Lenovo Yoga 530 Review – A little thinner, a little faster
Lenovo’s Yoga 530 succeeds the Yoga 520 and has become thinner and a lot lighter in its new guise. That was also allowed, because the Yoga 520 was quite clumsy. The new convertible is faster than its predecessor, but can’t keep up with the competition in some tests. The housing is still sturdy and has the fingerprint scanner in the right place. The WiFi chip is outdated and we don’t really think it fits in a laptop of this price. The battery life is slightly shorter than with its predecessor, but we still can’t complain about more than nine hours.
Pros
- Still good battery life
- Sturdy housing
- Nice keyboard
- Fingerprint scanner in the right place
- Faster than Yoga 520
Cons
- CPU slower than some competitors
- Outdated wifi chip
- Shorter battery life than predecessor
At the beginning of 2018, we reviewed four convertibles with the Intel Core i5-8250U processor, including Lenovo’s Yoga 520. That model stood out positively for its sturdy part-metal housing, fingerprint scanner and the ease with which the hardware could be upgraded. There were also downsides, because the i5 processor in the Yoga 520 performed a lot less well than in competing laptops. In addition, we found the Yoga 520 quite heavy and unwieldy for a convertible. Lenovo itself seems to have noticed the latter, because in the meantime the Yoga 520 has been succeeded by the Yoga 530, which is lighter and thinner. In this review we look at whether Lenovo has improved even more. Our test sample is a version with Core i5-8250U processor, 8GB memory and an Nvidia MX130 GPU.
On the outside of the Yoga 530 you can immediately see that the Yoga 520 has had a slimming treatment. The housing has become thinner and if we put it on the scales, the weight is 1606 grams. That is a lot less than the 1780 grams that its predecessor weighed. It’s not exceptionally light, but for a $800 laptop you shouldn’t expect ultrabook dimensions and weights.
The housing, as with the Yoga 520, is made of plastic and metal. Around the keyboard you will find the metal, in which lines are now brushed. It looks a bit busier than the Yoga 520, but is still quite sturdy. You can let it spring in, but then you have to exert forces on it that will not be exerted on it during normal use.
Furthermore, little has changed on the outside compared to the predecessor. The fingerprint scanner is in the same place, right next to the touchpad, which is a better choice than incorporating the scanner into the touchpad, as many competitors do. The connections are also in the same place as with the Yoga 520. That means that there is still a USB 3.0 connection and an SD card reader on the right. On the left is an HDMI 1.4 connection, with two USB 3.0 connections next to it, one with a USB-A and one with a USB-C connector. Unfortunately, the latter connection only transmits USB signals, so you can’t use it in combination with a hub to connect external screens or use it to charge the laptop.
As with the exterior, the keyboard and touchpad haven’t changed since the Yoga 520. The keyboard is backlit and doesn’t have excessive travel, but has a nice, clear touch. If you don’t find the somewhat low travel a problem, tapping on the Yoga 530 is fine. The precision touchpad, under the keyboard, does its job smoothly and has a fairly smooth surface, which provides enough accuracy.
Benchmarks and upgrades
A major criticism of the Yoga 520 with the Core i5-8250U was the tuning of the processor. It was clocked very conservatively, so the performance was disappointing. After a bios update, that performance did increase, but the other convertibles in our roundup remained faster. We are therefore looking at whether Lenovo can reach the level of the competition with the Yoga 530.
In any case, in Cinebench we see that the result has improved enormously, from 387 to 552 points in the Multi test and a considerable improvement has also been made in the Single test. The i5-8250U is also faster in Photoshop and Lightroom than in the Yoga 520, but there are plenty of laptops with the same CPU that perform better. That seems to have to do with the still somewhat conservatively adjusted power management, because unlike other laptops, the power consumed by the CPU while running the Photoshop benchmark does not exceed 15 watts. If you are considering purchasing a Yoga 530, the question is whether the MX130 model we tested is the best choice. The Nvidia GPU is a rebrand of the GeForce 940MX and is roughly one and a half times as fast as the Intel IGP in the Yoga 520. That in itself is a nice bonus, but still doesn’t make the Yoga 530 really suitable for gaming. To put the speed of the GPU in perspective, we have also added laptops with MX150, GTX 1050 and GTX 1050 Ti GPUs to the 3DMark table. So you can play games with the MX130, but you shouldn’t expect too much from it. In F1 2017, on medium settings, at a resolution of 1280×720 pixels, we averaged 31fps.
If the standard 8GB memory and the 256GB SSD are not enough, you can upgrade the hardware if necessary. Unfortunately, there is only room for one memory module, so you can only replace it in its entirety with a 16GB one. The nvme ssd, an SK Hynix SC300, sits in an m.2 slot and is also replaceable, but the Yoga 530 no longer has room for a 2.5″ sata drive, as there is with the Yoga 520 The wireless network card is also located under the hood and you could also replace it, because the Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 3165 is not really a common model.The network card does support 2.4GHz and 5GHz networks , but does so with one stream at a maximum speed of 433Mbit/s and does not support mu-mimo.
Screen and battery life
The Yoga 530 is equipped with a 14″ IPS touchscreen with a resolution of 1920×1080 pixels. It is a convertible, so you have to deal with a glossy screen that your finger slides easily over, but that easily reflects light. the Yoga 520 Lenovo used a screen that automatically dims in dark colors and the Yoga 530 uses the same panel, so we performed an ANSI contrast measurement using our CalMAN software.
The brightness is not particularly high and to compensate somewhat for the reflections, a higher brightness is nice. We are pleased with the contrast and if you are not in an environment that produces a lot of reflections, it is a great screen.
In terms of battery life, the Yoga 530 also does quite well, especially when you consider that the battery has become smaller. This is undoubtedly done to make the laptop thinner and lighter and the battery life is not greatly reduced. While browsing, the battery life is still over nine hours and that is also achieved while watching video, although the Yoga 520 did better.
Conclusion
Lenovo sent us the Yoga 530 with MX130 GPU, That makes it somewhat difficult to draw a conclusion, but the question is whether the version with MX130 is really that interesting given the performance. Fortunately, the version without Nvidia GPU is already for sale. It costs 800 euros, which is about the same price as its predecessor. For the same money, you get a thinner and lighter laptop with the new 530, and given the considerable weight of its predecessor, we don’t think that’s an unnecessary luxury. The sturdy housing, the nice keyboard, the fingerprint scanner and also the full HD IPS screen have remained, although the latter may be expected in this price category.
The somewhat disappointing benchmark results also remained. The Yoga 520 scored low in all benchmarks, and Lenovo did improve performance with the Yoga 530. The scores in Cinebench, for example, look better, but although they have also improved in Photoshop and Lightroom, we still see plenty of laptops with the same CPU that do better. This is due to the still somewhat conservative power management that limits the processor to a consumption of 15 watts in certain situations, while many other laptop processors get more room for overclocking using turbo boost. Because the Yoga 530 costs the same as the Yoga 520 with i5-8250, we still think it’s a successful update. The CPU is not yet as fast as we would like, but it is faster than in the Yoga 520 and the new Yoga is also thinner and lighter. The battery has become a bit smaller and despite the shorter battery life, we still end up with a respectable nine hours. The chipset of the wireless network card is now four years old and we don’t think it fits in a laptop of this price. Finally, the thinner housing is just as sturdy as before and we like that Lenovo has mounted the fingerprint scanner in a handy place.