If you traveled baông chồng in time five sầu years and asked what a futuristic 2018 computer would look like, there’s a pretty good chance that somebody toàn thân would describe something very much like the Lenovo Yoga Book C930. It’s a svelte, small, and decently powerful computer that has so many different modes that it’s difficult to lớn Điện thoại tư vấn it just one thing, & there’s not much else out there that resembles it in any way.
It’s not a máy tính xách tay or a tablet or a note-taking device. Rather, it’s attempting lớn be all of those things at once, depending on your needs. It’s smaller than any Windows computer you’ve likely tried (save maybe the Surface Go), & it has two screens. One is a traditional LCD touch panel and the other is an E Ink screen that can change its function based on the task. Sometimes it’s a touch keyboard, & other times, it’s a sketchpad or an e-reader.
Bạn đang xem: Đánh giá lenovo yoga book
Almost everything about the new Yoga Book makes you want to love sầu it. It’s the sort of device that makes you feel like you’re living in a future that would be more commonplace if only computer companies were just a little more daring. But it is also the sort of device that, once you use it, it makes you realize why everybody else has been so risk-averse. It’s much easier to lớn love the idea of the Yoga Book C930 than lớn live with its reality — especially when that reality costs at least $999.99.
Our reviews of Lenovo Yoga Book C930
Verge Score 6 out of 10
Lenovo looked at all of the problems on the original Yoga Book và tried khổng lồ address them with the Yoga Book C930. In some cases, it was successful: this machine is a much more focused, intentional device. It only runs Windows; it has a relatively modern, 7th Gen Y-Series Intel bộ vi xử lý Core i5 processor; và, most importantly, it swaps out that weird touch panel for a proper E Ink display. That’s where you type, draw, and take notes using the included pen. There are now two USB-C ports for connectivity và charging (but no headphone jachồng, sadly). Lenovo also added a fingerprint sensor for logging in. It works, though, personally, I’d have sầu preferred a facial recognition camera.
Battery life is nothing lớn crow about. Lenovo rates it at over eight hours of use, but I didn’t quite get there using just Windows. Six lớn seven seems lượt thích a safer bet, depending on what apps you’re running. However, if you use it as more of a mixed-use device — a little Windows here, a little ebook reading there — you’re likely khổng lồ hit that number or better.
Just as a Windows computer, it does its job & performs well enough (about in line with a low-end device with 4GB of RAM). Which is lớn say: it will run Office and let you do basic kinds of stuff, but don’t push it too much. The small screen sort of helps set expectations here. You wouldn’t ever try lớn tackle a huge Photosiêu thị project on this thing, and you shouldn’t.
Any new kind of computer needs to lớn justify its existence. Why would you get this instead of something simpler, lượt thích a Surface Go tablet or a traditional máy tính xách tay (with a traditional keyboard)? And that bar is even higher for something that starts at a thousand bucks.
So let’s talk about that E Ink screen.
The first and most important thing to know is that it’s nicer khổng lồ type on than you might expect, though I suspect your expectations aren’t very high. Lenovo has a special mode that maximizes the keyboard kích thước & minimizes the touchpad, which cleverly expands only when you tap on the bottom when you want khổng lồ use it. That little bit of extra space makes the keyboard much more usable, and Lenovo is also doing the standard trick of correcting for your mistypes with its software.
But typing on glass is still typing on glass, and no amount of haptic vibration can change that. You can’t really rest your hands on the keyboard, long fingernails will be a problem, and it gets tiring after awhile.
Honestly, that is probably going to lớn be the over of the story for most people: an incredible device with a not-so-great typing experience. The idea here is that there are other things that you can bởi vì with the E Ink screen that offmix the compromise on the keyboard. But I’m just going to tell you right now that they mostly consist of more compromises.
You can also use it as an e-reader, & since the device is so small và light, it’s comfortable to hold & read with it. Unfortunately, at launch it only supports PDFs; Lenovo says that ePub, .dế yêu, & plain text tư vấn will come next year. It’s nice enough for simple reading, but you can’t mark up or even highlight text. You can only use a fiddly, resizable box to lớn screengrab portions of what you’re reading. And don’t ever expect lớn be able to read your Kindle library on it. The whole thing is just a huge missed opportunity.
The writing experience is better than expected, but it’s not as seamlessly integrated inlớn Windows as I’d like
My favorite mode is note-taking, which lets you sketch out your notes on the E Ink screen. It’s really neat to lớn just fold the Windows screen baông chồng and have sầu a small notepad thing to jot your notes down on. You can grab the OCR text from them automatically and get them inlớn Onelưu ý, too. You can also grab a screenshot from Windows and mark it up, but the experience of actually doing so is hellaciously fiddly. Trying to lớn re-crop the image khổng lồ what you want to lớn actually phản hồi on is a huge hassle on the E Ink display.
Though the E Ink screen has a decent refresh rate relative sầu khổng lồ other similar screens, the overall experience of using it is maddeningly slow. You switch modes by tapping small little buttons in the upper-right corner, and it takes a very long time lớn change. You can turn off the Windows display and just use the E Ink side, but you have to lớn double tap the screen to vị so, và sometimes it just doesn’t register. The device tries lớn automatically present different options to you, depending on how far back you’ve sầu tilted the hinge or what orientation the device is in. But in practice, it often gets it wrong, and you’re left sort of flipping & folding the Yoga Book around khổng lồ get it working.
I admit it: I really want khổng lồ like the Yoga Book C930. I like that Lenovo is not only willing lớn take a chance on a weird design, but also lớn iterate on it và make it better. Just considering the device as a physical object & even as a concept, I love it.
But even if you can get over the awkward experience of typing on glass, the software that runs the E Ink screen makes the Yoga Book hard khổng lồ love sầu. There are probably niches where this device will be interesting, lượt thích for people who need a clipboard-style computer with the full power of Windows và a quiông xã way lớn jot down notes.
For a thousand bucks, though, there are much better và more versatile options. They won’t wow strangers at a coffee siêu thị, but they will let you get your work done without getting in your way.