Lenovo Yoga Book C930 review first-look: the perfect sofa laptop?

You’ve got to love Lenovo. While other companies play it safe, it boldly experiments with new form factors. Some are crazy. Some brilliant. Some both. I think the Lenovo Yoga Book C930 is more crazy than brilliant, but I still applaud it and kind of love it.

The video above shows why it’s so darn crazy. You’ll have to excuse my poor handheld video-taking skills, but you get the idea: an E Ink screen transforms, at the tap of a button, from a regular keyboard into a drawing pad into an eBook reader. 

You may well ask why, which is where we get into tricky territory. The keyboard is obvious: that’s for typing words! But cleverly it can switch between, say, English and Japanese at a whim. Tricky to do with physical keys.

Another big improvement compared to the Yoga Book that Lenovo released two years ago is that the keys actually move as you type, and with a tiny bit of haptic and audio feedback you get the idea of using a proper keyboard. I’d always prefer something physical, but it’s far better than before.

Some people will also taking notes on the E Ink screen a useful addition, as well as releasing their inner Picasso with sketches. 

As to the eBook reader – at the moment, it only supports PDFs, with more formats coming in the future. But there’s no Amazon Kindle integration, so it lacks that major convenience factor.

Quickfire questions about the Lenovo Yoga Book

Is it as thin as it looks?	Yep. 9.9mm even when closed.
How long will the battery last?	Up to 10 hours, Lenovo promises.
When does it go on sale?	September 2018.
How much will it cost?	999 Euros, so hopefully £999.
How do you open the lid??	Ah, you watched the video then? You double-tap it. This makes the magnets inside move, “changing the attraction force from pull to push” says Lenovo, and it snaps open.
How big is the main screen	10.8 inches with 2,360 x 1,600 pixels.
How fast is it?	Pretty fast but not spectacular. It will come with a Core i5-7Y54 and Core m-YY30 processor, which are fine for basic tasks in Windows.
How heavy is it?	775g.

What’s it like as a laptop and tablet?

I’ve only had a brief play, but there’s actually much to like about the Yoga Book – I think it would make an excellent sofa companion, simply because it’s so light.

That means you can browse the internet as you would with a tablet – note it runs Windows 10 only, not Android like the previous Yoga Book – and snap the lid closed before slinging it into the corner.

If you do need to type a reply, you can bring up the keyboard and tap out your message. It’s not quite as responsive as, say, the iPad’s on-screen keyboard, but it does work.

What else do I need to know about the Lenovo Yoga Book?

The stylus – called a Precision Pen – is optional, so doesn’t slot conveniently into the base. If you’re an artistic type, though, it’s worth buying. You can copy images from Windows to the E Ink display and then trace around them, for example.

And because it uses Wacom technology, you can apply up to 4,096 levels of sensitivity and it has pen-tilt support. So you should be able to create some really nice artwork. Or just grab notes in meetings, like me.