Even better, I kept the display brightness at a comfortable level—no squinting at a too-dark screen—and experienced internet speeds roughly the same as what I'm accustomed to at home or at PC Labs. The Yoga C630 looks quite similar to Lenovo's other premium ultraportables and, The Yoga C630's best physical attribute by far, though, is its lack of weight. Even tablets and smartphones with much smaller speakers sound better than the Yoga C630. I found the maximum volume level to be adequate while using the Yoga C630 oriented as a laptop, but with the machine flipped and the keyboard facing down, the audio was muffled by my desk or lap. Speeds with AT&T and Verizon were excellent – around 60 Mbps with only three bars of signal. That extra bit of RAM helps when running browsers with multiple tabs open or many apps in the background. Better speakers and lag-free web performance under duress would close the gap. As a hardware analyst, Tom tests and reviews laptops, peripherals, and much more at PC Labs in New York City. The lowest-end configuration of the Surface Go plus the matching keyboard rings up at a little more than $500, though bear in mind it has a much smaller screen; the highest-end one plus keyboard approaches the C630. The whites also seem to have a little bit of a yellow tint, but if you … The Yoga C630 uses the Qualcomm X20 modem with speeds up to 1.2 Gbps. Inside, however, the C630 (starts at $749; $799 as tested) is quite different from most other laptops: A power-sipping Qualcomm Snapdragon 850 processor means very long battery life and no droning cooling fans, while a Snapdragon X20 LTE modem built into the system-on-a-chip (SoC) offers blistering-fast peak download speeds. The Lenovo Yoga Chromebook C630 has a flexible aluminum chassis and speedy performance, but the 4K display steals the show. A Surface Go with LTE is also an attractive alternative, as its pricing with a keyboard nears $800 as well. That lower price comes with a few tradeoffs, but none are deal breakers. The Lenovo Yoga C630 is not really suited for gaming due to the Snapdragon SoC. Lenovo Yoga C630 WOS 2-in-1 PC Review Source: Legit Reviews At the end of the day the YOGA C630 by Lenovo was obviously built by those wanting a Windows device that is always … How to (try to) get an Xbox Series X right now, We pit the HP ENVY x360 15 against the Lenovo Yoga C740 15. If you are sticking with Windows 10 native apps including the Edge browser, Office 365, Mail, Weather, News, and about 95 percent of the apps on the Microsoft Store, the Yoga C630 feels very much like a Core i5 on the Surface Pro 4 for multi-core tasks. More web browsing ensued after takeoff while connected to the aircraft Wi-Fi, followed by about an hour and a half of streaming video over the next few days at my destination. In my testing, the Yoga C630 largely delivered on its promise. Machines of this kind require extra hardware in the hinge that typically makes them heavier than equivalent conventional laptops. I would like to receive mail from Future partners. Many apps, This state of affairs makes it difficult to quantify the Yoga C630's computing performance, since many of PCMag's own Windows-standard benchmark tests either won't run, or run in emulation. Assuming you do not need to run graphics-intense applications, video games or do video editing, the Yoga C630 is one of the best and most well-balanced productivity laptops around. The Yoga C630 is mostly free of annoying bloatware, with only a single Lenovo utility app preinstalled on the task bar. That tradeoff will be worth it for many people, though. Sign up now to get the latest news, deals & more from Windows Central! Given that state of affairs, to judge general computing performance, I ran Principled Technologies' WebXPRT 2015, a browser-based productivity benchmark that PC Labs typically uses to test Chromebooks. The Yoga C630's best physical attribute by far, though, is its lack of weight. A few tests that I, general computing performance, I ran Principled Technologies' WebXPRT 2015, a browser-based productivity benchmark that PC Labs typically uses to test Chromebooks. He previously covered the consumer tech beat as a news reporter for PCMag in San Francisco and Silicon Valley, where he rode in several self-driving cars and witnessed the rise and fall of many startups. Now that Sony has pulled Cyberpunk 2077 from the PlayStation Store, Microsoft's hand has been forced. Add in a mobile hotspot, and you've got a viable alternative to the C630. I would like to receive news and offers from other Future brands. The keyboard deck has a nice soft-touch paint texture to it, making it warm and inviting and not cold like metal. Among those dozens of Intel- and AMD-powered ultraportables and 2-in-1s are some with nearly as good battery life that don't impose the Snapdragon performance handicap. Both the Lenovo Yoga C740 and the HP ENVY x360 15 are great convertible devices, but which one should you actually buy? Better speakers and lag-free web performance under duress would close the gap. Slick Ultraportables Face Off: 2020 Apple MacBook Air vs. Microsoft Surface Laptop 3, High-End Mac Showdown: Apple iMac vs. Apple MacBook Pro, Patent Shows How Apple Can Create a Black-Colored MacBook, Qualcomm Is a Little Too Unbothered by Apple's M1 Macs, Tablet, Chromebook Demand Soars as Pandemic Prompts Need for Affordable Computers, Early Benchmarks Show Apple's ARM-Based Macs Reign Supreme, Apple MacBook Pro 13-Inch (M1, Late 2020) Review. It's a 13.3-inch full HD (1,920-by-1,080-pixel) multi-touch panel. It's nice that Lenovo includes its Active Pen digital stylus with the Yoga C630 at no additional charge. It features a basic, dark grey mixed magnesium and aluminium alloy clamshell … The ports work well enough, especially for charging, but you will need a Type-A adapter (not included) to use any older peripherals. Lenovo Yoga C630 just enters this wave, its goal is to offer maximum performance, unlike the first generation of laptops. The top-firing speakers make the sound better than it should be, but it still lacks some richness and bass. The familiar key style with an adequate amount of travel and consistent actuation make this an excellent typing experience. Audio is merely OK. Shop all the best Cyber Monday deals NOW. I then proceeded to work on it all morning, with more than a dozen tabs open at times while I wrote parts of this story, and it took until lunchtime before the battery was completely depleted. Because of the always-connected and extensive battery life, the Yoga C630 is kind of the dream laptop for writers, business people, students, or even casual users who live mostly in a browser or watch Netflix. If you want a more generous port complement from a Lenovo 2-in-1, including a USB Type-A port for connecting an external mouse, you'll have to look to the Yoga 730 or Yoga C930. Data is not cheap, but the ability to acquire data piecemeal when traveling is convenient. Follow him on Twitter @branttom. It’s the new flagship of the WOS (Windows on Snapdragon) … The most obvious is into a tablet, with the hinge rotated 360 degrees so the display and keyboard are back to back. There are two USB Type-C 3.0 ports for power, display and data, a headphone jack, and a power button. The laptop is also SIM-unlocked so that you can drop in any carrier's SIM into the side-slot. No spam, we promise. Performance is better than an Intel Atom processor for single-core, but near what the Surface Go gets for multi-core. This makes for a typing experience that's closer to tapping on a smartphone. That said, it ships with Windows 10 S Mode turned on by default, which prevents you from running Windows-compatible x86 apps unless they were specifically downloaded and installed from the Microsoft App Store. Lenovo Yoga C630 is a traditional 2-in-1, 13-inch laptop with the brand-new Qualcomm Snapdragon 850 processor built for Windows 10 devices. The Yoga C630 looks quite similar to Lenovo's other premium ultraportables and 2-in-1 convertible laptops. Clarity of the Yoga C630 display is excellent, as well, and I have no complaints using it day to day as my work laptop. Overall, the Yoga C630 is conservative looking compared to flashier laptops on the market, but it's difficult to criticize it for being unsightly. The Lenovo YOGA C630 convertible laptop has been created with premium Aluminium, smartphone-like 4G connectivity (via a nano-SIM card slot) and a battery that will provide up to 25 hours usage, as well … Pages crashed at times with these browsers and had to be reloaded, especially when I had several tabs open. We reviewed a configuration with the newest Qualcomm Snapdragon … Geekbench 4.3 can now benchmark Windows 10 on ARM, as well as 32-bit applications running under ARM. The Yoga C630 looks quite similar to Lenovo's other premium ultraportables and 2-in-1 convertible laptops.This 13.3-inch 2-in-1 has Yoga hallmarks like a ThinkPad-inspired keyboard, … The Lenovo Yoga C630 is a classic 2-in-1 laptop with modest looks, but it packs crazy multi-day battery life, 8GB of RAM, and 4G LTE to keep you working on the go. There is the recently announced Qualcomm 8cx processor, but that chip is not displacing the Snapdragon 850. The trackpad is spacious, glass and it uses Microsoft Precision drivers. All you get is a single USB Type-C port on either side, and a headphone jack on the right side. The Snapdragon 850 is built on an ARM-based processor architecture, which means that it handles instructions from the Windows operating system and any apps you might be running differently from the x86 architecture of PCs with Intel or AMD processors. Download speeds ranged from a slow but serviceable 8Mbs at LaGuardia airport to an impressive maximum 75Mbs in a residential area of Chicago. It needs to pull Cyberpunk 2077 from the Xbox Store, too. It's a fair compromise between the ThinkPad keys and the barely-moving butterfly key switches that Apple employs on its MacBook, MacBook Pro, and MacBook Air ($999.00 at Amazon) laptops. Battery Versus Sheer Grunt: A Fair Trade? (I measured all of these speeds using Ookla's, On the other hand, it also is a computing-performance limiter under certain situations. The Yoga C630's score of 256 on this test lined up closely with Chromebooks like the Samsung Chromebook Plus (264), but lagged well behind more powerful, Core i5-equipped models like the, This tradeoff is partly why Snapdragon-powered laptops haven't really set this ultramobile market afire quite yet. Machines of this kind require extra hardware in the hinge that typically makes them heavier than equivalent conventional laptops. None of those are deal-breakers, though, especially at $800. recently announced Qualcomm 8cx processor, and Firefox are going to support ARM64 very soon, Microsoft continues to move to a passwordless future. That's a big difference. Graphics performance as measured by the 3DMark Night Raid test (the Yoga C630 scored 2,433) lags behind what PC Labs has seen from mainstream convertible notebooks like the Dell Inspiron 14 5000 2-in-1 (4,663) and even a smidge behind the Intel Pentium-powered Microsoft Surface Go (2,662). Nevertheless, it would be a mistake to choose the Yoga C630 solely for its battery life and LTE capabilities. While the price for the Yoga C630 is great, the display takes a hit. This state of affairs makes it difficult to quantify the Yoga C630's computing performance, since many of PCMag's own Windows-standard benchmark tests either won't run, or run in emulation. We may earn a commission for purchases using our links. They're narrow, especially on the sides, but not vanishingly so, like the ones you'll find on the Dell XPS 13. Other apps run in an emulation layer that significantly degrades performance. That's a good thing, though, as many people often gravitate to such form factors, which are practical for productivity. Many apps have to be reprogrammed to run on Snapdragon, and Microsoft has been hard at work doing this for its own apps, including Edge. The Lenovo Yoga C630 is the new laptop from Lenovo that users Qualcomm’s latest mobile compute platform – the Snapdragon 850 – rather than traditional AMD and Intel hardware. The Yoga C630 was noticeably sluggish during web browsing using both Mozilla's, These problems are likely around the supporting scaffolding that makes using the Snapdragon 850 CPU possible; after all, the Yoga C630 that I tested has 8GB of memory and a 128GB SSD, robust enough for snappy performance on other ultraportable laptops. If you can sacrifice, or at least compromise, those at the altar of battery life, though, the Yoga C630 is worth a close look. Lenovo uses a 128GB Samsung eUFS (KLUDG4U1EA-B0C) drive which yields around 800 MB/s for read and over 200 MB/s for write. He has been covering Microsoft since 2009 back when this site was called WMExperts (and later Windows Phone Central). Even better, I kept the display brightness at a comfortable level—no squinting at a too-dark screen—and experienced internet speeds roughly the same as what I'm accustomed to at home or at PC Labs. I didn't even miss the sublime keyboard that's on the now-discontinued Lenovo ThinkPad T470 that I typically use at the office. On the upside, Windows 10 S helps isolate your PC from rogue apps and viruses. The Lenovo Yoga C630 is the second Windows 10 PC to feature the new Qualcomm Snapdragon 850 processor (the other being the Samsung Galaxy Book2). Laptops & … It's not the most sensitive such stylus, lacking the more than 8,000 levels of pressure sensitivity you'll find in artist-oriented stylii. The Staples Cyber Monday Sale has strong discounts on a number laptops from Lenovo, HP, and other major brands, many of which are at the lowest price we've seen Shop Now at Staples Related Lenovo … And still others—including some versions of Adobe's Creative Cloud software—just don't run at all. Before that, he worked for PCMag's sister site, Computer Shopper, where he occasionally dunked waterproof hard drives in glasses of water. Thanks to its built-in 4G LTE modem and power-sipping Qualcomm Snapdragon 850 processor, it offers the tantalizing prospect of a laptop that's always connected and that rarely needs to visit a power outlet. As someone who is tall enough that his knees typically chafe on the back of the economy airplane seat in front, I was still able to rest the Yoga C630 in this mode on my lap and have plenty of room to do some casual web browsing and watch a TV show on a short flight. Besides the Yoga C630 and the NovaGo, there is also a Snapdragon-powered HP Envy x2 (not reviewed) and the Samsung Galaxy Book2. The display of third-party trademarks and trade names on this site does not necessarily indicate any affiliation or the endorsement of PCMag. The Yoga C630 is Lenovo's mid-range 2-in-1 laptop. If you're ever on the go, the Yoga C630 promises to do more than just lighten your load or contort itself to fit into a cramped airplane economy cabin. These problems are likely around the supporting scaffolding that makes using the Snapdragon 850 CPU possible; after all, the Yoga C630 that I tested has 8GB of memory and a 128GB SSD, robust enough for snappy performance on other ultraportable laptops. There's no option for a 4K display like the one you get with the Yoga C930 ($967.39 at Amazon) , but I didn't miss the extra pixels over several days of typing, web browsing, and watching videos on the C630. I headed for New York City's LaGuardia airport on a recent Friday afternoon with a full charge and browsed the web using the LTE modem connected to Verizon's network for an hour or so as I waited for my flight. The new hinges look great and are also a sweet spot for Lenovo's logo instead of the display chin. The Yoga C630's score of 256 on this test lined up closely with Chromebooks like the Samsung Chromebook Plus (264), but lagged well behind more powerful, Core i5-equipped models like the HP Chromebook x2 (412) and the Google Pixelbook (416). For $800 it should be on your list of productivity-focused laptops, and if you can get it on sale, it's even better. Those will run, just more slowly. Time for more discounts! https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/lenovo-yoga-c630. (Plus, a 4K panel, all else being equal, would shorten the battery runtime.) The power button on the side also has a white LED and it turns bright orange when the laptop has 20 percent or less battery. © 1996-2020 Ziff Davis, LLC. PCMag, PCMag.com and PC Magazine are among the federally registered trademarks of Ziff Davis, LLC and may not be used by third parties without explicit permission. Daniel Rubino is executive editor of Windows Central. The first machines went on sale in 2017, and just a handful of options have hit the market. A graduate of Middlebury College, Tom also has a master's degree in journalism and French Studies from New York University. The pen provides an additional means of touch-enabled input for those who have freed themselves from the confines of point-and-click. The Lenovo - Yoga C630 2-in-1 15.6" Touch-Screen Chromebook - Intel Core i5 - 8GB Memory - 128GB eMMC Flash Memory - Midnight Blue offers amazing power, usability, productivity, and accessibility all … How relevant that benchmark comparison is to you depends on the types of apps you need to run on the Yoga C630. These slim port pickings are a byproduct of such a thin and light laptop, and they're similar to the I/O selections of the XPS 13, MacBook Air, and entry-level MacBook Pro. The left-hand USB-C port can be used to charge the Yoga C630's battery, which took about two hours from empty to full in my testing. Instead, it is a higher-tier one for even more powerful devices (and likely more expensive ones), like how Intel has Core i5 while also selling the Pentium chip. Gaming is also not a strong suit for the Yoga C630, although it can run some casual titles with ease. That's impossible for me to do with a conventional laptop, and much more difficult to do with the larger Asus NovaGo, which measures 0.59 by 12.4 by 8.7 inches. It can be used to wake the Yoga C630 and has consistent and reliable reads. (The webcam is just a plain camera, without the IR sensors required for face-recognition logins.) For single core, it's going to beat the Surface Go barely. To the right of the keyboard is a fingerprint sensor that, at times, failed to recognize my registered print. If you click an affiliate link and buy a product or service, we may be paid a fee by that merchant. 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