Lenovo Yoga 730 review

Performance-wise, the Yoga 730 delivers as expected of laptops of the same caliber. Our test unit features a 1.6GHz Intel Core i5-8250U processor, 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD, which is definitely good enough for normal productivity tasks. It’s able to handle those tasks quite well.

The laptop can even handle some gaming, as long as you stay away from graphics-intensive ones. Testing it with Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, the laptop struggled a little, forcing us to play on low settings. However, testing it with South Park: Fractured But Whole, which isn’t graphics heavy, the laptop performed without a hitch.

Similarly, you will get substantial fan action if you push its processor. For example, even opening several browser tabs (between 15 and 20) at the same time while streaming a video will trigger the fans inside. However, unless you’re doing some heavy video and photo editing, the laptop will do just fine.

We wouldn’t recommend the Yoga 730 if your daily productivity involves handling large media files. However, for word processing, web browsing, emails and video conferencing, and even small levels of photo editing, it’s definitely good enough. 

Battery life

According to Lenovo literature, the Yoga 730 is supposed to last up to 11 hours and 30 minutes on a charge. That certainly isn’t the case when running graphics-heavy applications. Running our Guardians of the Galaxy movie test, for example, the battery only lasted about 6 hours and 30 minutes. While battery life that doesn’t meet what it says on the tin is part for the course,, compared to similar Ultrabooks, the battery life could be better.

Still, if you’re utilizing this mostly for productivity, the laptop should last to allow you a full day’s worth of work, plus a movie, and you’d only need to charge at the end of the day. As a bonus, the Yoga 730 has a fast charging feature, which should give you two hours worth of use in only 15 minutes.

Tablet mode

The Yoga 730 touchscreen display is top notch, with dual hinges made of durable stuff and speedy touch response. We cannot say that Yoga 730’s tablet mode is perfect: the placement of the power button on the top left side, while convenient when on laptop mode, is troublesome when you’re in tablet mode, as it is prone to accidental presses.

Other than that, however, the tablet orientation a crowd-pleaser especially for those who have a taste for Windows tablets. It’s certainly useful for watching movies on the road, and if you just want to tick off a few tasks off your list while on the go.

Cortana

The Yoga 730, like all Windows 10 devices, also boasts Cortana, the Alexa-like virtual assistant for Windows devices. This voice-activated feature is worthy of a short mention, if only for the fact that it does help you with maintaining a better, less interrupted workflow.

Though we haven’t tested Cortana long enough to see how it compares to Alexa, the service does score points with us for being sensitive enough to hear and perform requests coming from another room.

Final verdict

The Lenovo Yoga 730 is far from perfect. With longer battery life, stronger speakers and even a 1080p camera, others would be so quick to criticize it. In our humble opinion, however, we think it’s pretty solid the way it is.

First of all, other Ultrabooks with similar configurations come with a higher price tag, while cheaper ones generally have worse specs and inferior build quality. Secondly, the laptop’s limitations come with alternate solutions, namely a rapid charger and better sound quality through the audio jack. Granted, if you’re a filmmaker or a photographer, you won’t get too far with this. But, this laptop is not designed for that.

What it is designed for is to let you tick off your long list of daily tasks conveniently no matter where you are, and allow you access to occasional entertainment, whether it be a simpler game, a Netflix show or music. And, for that, the Lenovo Yoga 730 definitely does the job.