite responsive. The small pen, though, might be uncomfortable to hold during extended use.
The keyboards are okay, they’re placements are on point which doesn’t make it uncomfortable to type in. Though it can feel a bit stiff, especially after long hours of typing, which can be annoying.
The touchpad is very responsive and we had no problems using it, even with 2 fingers. The placement on the deck is also spot on and it doesn’t obstruct when we put our hands on the deck as we type.
When it comes to performance, the C930 is one of the better options that you can buy from Lenovo since it’s equipped with a powerful processor. It comes with an Intel i7-8550U processor and 16GB of RAM. These powerful specs will allow you to do almost any kind of daily work without experiencing any slowdown.
We even tried multitasking on this laptop, opening several Google Chrome tabs, writing documents, and even watching several YouTube videos. It passed all of that without any problems, making this a powerful laptop that will allow you to breeze through almost any work task you might have.
The 1TB PCIe SSD hard drive has above average transferring speeds, but it falls short against similar premium laptops available in the market. Graphics is also not the best feature of this device as it’s only equipped with the Integrated Intel UHD Graphics 620.
This means you can’t really use this as a gaming laptop. You can play light games and some older titles, but it will likely require that you adjust the game’s graphic settings to play it properly.
Great Battery Life
All of these features and power are paired with great battery life, as the Lenovo C930 easily lasted more than 10 hours on a single charge.
We tested this while having our display brightness at the standard setting, and doing various works and tasks like browsing the internet, editing documents, and watching videos. A more conservative setting and lesser tasks will likely extend this laptop’s battery life by an hour or two.
This result is way better than most of the competition, making this model one of the best hybrid laptops with good battery life.
Critics Review
Lenovo’s Yoga C930 puts its 360-degree hinges to work as the two-in-ones speaker system. The included active pen is discreetly housed and charged in the C930’s body and its webcam has a physical slider to block it when not in use. Performance and battery life are excellent for its class.
Apart from having upgraded components, the C930 does away with its predecessor’s watchband hinge and replaces it with a more functional soundbar. The Yoga C930’s utilitarian design also has a built-in slot for the included stylus and a webcam cover for added privacy. Those additions already make the C930 a more intriguing device than its predecessor. Add lengthy battery life and a sleek design, and the C930 is undoubtedly one of the best 2-in-1 laptops around.
Buy It If…
The sleek design and great performance make this a good 2-in-1 laptop. It’s the perfect laptop model for people who need a device they can rely on to handle most work tasks, including photo and video editing without any issues and can last for a day’s worth of work on a single charge.
Don’t Buy It If…
This is not the ideal laptop model to get if being able to play the latest and most graphics-intensive video games are your requirements for a laptop. There are better and budget-friendly gaming laptops available than this model.
Lenovo Yoga C930 (2019) Alternatives
This laptop model will not meet everyone’s requirements and if you’re one of those who prefer a different laptop, there are alternatives available. Here are some of the models we recommend:
- HP Spectre X360: A lightweight 2-in-1 that combines stylish design and great performance
- Dell XPS 13: A small but powerful laptop with great features
- Acer Spin 5: A feature-rich 2-in-1 that is a good alternative to the Lenovo Yoga C930
Verdict
If you would prefer a laptop that’s more optimized for gaming, we’ve spent hours of research and testing to compile a great list of the best gaming laptops under $1,000 that you can buy.