The second Yoga laptop to be unveiled by Lenovo at CES 2019 is a 2-in-1 Windows laptop-tablet hybrid, pitched at creatives who may be entranced by a large 4K AMOLED panel and Windows Ink support.
Lenovo Yoga C730 – Price and release date
The Lenovo Yoga C730 is due to hit markets worldwide in April this year, but no pricing information was shared at the launch event.
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Lenovo Yoga C730 – Design and features
The Lenovo Yoga C730 is a 2-in-1 convertible laptop that tapers from 17.55mm at the rear to 16.95mm at the front – the standard level of depth for laptops with displays that can rotate all the way around and turn into tablets.
The model I saw at CES 2019 was an unfinished version running Windows 10 in Test Mode, meaning that first: further calibration of the screen may take place before its ready to start hitting shelves; and second, I couldn’t do much more with this laptop than just look at it.
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The 15.6-inch 4K AMOLED display (fun fact: it’s actually made by Samsung) looked arresting; the warm orange and yellow background really popped off the surrounding gloom of Lenovo’s stand. Since it’s an AMOLED-type display, we can expect excellent brightness and contrast – and, hopefully, decent colour space coverage and colour accuracy.
Unfortunately, since the software wouldn’t let me dive into the settings to check the brightness, I can’t say if it was turned all the way up to 100% here.
As well as being a nice and vibrant AMOLED screen, the Lenovo Yoga C730 also supports Windows Ink. You’ll be able to pick up a Lenovo Active Pen 2 with the Yoga C730. Sadly, there isn’t one included, but as Wacom’s Bamboo styli can also be used on Windows Ink displays, this might not be a bad thing; if you’ve already got a Wacom stylus, there’s no bother.
As with the Lenovo Yoga S940, Microsoft Cortana and Amazon Alexa are present here, so you’ll be able to issue commands to the voice assistant of your choice. It’s unclear if the same AI-augmentations you get with the S940 will also appear on the C730.
Windows Hello and a fingerprint scanner provide options for unlocking the C730 with a tap of your finger or letting the front-facing camera examine your face.
Processor-wise, you’ll get a currently unspecified 8th Gen Intel Core i7 processor (or processors) running the show, with 16GB of DDR4 RAM and a 512GB PCIe SSD.
Graphics options appear limited to an Intel integrated GPU (in other words, it will use whatever Intel graphics controllers are built into the CPU) instead of a discrete, dedicated GPU – something creatives will be hankering for if they need a laptop to load and render large image files. The 512GB option might also be limiting for those who want space to store photos or digital artwork.
However, you get a USB-C port supporting Thunderbolt 3 on the Lenovo Yoga C730 for data transfer speeds of up to 40Gbps. So, if storage is an issue, you could always pick up an external hard drive if you wanted to quickly back up project archives.
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Lenovo Yoga C730 specifications
| Lenovo Yoga C730 | |
| Dimensions | 16.95-17.15 x 360 x 249mm |
| Weight | 1.89 kg |
| Display | 15.6-inch 4K (3840 x 2160) AMOLED |
| Processor | 8th Gen Intel Core i7 Processor (exact models TBC) |
| Memory | 16GB DDR4 RAM |
| Storage | 512GB PCIe SSD |
| Graphics | Intel Integrated (exact model TBC) |
| Connectivity | 2 x 2 Wi-Fi ac |
| Ports | 1 x Type-C USB with Thunderbolt 3, 2 x USB 3.0, 1 x HDMI, 3.5mm audio jack |
| Cameras and microphones | 3 x far field mics, Fixed-Focus CMOS Camera (camera resolution currently unknown) |
| Misc | Cortana and Alexa voice assistants |
First impressions
With no final software running on the Lenovo Yoga C730, nor a stylus to hand for me to play with, it’s hard to offer any initial thoughts. What I can say is that the design is nice, if fairly typical of 2-in-1s, the 4K AMOLED display looks decent, and the C730 is a very light laptop-tablet, weighing under 2kg, making it a good option to lug around town with ease.
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