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Lenovo's new Yoga Book C930 is a high-end device designed with a unique idea – dual screens -.
Having two screens is quite unusual, but Lenovo is duplicating by combining an E Ink screen with a normal high-resolution touch screen. This combination allows the Yoga Book to function as a laptop, a tablet, a sketchbook and even an e-book reader.
To top it off, it's as thin as a smartphone and looks stylish enough to be mistaken for a high-end paper notebook.
This certainly looks like an improvement over the original yoga book. Launched in 2016, it was a delicate mix of paper and pen with an electronic device.
But the new version still falls on his face when it comes to his actual use. He feels slow, awkward, and sometimes downright buggy.
The first thing that annoys me is the discomfort caused by the seemingly simple task of opening its lid. Lenovo decided not to use the usual notch at the front of the laptops to help users open the lid and opted for magnets.
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TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS
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PRICE: $ 1,999
PROCESSOR: IIntel Core i5-7Y54 (1.2 GHz)
GRAPHIC: Intel UHD Graphics 615
RAM: 4 GB of DDR3
SIZE OF SCREEN: 10.8 inches, 2,560 x 1,600 pixels
CONNECTIVITY: 2 x USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-C, microSD slot, nano-SIM slot
DRUMS: 35.8 watt hours
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FEATURES: 3/5
DESIGN: 3/5
PERFORMANCE: 3/5
VALUE: 2/5
LIFE OF THE BATTERY: 4/5
GLOBAL: 3/5
Hit the cover twice with your knuckles and these magnets reverse polarity to repel instead of attracting, thus bursting the lid.
This feature probably looks good in a demo. But that seems to me useless, especially when I do not manage to make it work regularly.
Maybe Lenovo realizes it because there is another method: press the volume knob on the side to open the lid.
Of course, the last resort is to use your nails to separate the two halves of the book, which is connected by the distinctive hinge-shaped watch strap used by Lenovo in some older yoga devices.
But this is only the first of my frustrations. As mentioned before, it has two 10.8-inch screens that are very different in nature. The touch screen is the usual switching display that looks bright with good viewing angles.
You expect the physical keyboard to be in the E Ink screen. This versatile screen becomes a virtual keyboard, although it is flat and without edges for easy touch typing.
It has a haptic feedback – the keys vibrate when you tap and momentarily switch from the default white color to black. But my fingers always hit on a flat surface, which tires me after a while.
Being a virtual keyboard, just a few presses to switch from the default English version to another language.
He can do more than that though. Opt for the modern style keyboard in the settings and the virtual touchpad is reduced to a small pill. By tapping on this pill, the touchpad returns to its usual size. The space freed by this layout is used to make the keys slightly larger.
But I can already see the biggest drawback of the E Ink screen by manipulating keyboard settings. Its slow refresh rate means that it can take up to 20 seconds to switch from one keyboard layout to another.
Of course, the E Ink screen can be used as a display for reading eBooks. But it takes up to three seconds to move from portrait orientation to landscape orientation.
More inexcusable is the fact that the built-in electronic reader supports PDF files, not the popular EPUB format.
The E Ink screen can also become a notebook that works with the included Lenovo pen. Up to 4096 levels of pressure sensitivity are supported, which is the current standard.
The pen itself has a slight latency when writing. This slow feeling is magnified when I clear my notes because the screen is not the most responsive. On top of that, I could see the faint contours of my scribbles on the screen after erasing them.
But a good idea is that the pen can be magnetically attached to the lid in three places.
Of course, the E Ink screen has some advantages. It consumes much less energy and can be used in direct sunlight.
My biggest frustration, however, is when I switch between the two screens. He can not read my intentions. It is possible that the screen is mis-oriented or that the E Ink screen continues to display the sketchbook instead of the keyboard.
Another feature that probably looks better on paper is its optical fingerprint sensor. It is slower than a normal fingerprint reader. I also had to put more pressure on the player before it worked.
There are only two type C USB ports, which is understandable because the device is too thin to support a standard USB port. This is also the probable reason for the omission of the audio jack. On the other hand, its location for nano-SIM is useful for road warriors who need to be constantly connected.
For this suite, Lenovo has upgraded the Intel Atom's low-end processor from the first Yoga Book to a faster Intel Core i5 processor. But it's a slower model than the typical processor of most laptops.
Worse, its 4 GB of RAM are derisory; my smartphone has more memory in comparison. As a result, its PCMark 10 score of 2,358 is significantly lower than that of conventional notebooks ranging from 3,000 to 4,000.
Given his slim profile and modest battery capacity, he should not have much stamina. The video loop test lasted 5 hours and 11 minutes.
• Verdict: give Lenovo the credit of trying to create something new, but the Yoga Book C930 still needs to be improved, especially at this price.
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