Lenovo Yoga Book C930 Preview – An e-ink screen instead of a keyboard
Two years ago, during IFA 2016, Lenovo presented the Yoga Book, a convertible that was not equipped with a keyboard, but with a touch-sensitive surface. A keyboard was projected onto it, but you could also place a paper notebook on it and everything you drew on paper also appeared on the screen.
The Yoga Book had to solve the problem that every pen-enabled tablet has, namely that the stylus feel does not match that of a regular pen on paper. With the Yoga Book C930 announced at IFA 2018, Lenovo has taken a slightly different approach and the touch-sensitive surface has remained, but has now been changed to an e-ink screen, which in turn allows for completely different applications.
The touch-sensitive screen of the first Yoga Book was black and then you could draw on it, with or without a piece of paper in between. In addition, you could also use it as a keyboard by pressing a button and turning on the backlight behind the screen, which lit up the keyboard.
An e-ink screen naturally offers many more possibilities because you can basically project anything on it. Lenovo has chosen to give the screen three functions and you can therefore choose from drawing pad, keyboard and ebook mode. You can switch between the different functions using a menu in the top right corner of the e-ink screen.
In drawing mode, the screen looks like a lined sketch pad on which you can then draw or write. You can do this with the included stylus, which supports 4096 pressure levels, or with your finger. The screen also offers options to adjust your pen stroke and make it bolder, for example, but the most interesting option is to copy the drawn to the clipboard. This can be done as an image, but there is also handwriting recognition, so that you can also copy written words as text.
For e-ink, the screen of the Yoga Book responds very quickly, because a full refresh is not done after every touch. That also ensures that some retention can occur, but if you are drawing or writing, a fast-responding screen is more important.
The second screen mode is keyboard mode and displays a keyboard on the e-ink screen. There are about thirty languages supported to begin with, so you can choose the layout you want. Then you can type on the keyboard, with what Lenovo calls “haptic feedback.” They are not entirely wrong about that, because the laptop vibrates with every touch, thanks to a vibrating motor. The problem, however, is that every keystroke feels the same, so you don’t feel any difference between pressing different keys, something that you don’t experience with a keyboard with physical buttons.
| Yoga Book 2016 | Yoga Book 2018 | |
| Processor | Atom x5-Z8550 | Core m3-7Y30, Core i5-7Y54 |
| Random access memory | 4GB | 4GB |
| Storage | 64GB eMMC | max. 256GB SSD |
| Resolution LCD | 1920×1200 | 2560×1600 |
| Introductory price | Android: 500 euros Windows: 600 euros | Windows: 1000 euros |
The last screen mode is that of the ebook reader and the screen is of course ideally suited for that. This screen mode is simple, but effective. When you switch to the mode, you can open a PDF file using a file browser and display it on the screen. By double-tapping the screen you can also turn off the LCD and read for a long time, because the e-ink screen is much more economical than an LCD because it only uses energy when the screen refreshes and that only happens when you turn a page. You just won’t get battery life like with a real ereader, because Windows also has to keep running and that also consumes energy.
A few things have also changed on the rest of the Yoga Book. To start with, the convertible is equipped with Windows 10 and the option for Android, which was there with the first Yoga Book, has been dropped. In addition, the hardware has been improved and you are no longer stuck with an Atom x5-8550 processor, but you can choose between the Core m3-7Y30 or the Core i5-7Y54. The faster CPU is nice, but is also a somewhat unusual choice. Intel announced Amber Lake at IFAwhich is the successor to the 2016 Kaby Lake processor series, which includes both of the mentioned processors. Perhaps Intel couldn’t deliver the new CPUs fast enough, because Lenovo will release the new Yoga Book in September, but it would be to the manufacturer’s credit if they announced a second generation with Amber Lake in a while.
The screen has also changed. The screen diagonal is still 10.8″, but the resolution has been increased from 1920×1200 to 2560×1600 pixels. The aspect ratio is therefore 16:10, which is less common than 16:9, but we can appreciate the extra vertical space. the high resolution produces a high pixel density and therefore a sharp image.It is of course an IPS panel, so the Yoga Book immediately looked good in terms of viewing angles.
Knock to open
The first impression of the solidity of the case also felt better than with the first Yoga Book. It still had some creaks and wanted to bend if you grabbed it at a corner of the housing, but that is not much noticeable with the new one. Another nice addition to the case is the opening mechanism. You no longer have to put your fingers between the two parts of the housing, but you can now knock twice on the top of the screen and the housing will pop open. You have to knock in the middle of the housing for that, because it doesn’t work on the corners, but the system worked flawlessly the few times we tried it.
The ‘knock to open’ also ensures that the housing can look nice and sleek, and that indeed seems to be what Lenovo has been aiming for. When folded, the Yoga Book C930 is less than an inch thick. The weight is 775 grams for the WiFi version and 799 grams for the version with a 4G modem. There is a USB-C connection on both sides to connect peripherals and of course to charge the battery. That battery has a capacity of 35.8Wh and provides a battery life of 8.6 hours, according to Lenovo.
Preliminary conclusion
A sturdier case, faster processor, higher resolution, and an e-ink screen naturally come with a price, which is double the Android version of the first Yoga Book. This cost five hundred euros and the new Yoga Book C930 must be sold for a thousand euros. For the time being, that doesn’t seem like a very crazy price, given the significant improvements. However, it remains to be seen how well the Yoga Book performs in our battery tests, for example, and we want to spend longer with the e-ink screen to see how well the writing and drawing works and to see if we can handle the screen during daily use . We haven’t tested laptops with Amber Lake processors yet, so we don’t know how much Lenovo has put itself at a disadvantage by equipping this new laptop with outdated Kaby Lake processors.