Lenovo Yoga 920 review: over 12 hours of autonomy and top performance

The successor of the excellent Yoga 910, the Yoga 920 (Check on Amazon.com) not only holds up to the difficult comparison with its predecessor but improves some aspects of it, thus becoming the best 2-in-1 in circulation.

Usability, Keyboard and Touchpad

Similarly to its predecessors, the new Yoga 920 is an elegant 2-in-1 thanks to its aluminum alloy chassis and luxury watch strap-inspired hinges that allow the lid to fold a full 360° and by doing so position the Yoga in tablet, tent or stand mode. From the Yoga 910, it also inherits the very thin frame around the screen. The first visible change is that on Yoga 920 the camera is placed above the screen and not underneath, thus ensuring a view at eye level instead of the unpleasant bottom-up one.

One of the novelties is the bronze coloration that envelops its lid, zips, wrist rest and the top of the keyboard. Lenovo also produces a platinum version.

With dimensions of 323×223.5×13.95mm (12.71×8.8×0.55in) and a weight of 1.37Kg (3lb), the Yoga 920 is a lightweight and handy product, although competitors like the HP Spectre x360 and the Dell XPS 13 2-in-1 are a little lighter.

Despite its slimline, the 920 offers more than good connectivity. On the left side, there are two Thunderbolt 3 ports, while on the right there is a USB 3.0 port and a 3.5mm jack for headphones. There is also a Fingerprint Reader and a Windows Hello compatible camera.

The keyboard has pros and cons. The keys have a stroke of only 1.3mm (0.05in) [optimal values are between 1.5 and 2mm (0.06 and 0.08in)], to which the manufacturer compensated with an actuation force of just 68 grams (2.4oz) [the ideal value is in the range of 65-70 grams (2.3-2.46oz)]. The typing is therefore quite fast, albeit somewhat abrupt. The touchpad offers a sensitive area of 4×8cm (1.57×3.15in) that provides smooth tracking, even with multi-touch gestures such as pinch to zoom.

Lenovo Active Pen 2

The Yoga 920 also includes the stylus pen, which allows you to use the device for free-hand drawing or taking notes. It is approximately the same dimensions as a pencil and allows for a more real feeling than other products we’ve tried. Note that many 2-in-1s do not provide a stylus storage compartment when not in use; the Yoga 920 has a removable external one that allows you to attach the pen to the USB Type-A port on the right side.

Our drawing and writing experience was good but not great. Using Autodesk SketchBook we noticed that the lines were thicker or thinner depending on the pressure applied on the screen, thanks to the fact that Active Pen 2 supports 4,096 pressure levels. However, the feeling of writing on a piece of paper with a pen is still lacking, as opposed to some competing products like the Surface, which simulates friction more effectively.

When it comes to audio playback, the Yoga 920 offers distortion-free sound, powerful enough to fill a small room. In addition, the application allows you to choose between audio, video, voice and game settings. Speaking of voice, it’s worth noting that thanks to the long-range microphones you can give voice commands or hold video conferences without being glued to your laptop. During testing, we were able to connect with Cortana from more than 20 meters (65ft) away. Not only that: the 720p webcam captures good quality images at eye-level, even if color rendering is not precise.

Screen

The Yoga 920 subject to this review came with a 13.3 inch 1920×1080 pixels display. There is also an Ultra HD (3840×2160 pixels) variant.

The screen we’ve been looking at is bright and sharp, with display angles of up to 60 degrees on both the right and the left. With the colorimeter we measured a color coverage of 105 percent of the sRGB gamut – slightly higher than the category’s average (101 percent). The Dell XPS 13 2-in-1 did a little better with 97%. The peak brightness is 284 nits, in line with the average (289 nits) but less than the HP Spectre x360 (318 nits) and the Dell XPS 13 2-in-1 (314 nits).

Performance and battery life

Thanks to the Intel Core i7-8550U CPU with 8GB of RAM and a 256GB PCIe NVMe SSD, the Yoga 920 can handle typical workloads without a problem. This is the first laptop we test with an eighth-generation CPU, so our benchmark scores offer a good example of what this brings to the table.

In Geekbench 4, it scored 13,306 points, which is more than double the average (6,617 points) and a good leap over both the HP Spectre x360 (8,147 points with the i7-7700U) and the XPS 13 2-in-1 (6,498 points with the i7-7Y54). Just for comparison, last year’s Yoga 910 scored 7,988 points on the same test.

The PCIe NVMe SSD took 17 seconds to copy 4.97GB of mixed-media files, which is equivalent to a transfer rate of 299.9MBps – much better than the category average (211.8MBps). The Spectre x360, however, is even faster with 318MBps.

When it comes to graphics, it’s not a good idea to think about using the Yoga 920 for serious gaming, but the Intel UH620’s built-in GPU is good for video playback and for light video editing. Using the 3DMark Ice Storm Unlimited synthetic benchmark, the Yoga 920 scored 86,267 points, which is a step ahead of the category average (56,270 points), the Dell XPS 13 2-in-1 (49,214 points) and the HP Spectre x360 (70,494 points).

Playing DIRT 3, the Yoga 920 scored an average of 35 frames per second, which is slightly lower than the average (39 FPS) and the result achieved by the Spectre x360 (40 FPS).

One of the best features of this convertible notebook is its autonomy, which allows you to leave the power supply at home even if you want to work out of your office for the whole day. In our Wi-Fi web browsing test with the screen’s backlight set at 100 nits, the battery lasted for 12 hours and 22 minutes, i.e. about 4 hours longer than the average (8 hours and 25 minutes). The result is also two hours higher than that of the HP Spectre x360 (10 hours and 6 minutes) and last year’s Yoga 910 (10 hours and 36 minutes).

We didn’t test the model with the 4K screen, but we expect it will sport less autonomy but with better image quality.

Software

Like most Lenovo notebooks we have recently tested, the Yoga 920 is substantially free of bloatware. It comes with just a few and very good proprietary applications for managing the Wi-Fi, the audio, and the webcam.

The Start menu contains the standard package of freemium games that Microsoft puts into the operating system, including Candy Crush Soda Saga, Bubble Witch Saga and Asphalt 8, which are quick and easy to uninstall.

Conclusions

Thanks to the quality screen, refined design, over 12 hours of autonomy and processing power is given by the new Kaby Lake CPU, the Yoga 920 is currently the best 2-in-1 (Check on Amazon.com) that you can buy. The only drawback is the keyboard, which is not great, but still comfortable to use.