Lenovo Yoga C930 Laptop Review: Dolby Vision And Atmos Deliver

Battery life testing is performed using a custom 1080p HD video loop test we developed here at HotHardware. We conduct the tests with Windows 10 quiet hours enabled and the display's brightness calibrated as close to 115 lux on our meters as possible. Brightness calibration is vital to ensure a fair comparison with other notebooks in our group, since it greatly affects battery life.

However, every notebook has different brightness ranges, so it’s critical to rely on a light meter, instead of a Windows brightness setting percentage, in order to level the playing field on brightness output. The Lenovo Yoga C930 required 74-percent brightness to achieve 115 lux.

Battery life with the Lenovo Yoga C930 was reasonably strong, though it did fall just short of its predecessor, the Yoga C920, for media playback (granted that machine doesn't have an HDR display). However, you’ll still be able to finish 2-3 full length movies, and then some, with the C930's gorgeous Dolby Vision display and 7+ hours of battery life in this test is still respectable, placing the machine in the top quadrant of our test results for similar class laptops.

Update: 10/28/18 - We continued to retest the battery life and achieved 445 minutes of video playback. As such, we have updated the graph above to reflect the Yoga C930's stronger results.

New notebook release cycles typically align with Intel’s latest CPUs, but the lack of a Kaby Lake R successor this year made Lenovo get creative, and it paid off. The latest iteration of the Yoga C900 series focused purely on refinement and improving the overall experience for day-to-day use cases, while keeping the same performance we’ve come to expect from the already excellent Intel Core i7-8550U.

The C930's all-new industrial design is sleek and ditches the previous generation’s watchband hinge bling, which we can appreciate, and replaces it with a stylish soundbar backed with Dolby Atmos technology. The soundbar isn’t as glitzy as the watchband, but it is one of the best sounding notebooks we’ve come across in any size. Pair that with the gorgeous Dolby Vision display, even at 1080p, and you have a formidable portable entertainment system that gives you a taste of how good streaming Internet content can look and sound. It might even make you want to upgrade your home theater with a Dolby Vision display and Dolby Atmos sound system.


Lenovo elegantly addressed annoyances of the previous Yoga C920, like the blocked USB 3.0 port and power button when stowing the active pen. All the ports are on the left side without any obstructions while the active pen stows away neatly inside the chassis. These are refinements that addressed minor annoyances, but it shows Lenovo is listening to its customer base and review critics. Further, the C930's webcam TrueBlock privacy shutter may sound silly, but we know many corporate users that cover up their webcams with a piece of electrical tape or a sticky note. Lenovo’s stealthy solution looks significantly better.

Altogether, the new Lenovo Yoga C930 is a well-rounded 2-in-1 laptop convertible that fits in at home or at work. Its Dolby Vision display, Dolby Atmos soundbar, and sleek aluminum chassis, along with its potent component config at its $1,299 retail price point, provides excellent bang-for-your buck. We highly recommend it.