Lenovo Yoga C930-13IKB (i7-8550U, FHD) Convertible Review

[Redaktion]

We check out the pricier Core i7 SKU to see how it holds when up against the less expensive Core i5 SKU. Is it worth investing in the faster option? And how much better is the faster option exactly?

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-Yoga-C930-13IKB-i7-8550U-FHD-Convertible-Review.338502.0.html

[Toruss]

$1,500 for a laptop with Intel Graphics? HP Envy 13 x360 and Huawei Matebook D 14" (both Ryzen) are in need of your reviews. Maybe future Lenovos too once they decide on stop playing catch-up. GO AMD!

[danielee0707]

Great review. Will you also review the 4K version? Seems the display on FHD is too bad (dim and color inaccurate) for HDR content.
@Toruss The build quality and premium feeling is not on the same level. This ultrabook is completing directly with xps and spectre. The two you listed only look good, and you need to dig a little deeper.

[Toruss]

@danielee0707:
Build quality is surprisingly good for $600 price bracket, pretty close to high-end offerings like Lenovo 700s and Asus ZenBooks. The Huawei in fact has equivalent screen and battery life to this Yoga C930, right now only $450 on Walmart clearance sale. That is merely 1/3 of the price, an astounding value in the market dominated by Intel and Nvidia, wouldn't you agree? Eventually I hope OEMs break free from their monopoly and develop AMD devices all the way from low to high end, because current laptop prices are simply way passed their red line.

[danielee0707]

@Toruss Since when Lenovo 700 and Zenbook (other than pro) high-end. There are only three true high end brands: XPS, Spectre, and Yoga 900 series. Even those have worse build quality than mac and surface series in general. You underestimated the hierarchy in the laptop segment. Mid range laptops frequently cut corners such as color gamut, fan control, sata drives, throttling, or using plastic rather than aluminum/carbon fiber/leather. Of course if you don't pursuit premium, they are usually just fine.

[Toruss]

@danielee0707:
Yes but not really.

Most laptops share throttling as a common issue including high-end. HP is especially notorious for their decades track record of abysmal cooling and QC issues, so they are not part of any consideration in my book.

Lenovo's high-end Thinkpads are predominantly composd of PPS plastic and magnesium alloy whereas relatively "low-end" 700 / 900 series actually uses aluminum chassis. Whether Carbon Fiber is premium greatly depends on the context of its utilization. For instance the XPS does a terrible job at it. Meanwhile Thinkpads, Latitudes and LG Grams mold and inject carbon / nano-tubes into the plastic which effectively increases its resilience and durability.  With leather and alcantara on those tablets people pay for luxury, not premium.

Ideapad 720s are three laptops competing against the XPS although Lenovo is merging the Ideapad / Yoga naming so that will change. The 700 Yoga and Ideapads are unmistakably high-end as shown by metal chassis with NVMe storage and TB3 ports. And I certainly prefer their keyboards to the mushy ones on XPS. As for storage, many laptops ship with SATA SSDs to bring down the price and are user-replaceable with NVMe. That doesn't count.

100% sRGB / 72% NTSC color gamut on the 700s and Zenbooks is also a distinct high-end feature. Mid-range laptops you describe are Lenovo 500 and Asus VivoBook Pro / Slim series that uses displays of 60% sRGB / 45% NTSC. Massive, visible difference. Of course that is not to say there aren't better displays out there but this is only a baseline.

[Spongebob]

I have two of these machines that are identical except for the color and the screen resolution.

Both spend most of their lives in vertical cradles and operate as desktop machines most of the time rather than portables.

The last time I took them out of the cradle, both were warped on the bottom and refused to lay flat when typing.  If I were to travel with these machines, I would have to get some type of gel mat for them to sit on to eliminate the rocking when typing.

Curious if others have also experienced warping of the case - apparently due to heat.  I have not been able to find any reports of this happening elsewhere online, but the fact that both of mine exhibit this, and were purchsed about 12 months apart, suggests it is endemic to the product and not just an anomaly.