Since the dawn of time, we as a species have always tried to push ourselves. We’ve had fascinating people like Albert Einstein who single-handedly changed our understanding of the world, or Takeru Kobayashi, who holds the record for eating 110 bun-less hot dogs in 10 minutes, giving people around the world immense satisfaction about what they eat. We have constantly striven for innovation and have come up with marvelous methods to make our lives just a little bit easier. But what happens when we reach the limit of our productivity? Well, most of us use it as an excuse for not getting work done and maybe eat hot dogs. But some of us try to find a solution by innovating to increase our productivity.
This brings me to Lenovo. A while back, it was easy to describe Lenovo’s laptops. If you were a workaholic who thought it was better to work on the weekends than to have a social life, then you would probably buy the ThinkPad. If you were the type to show off and didn’t really care about the actual device, you would go for the Yoga. If you wanted a gaming laptop, you would probably buy from Razor. And if you wanted a tablet but couldn’t afford one, you would probably sell an arm to buy an iPad.
But recently, Lenovo has decided to go in a different direction. No, they didn’t finally realize how bad their tablets are, but they have taken it upon themselves to re-imagine what people need for productivity. They plan on slowly refurbishing their entire line up, starting with the Yoga series. Which brings me to the Yoga Book C930. And from the inconvenient, but an admittedly cool way of opening it to the specs you can get from any laptop half its price, Lenovo has found yet another way to rip off its customers. For those who have stopped reading this article to take a breath because their blood pressure is dangerously close to stopping their heart, relax. I’m kidding. I’m actually really impressed with it. Lenovo is targeting this towards students, and being a student, I thought I could look into it.
For starters, they’ve improved on the Halo keyboard, which was previously like typing on plastic, a clear indication of which were the battle-scars it gave your fingertips every time you used it. They’ve also added noise feedback and shadows for recreating the effect of when a key depresses. Furthermore, Lenovo has even added haptic feedback technology. This all means that I can finally use the keyboard for more than five minutes. It’s also got 4096 levels of pressure support with the pen, for when I want to doodle while my professor explains a concept that I should probably pay attention too. It’s also got Windows 10 home which is always appreciated.
The previous Yoga Book also folded 360 degrees and became a tablet, but let’s be honest, if you were using it as a tablet you probably didn’t have your iPad near you. But now Lenovo seeks to redeem itself. They have changed the bottom screen to an E Ink display, which is the kind of display you get on an Amazon Kindle. I like this display because it makes the whole experience of reading a book or sketching a lot easier on the eyes. So now, instead of using it in tablet mode just to show off, you can even be productive. They also solved a major inconvenience with the previous model, which was impossible to open unless you were willing to sacrifice a few fingernails. Now they use an accelerometer, some memory metal, and some magnets, to create a new way of opening the laptop. You simply knock twice and the screen detaches from its latch. This makes the whole process much easier on your fingernails. As much as I like this feature, if I gave it to my mother she would probably smash it before it opened.
All this aside, I think there are still a couple of things Lenovo could improve on. The first is the primary screen, which even in today’s world of thin bezels, boasts massive bezels on all four sides. I also think they should have added a privacy shutter for the camera, as they did with the new ThinkPad and the new Yoga C930, but somehow thought it was okay to ignore on this device. This would save people hundreds of sticky notes, which are wasted by covering the camera and a large part of the display. Despite having Dolby Atmos, I think the speakers could be better. I never really understood why great sound producing companies, would let their reputation take a plunge by entering the laptop market, with a significant decline in audio quality. And although you get decent specs, paying the $1190 starting price will make you want to hurt yourself every time you see your device being underpowered compared to any other laptop in its price range and a few below its price range.
Despite all this, I still feel that it only makes sense for a user who knows how to extract maximum performance from it. For the rest of us living in reality, it would definitely take some getting used to.
And that’s my opinion on the Yoga Book C930. Oh, and you might want to look at the Dell XPS13.
The Brick Journal 