Lenovo Yoga 920 review: One of the best 2-in-1s gets better

The Lenovo Yoga 920 keeps everything we liked about its predecessor, the 910, and fixes almost everything we didn't. 

8.7

Lenovo Yoga 920

$899 at Walmart

$849 at Amazon

The Good

The Lenovo Yoga 920 improves on the company's premium two-in-one ultraportable by adding active pen support and Thunderbolt 3 USB-C ports, making a couple of design refinements and throwing in an eighth-gen Intel Core i-series processor for better performance and a very long battery life.

The Bad

Base configuration starts around $1,300 (£1,350, AU$2,000), the pen holder blocks its only full-size USB port as well as the power button when the pen is stowed and the overall design hasn't changed much. At 3 pounds (1.4 kg) it's weighty for its size.

The Bottom Line

The Lenovo Yoga 920 gets a handful of improvements and added features including a pen-enabled display and eighth-gen Intel processors to make it one of the best premium two-in-ones you can find.

To be fair, there wasn't much not to like about the premium two-in-one, but the updated 920 tackles its few shortcomings while also throwing in Intel's latest eighth-generation Core i-series processors that actually do deliver better performance while keeping its battery life good and long. 

The 920 currently starts at around $1,330, £1,350 in the UK and AU$1,999 in Australia direct from Lenovo. My $1,300 system is available at Best Buy and includes Lenovo's Active Pen 2. That's not cheap and a chunk of the cost goes for the slim, attractive design. If you care more about components than looks, there are less expensive options such as the Yoga 720 or Dell's Inspiron 13 7000 2-in-1 that will get you more memory and storage for your money. But if you're cool with the price, the 920 doesn't disappoint.

It's the little things

From the superslim bezels around its display to the sturdy all-metal chassis to its unique watchband 360-degree hinge, the 920 looks and feels like a premium laptop should. At 3 pounds (1.4 kg) it's a little heavy, but far from a burden and forgivable considering you're getting a 13.9-inch screen in the same space as a typical 13.3-inch laptop. Plus at half an inch thick (12.7 mm), it easily slips into most bags.  

Though the overall design is pretty much the same as the 910, there are a few notable improvements. For example, while Lenovo shifted the webcam position to below the screen (making for some awkward camera angles) to allow for the 910's slim display bezels, it managed to get the camera back to the top for the 920. There are also far-field mics so you can use Cortana, Microsoft's digital assistant, from up to 13 feet (4 meters) away, even in standby mode. 

Another minor change was made to the keyboard. On the 910, Lenovo had included a full-size set of arrow keys at the sacrifice of a full-size right-hand shift key. This time around Lenovo gives you half-height up and down arrows, but a full-size shift key. The feel of the backlit keyboard was already very good considering the system's thinness, but the shift key change results in a lot fewer errors. 

The precision touchpad stays just about perfect. Fingers glide easily over its smooth surface, and I never experienced any cursor jumps caused by a brush from my palm. There are multitouch gestures that are easily adjusted within Windows' settings, so you can turn off controls like pinch-to-zoom or three-finger swipes if you want. A fingerprint reader to the right of the touchpad lets you sign in quickly with Windows Hello. 

The 920 has a minimal port assortment. You won't find a direct video output like HDMI or an SD card slot, for example. However, the system now has two Thunderbolt 3 USB-C ports that can power the laptop and support up to two high-resolution external displays, data transfers at up to 40Gbps and fast charging. There is also a headphone/mic combo jack and one standard USB 3.0 port, the latter of which supports always-on charging so you can keep your phone or tablet juiced up even when the computer is off.

One more big change to the design: Lenovo added active pen support to the Yoga 920. Regardless of if you opt for a full HD- or 4K-resolution display, you'll be able to use Lenovo's Active Pen 2, which supports 4,096 levels of sensitivity. There wasn't any discernible lag and while you probably won't mistake writing on glass for paper, the pen tip delivers a good drawing and writing experience. The one downside is storage: The pen comes with a plastic holder that fits into the single USB 3.0 port and, when the pen is stowed, it blocks the power button. 

Lenovo Yoga 920

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Sweet little multitasker

The Yoga 920 is available with Intel's eighth-gen Core i-series processors, either a 1.6GHz Core i5-8250U or a 1.8GHz Core i7-8550U. Though you might not notice it normal day-to-day use, our benchmarks show a significant jump in performance from the 910 and its seventh-gen processor. What you'll notice is generally excellent performance with no real bottlenecks for processor-intensive tasks. While this isn't a system for demanding graphics tasks or games, I had no problems doing minor processing of large raw image files from a Nikon D500 dSLR and doing simple edits of high bit rate 1,920 by 1,080-resolution video clips. I also played "The Walking Dead" from Telltale Games smoothly at medium settings. 

In our online streaming battery test, the 920's battery life is impressive at 12 hours and 50 minutes. With mixed use with the display at 70 percent brightness, I was able to work all day off and on for 8 hours and still had some battery to spare. Your results are going to vary depending on what you're doing, but the results are nonetheless impressive. Keep in mind, though, that my 920 had a full-HD display. Getting the 4K display will result in less runtime. 

One of the best gets better

The Lenovo Yoga 910 already had a beautiful design, excellent performance and battery life. The addition of a pen-enabled display and new Intel processors for the Yoga 920 only adds to its flexibility, while all the little tweaks to its features improve its usability. As premium two-in-ones go, this one's a keeper.