Lenovo YOGA C740 Review: Sleek 2-in-1 laptop 2022
The Lenovo Yoga C740 ($769 as tested, $899 as reviewed) is a wonderful example of compromise. The laptop has a lightweight, flexible body with mid-level performance and over 10 hours of battery life for under $1000.
A dim touchscreen display and a somewhat hefty body, on the other hand, might cause some people to reconsider their purchase. In any case, the Lenovo Yoga C740 is a strong choice for students and mobile workers alike.
LENOVO YOGA C740 SPECS
- Display: 14-inch, 1920 x 1080 IPS touchscreen
- Dimensions: 12.7 x 8.5 x 0.67 inches
- Weight: 3 lbs
- Processor: Intel Core i5-10210U or Core i7-10210U
- RAM: Up to 16GB DDR4 (soldered)
- Storage: Up to 1TB SSD
- Wireless: Wi-Fi 5, Bluetooth 5.0
PROS
- Sleek aluminum styling.
- Affordable.
- Impressive battery life.
- Attractive 1080p touch screen.
CONS
- No HDMI port or SD card slot.
- Pen not included.
- One keyboard layout quibble and hollow-sounding audio.
Lenovo Yoga C740 pricing and configurations
The base Yoga c740 costs $769 and is equipped with a 1.6-GHz Intel Core i5-10210U CPU, 8GB RAM, a 256GB PCIe SSD, and an Intel UHD Graphics GPU. The Yoga C740 I reviewed has a price tag of $899 and comes with 512GB of storage. For $959.99, you can invest in a 1.8-GHz Intel Core I7 10510U processor, 16GB RAM, and a 1TB PCIe SSD.
Lenovo Yoga C740 Full Review
Do you prefer the concept of a computer that can be converted into a tablet while retaining all of the functionality of a PC?
The Lenovo Yoga C740 is an excellent illustration of this, as is the entire Yoga family from China.
If you’re searching for a big hybrid notebook that’s appropriate for everyday use, the Yoga C740 is one to pay attention to.
Design & Build
The C740’s design is attractive and elegant. The C740’s aluminum chassis gives it a premium look; our model is in Mica color (gold shade) and comes in Steel Grey as well. This Yoga includes a sturdy and flexible hinge, too.
It boasts a magnificent widescreen display and edges that are so thin that it would be near-impossible to notice were it not for the TrueBlock physical webcam shutter at the top, which prevents any software hack.
The keyboard keys are tiny, broad, shallow, and curved to suit your phalanges as well as possible. It’s pleasant and silent to type on.
The numeric keypad is well integrated into the keyboard without being cramped.
There’s also a large touchpad positioned on the left, which Lenovo has decided to locate in the middle rather than in the center. This is intended to line it up with the space bar and keyboard.
The noise-canceling function is activated by default. It reduces the amount of noise, which is quite pleasant and makes it easier to type quietly. The fingerprint reader is located beneath the number keypad. The verification process takes only a few seconds, so it’s very quick and simple.
The C740 weighs 1.88kg, which is somewhat more than the usual weight of a laptop, but given that it’s a 15inconvertible, we weren’t expecting it to be significantly lighter.
It’s still portable and can sit comfortably on your lap, although having almost 2kg on your hands while using it as a tablet is rather inconvenient.
Overall, we like the Yoga C740. Our only complaint is that Lenovo didn’t invent a system for one-handed opening without the screen lifting. So please be cautious when you open it.
Display
The Yoga C740 lacks a higher resolution (1,920 by 1,080 pixels) option. A full HD screen with touch support is sufficient for this price range.
The Dolby HDR panel delivers clear text, and it has an impressive 500-nit brightness rating, making it visible even in a bright room.
However, if you want the exquisite detail of a QHD or 4K display, you’ll have to go elsewhere – the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga, the business-focused ThinkPad X1 Yoga, and the Spectre x360 15 all come with 4K displays.
There’s a 720p fixed-focus camera above the display. Even with adequate light, the video feed looked washed out and grainy, which is typical for laptop webcams at any price.
The Yoga C740’s camera does have a hidden lens cover, which keeps prying eyes at bay. It’s one of the most well-designed privacy screens I’ve seen.
It’s virtually undetectable, with a tiny lever built into the display bezel and the rest of the door hidden behind the outer display glass.
It may very well be the best example of excellent attention to detail in the entire Yoga C740 design.
The camera has no infrared sensors for face-recognition authentication, however, you may log in via Windows Hello using the fingerprint reader built into the keyboard deck, which is below the dedicated number pad.
The backlit keyboard is quite comfortable, with mostly well-spaced keys and minimal flex when you press them.
However, because each keystroke is short and the directional arrow keys are cramped, the typing experience as a whole does not compare to that of most ThinkPad keyboards.
The touchpad is precise and sturdy if a little on the small side and lacks dedicated left- and right-click buttons.
The Yoga C740 is covered by Lenovo’s standard one-year warranty, which includes mail-in service for repairs.
Lenovo Yoga C740 Keyboard and Touchpad
With bouncy keystrokes, the keys on the C740’s island-style keyboard are responsive and clicky. I have big hands, so the keys were a bit tiny for me, but I quickly adjusted and made no mistakes.
I took 10fastfingers’ typing tests and scored 60 words per minute with 85% accuracy despite my enormous hands being obnoxious for this size keyboard.
When surfing the web or editing paperwork, the responsive 4.2 x 2.8-inch touchpad is fantastic.
The smooth surface has nimble Windows 10 gestures, such as two-finger swipes and three-finger taps, that are free of hesitation.
When using either right or left clicks, the bottom corners provide solid feedback.
Lenovo Yoga C740 Audio
On both sides of the keyboard, the C740 features two top-firing speakers. I was expecting the C740’s taut form factor to result in low quality, but the Dolby Atmos-tuned speakers performed admirably.
I went back to my wilder days and listened to System of a Down’s “Pyscho,” which reminded me of when I first discovered the music.
Every sound, every chord, and every guttural rageful poetic line was heard clearly from across the room, with no distortion.
I changed over to some old-school hip-hop by playing Special Ed’s “I Got It Made,” and I noticed a significant change in audio quality.
Although the speakers still had plenty of clarity and depth, they lacked power in terms of bass response.
The last item on our list is a decent pair of headphones. However, in a pinch or while meeting with many people, the other people in the room will be able to hear everything quite clearly.
The C740 also includes two far-field microphones for waking up Cortana and Alexa. The mics functioned properly, calling both digital assistants without difficulty.
Lenovo Yoga C740 Ports
The C740 is a laptop with only a few ports. On the right side next to the power button, you’ll find a USB 3.1 Type-A Gen 1 port. On the left side, you’ll discover two USB 3.1 Type-C Gen 1 ports.
Specs & Performance
The most expensive model in the series is the one we tested. It has good hardware, starting with the Intel Core i7-10510U quad-core processor (Comet Lake 2019 10th-generation), which runs at 1.8GHz.
Our Lenovo comes with 8GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD M.2 for fast storage.
We gave the C740 a spin with the PCM10 benchmark to discover its untapped abilities.
It allows us to assess the overall performance of the device, and it received a score of 4429. This indicates that it is adequately powerful for office use.
With its 4,526 3D Mark score, it outperformed the Acer Swift 5 (2019), which achieved 5,461, despite having the same graphic chip (Intel UHD Graphics). It’s a decent showing for onboard graphics nonetheless.
There’s no dedicated graphics card, so the C740 isn’t a good choice for heavy work such as video editing or gaming.
The C740 scored 5501 in single-core and 16842 in multi-core on Geekbench 4, whereas GeekBench 5 gives 1257 and 4121. It outperforms the HP Envy 13 (5501), Acer Swift 5 (1257), and Surface Laptop 3 (4121) in these tests.
Lenovo Yoga C740 Security
To keep your papers, videos, and other crucial documents secure, Lenovo has included a few security procedures.
There’s the fingerprint scanner, which is compatible with Windows Hello and allows you to lock and unlock the laptop with your finger.
A physical shutter button for the webcam has been added as a safeguard against prying eyes.
Connectivity
The C740 is equipped with two USB-C 3.1 Gen 1 ports, a headphone jack, and two USB-A 3.1 Gen 1 inputs for connecting an SSD or another external gadget; it also has a stylus holder, which is convenient but obstructs the port.
Unfortunately, the C740’s connections are rather limited. It’s worth noting that Lenovo has included a Thunderbolt 3 port and no microSD card slot in this laptop.
It also has Wi-Fi 6 (11ac) and Bluetooth 5.0, which is a significant improvement over previous versions.
Gaming and Battery Life
The Yoga C740 is a modest gaming laptop with an Intel Core i7 CPU and Nvidia GeForce MX GPU.
Because of its CPU-integrated Intel Iris Plus or dedicated Nvidia GeForce MX graphics, it lacks the more power-efficient, but still bright and colorful gaming graphics performance that some higher-end (but yet still very thin and light) laptops have.
This implies it’s only capable of playing basic games like Minecraft or Fortnite at lower resolutions and quality settings.
But integrated graphics isn’t the only type to be underperforming in our gaming graphics tests; you can see from the outcomes that this happens to other notebooks as well.
Integrated graphics may not be powerful, but they’re consistent.
The 3DMark benchmark, which measures relative graphics muscle by rendering sequences of highly detailed, gaming-style 3D graphics that emphasize particles and lighting, found that the majority of the laptops were virtually equal.
The Surface Pro 7 and Spectre x360 have more powerful Iris Plus GPUs, but only the Spectre x360 offers something unique.
Sky Diver and Fire Strike are two separate 3DMark subtests that are suitable for a wide range of PCs.
Both are DirectX 11 benchmarks, but Sky Diver is more suited to laptops and mid-range PCs, whereas Fire Strike is designed for high-end PCs to display their superiority. The scores are proprietary.
The results of Superposition are consistent. Unigine’s Superposition test projects and pans through a realistic 3D world and measures how the system performs, just like 3DMark.
It’s generated in the Unigine engine, which is distinct from 3DMark in that it simulates a different type of 3D workload than 3DMark does.
The machine’s gaming performance is rather unimpressive, but it largely meets our expectations for a laptop of this type.
We have substantially higher standards for battery life than the previous generation, however, and the Yoga C740 also satisfies these.
It didn’t last as long as the Spectre x360 13’s remarkable 18 hours in our video playback test, although it should be able to get you through a day of light work plus an evening watching movies on the sofa.
It’s a Big Value
The couch (or while traveling) is one of the most frequent uses for a large convertible laptop like the Yoga C740. You can’t project video to a larger screen wirelessly or with an adapter or dongle on the Yoga C740, so this is a very important activity.
A convertible laptop, like the Yoga C740, might be used to do a variety of tasks. For example, writing and drawing are not as feasible since there is no built-in stylus.
There’s also no built-in stylus on this 4-pound computer, making it difficult to hold for long periods with one hand.
As a result, serious digital artists should look towards tablets such as the iPad or Surface Pro instead.
Despite its physical flexibility being restricted, the Yoga C740 is still a good laptop in its own right owing to excellent build quality, solid computing performance, and useful features like the webcam privacy filter.
While we continue to suggest 13- and 14-inch convertibles have smaller screens, it’s clear that many consumers disagree.
As for Lenovo, the firm declined to provide sales figures for big-screen convertibles but views selling 2-in-1s with huge displays at affordable costs as beneficial.
The Yoga C740’s best feature is that it’s a better bargain than flagships like the Yoga C940, the clamshell-style XPS 15, or the Spectre x360.
The price of our test unit, which has certain features (such as Thunderbolt 3 and a built-in stylus) reduced, yet maintains excellent build quality, is just under $1,000.
Lenovo Yoga C740 Heat
What is heat, and what does it have to do with the C740? The C740 features Lenovo’s intelligent cooling, which adjusts thermal settings automatically as you use it.
It works effectively, and I didn’t hear the fans very often when it was on.
We launched an entire screen HD movie for 15 minutes and took measurements at several locations after the time had expired.
The touchpad was chilly, with a temperature of 82 degrees Fahrenheit, which is far beneath our 95-degree comfort threshold. 86 and 88 degrees were observed in the center and bottom, respectively.
Lenovo Yoga C740 Webcam
The 720p webcam performs well; colors are correct, however, like most notebook webcams, you’ll need good lighting to get the best picture and video clarity.
You’ll have grainy videos and photos if you don’t have enough light. I tested the camera by making a video chat with my daughter, who informed me that I had gained weight and needed to start dieting right away.
Software and Warranty
The C740 is preinstalled with a slew of helpful programs such as Vantage, which lets you change power settings and turn on/off Wi-Fi.
It also runs system diagnostics and provides access to quick settings and system updates.
As is typical with Windows 10 Home PCs, there is a lot of bloatware on the system, including Skype, Netflix, Microsoft Solitaire Collection, and Farm Heroes Saga.
The Lenovo Yoga C740 comes with a one-year limited guarantee. See how Lenovo fared in our annual Tech Support Showdown and Best and Worst Brands special reports to see how they compare.
Agree to Continue
Now that every smart device requires you to accept a set of terms and conditions before it may be used – contracts no one reads – we can’t read and analyze them all.
However, since these are agreements most people don’t read or negotiate, we began counting how many times you must agree to use devices while reviewing them.
The Lenovo Yoga C740, like other Windows 10 PCs, has several settings to consent to or decline at setup.
The mandatory policies, for which an agreement is required, are:
- A request for your region, and keyboard layout
- Windows 10 License Agreement
- A Microsoft account for sign-in (this can be bypassed if you don’t connect the computer to the internet during setup)
- A PIN
In addition, there is a slew of optional things to agree to:
- Wi-Fi network
- Windows Hello fingerprint sensor authentication
- Activity History
- Link your smartphone
- OneDrive backup
- Office 365
- (which allows Microsoft to access your location, history, contacts, voice input, speech and handwriting patterns, typing habits, search history, calendar details, messages, applications, and Edge browsing history)
- Advertising ID, Location, Diagnostic data, Tailored experiences, Online speech recognition, Find My Device, Inking, and Typing
- A Lenovo ID profile
- Lenovo security services: subscribe to email offers, enable Lenovo to pass your email address to McAfee, and allow Lenovo to gather anonymous information.
Add it all up, and you have four mandatory agreements and 18 optional ones.
Lenovo Yoga C740 (14″) vs Lenovo Yoga C740 (15″)
The 15W 10th Generation Intel Comet Lake quad-core Intel Core i5-10210U up to quad-core Intel Core i7-10510U with a boost speed of 4.90 GHz is included in the 2019 Lenovo Yoga C740 (14”).
The 15W 10th Generation Intel Comet Lake quad-core Intel Core i5-10210U up to quad-core Intel Core i7-10510U with a boost speed of 4.90 GHz is available on the 2019 Lenovo Yoga C740 (15″).
If you’re searching for a laptop and don’t know what distinguishes the 14-inch Lenovo Yoga C740 (14”) (2019) from the 15.6-inch Lenovo Yoga C740 (15”), we’ve done our best to summarize the differences between both models for you here.
Conclusion
The Lenovo Yoga C740 is a superbly designed 2-in-1 convertible laptop. It’s flexible and sturdy enough to work in a variety of settings.
The IBM ThinkPad 13 – a business-oriented ultrabook, as it is known in the west. The keyboard and layout are quite good, but we wish for more ports and a better location to store the stylus.
Those are minor gripes about an otherwise excellent laptop with all of its substantial capabilities.
It has a high-quality matte screen and tiny bezels. Its reactivity, whether using the supplied Active Pen or not, is also quite appealing as a tablet.
The Core i7 processor offers plenty of power for regular chores. Just don’t expect everything to run smoothly without interruption.
Lenovo YOGA C740
The Lenovo Yoga C740 ($769 as tested, $899 as reviewed) is a wonderful example of compromise. The laptop has a lightweight, flexible body with mid-level performance and over 10 hours of battery life for under $1000.
Product Brand: Lenovo
Product Currency: USD
Product Price: 698.99
Product In-Stock: InStock
4.5
