Lenovo's Yoga line isn't just for 2-in-1 laptops anymore

The name might be synonymous with convertible laptops, but Lenovo aims to make it all about premium portability regardless of design and OS.

Joshua Goldman Managing Editor / Advice

Managing Editor Josh Goldman is a laptop expert and has been writing about and reviewing them since built-in Wi-Fi was an optional feature. He also covers almost anything connected to a PC, including keyboards, mice, USB-C docks and PC gaming accessories. In addition, he writes about cameras, including action cams and drones. And while he doesn't consider himself a gamer, he spends entirely too much time playing them.

Expertise Laptops, desktops and computer and PC gaming accessories including keyboards, mice and controllers, cameras, action cameras and drones Credentials

More than two decades experience writing about PCs and accessories, and 15 years writing about cameras of all kinds.

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Joshua Goldman

Aug. 30, 2018 11:30 a.m. PT

2 min read

Lenovo Yoga C930, S730, C630 WOS and Chromebooks — Lori Grunin/CNET

Making its debut at the IFA 2018 conference in Berlin is a fresh line of Yoga PCs from Lenovo, which now includes a premium Chromebook and a traditional clamshell laptop.

The highlight is no doubt the innovative dual-screen Yoga Book C930. This second-gen model arriving in October starting at $1,000 has a 10.8-inch 2560x1600-pixel resolution display and an E Ink display that becomes a keyboard with haptic and sound feedback, an e-reader and notepad when used with a new Bluetooth Wacom active pen. Here's our hands-on with the all-new Yoga Book C930.

Watch this: Lenovo unleashes lots of laptops for the fall

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If you prefer an actual keyboard, there's the Yoga C930, Lenovo's updated flagship consumer two-in-one laptop. The 360-degree watchband hinge found on past models include the Yoga 920 is replaced with a rotating soundbar hinge with Dolby Atmos support that's meant to give you great sound regardless of how you position the screen.

Lenovo Yoga C930 — The Yoga C930 includes a garaged active pen.
Lori Grunin/CNET

Starting at $1,400 when it arrives in October, it'll be available with full HD or ultra HD 13.9-inch displays, both with Dolby Vision HDR support. The C930 will also include an active pen that charges when its stashed in its garage built into the back edge of the body.

The C930 will be joined in November by the Yoga C630 WOS, which stands for Windows on Snapdragon. In this case it's WIndows 10S running on an eight-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 850 mobile chipset. Lenovo says it will help get this fanless 13.3-inch full HD two-in-one more than 25 hours of battery life and with built-in LTE support, you're always connected. Here's hoping performance is zippier than the Snapdragon laptops we tested earlier this year, especially with prices starting at $850.

Lenovo Yoga becomes a big happy laptop family

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Don't want a two-in-one, but like the Yoga line's premium design? Lenovo is adding the $1,000 Yoga S730 to family, which is a traditional 13.3-inch clamshell with a power-sipping full-HD display that still promises 300-nit brightness. Along with its efficient eighth-gen Intel Whiskey Lake processors, Lenovo says it'll get up to 10 hours of runtime. It arrives in November.

Rounding things out are a trio of Chromebooks including Lenovo's first premium two-in-one, the Yoga Chromebook. (If Samsung and Dell can do it, why not Lenovo?) Out in October and priced from $600, you'll get an all-aluminum 15-inch two-in-one with either a full-HD or ultra-HD-resolution display, a backlit keyboard and an eighth-gen Intel Core i5 processor with 8GB of memory and 64GB of storage.

Lenovo Yoga Chromebook — Lenovo's first premium Chromebook is a Yoga two-in-one.
Lori Grunin/CNET

However, if you're firmly in the camp of "Chromebooks should be cheap," there are the $280 Chromebook C330 and $250 Chromebook S330. Running on MediaTek 8173C Arm processors, the C330 is an 11.6-inch two-in-one and the S330 is a 14-inch clamshell, both ready to run Chrome OS and Android apps out of the box. They arrive in October just in time for holiday shopping.