Lenovo's Yoga S940 is a $1,500 ultraportable that screams CES
New design, new tech and a couple of buzzwords go far here.
- More than two decades experience writing about PCs and accessories, and 15 years writing about cameras of all kinds.
Take one "world's first" feature, add Alexa and HDR and stir in a splash of AI and you've got a laptop that's begging to be noticed at CES 2019.
With its lid closed, the new $1,500 (roughly AU$2,100 or £1,180) 13.9-inch Yoga S940 laptop doesn't look too different from other premium ultraportable laptops at the moment. Even its main components are fairly standard for an ultraportable.
- Intel eighth-gen Core i7 processor
- 8GB or 16GB of memory
- Up to 1TB PCIe SSD
- Integrated Intel UHD 620 graphics
Open it up, though, and you're greeted with a display that goes nearly edge to edge thanks to some seriously slim bezels. On top of that, the glass curves around those bezels and disappears into the lid -- the world's first laptop with this curved glass. Not only does it look nice, but it makes the overall footprint far smaller than for past 14-inch laptops, though Acer's Swift 7 announced at CES is equally extraordinary for this reason.
Lenovo will offer two display options with the S940: a UHD (3,840x2,400-pixel) DisplayHDR 400 with 500-nit brightness or a 400-nit FHD (1,920x1,080-pixel) Dolby Vision panel. Above the display is a built-in infrared (IR) camera that lets you sign in with facial recognition. Lenovo said it also has AI sensors that can tell when you've walked away from the laptop and will automatically lock it as well as tell you if someone is shoulder surfing and looking at your screen while you're working.
If you connect the S940 to an external display -- it has two Thunderbolt 3 USB-C ports -- you'll be able to use its Glance by Mirametrix attention-sensing AI, which detects whether you're looking at the laptop's display or the attached one, and will move open windows accordingly. Of course, in true CES fashion, none of the AI features were working when I saw the S940, but Lenovo says they will be available when the laptop ships in May.
Rounding things out is support for the Amazon Alexa and Microsoft Cortana voice assistants with far-field mics so they can be used from a distance. You'll even have the option to use voice matching to make the assistants respond to your voice only.
Sorry, US, you're not getting this one yet.
The S940 wasn't the only Yoga that Lenovo brought to CES. The Yoga C730 with AMOLED is a 15.6-inch convertible with a brilliant UHD (3,840x2,160-pixel) pen-enabled display. Built from anodized aluminum, it looks like a Yoga two-in-one mixed with a MacBook Pro .
Specs include an eighth-gen Intel Core i7, up to 16GB of memory and an up to 512GB PCIe solid-state drive (SSD), but you'll find only integrated graphics, which is disappointing. Especially so given the Yoga C730's starting price of $1,650. Oh, and it currently won't be available in US when it ships in April.
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