Lenovo Yoga C630 review: Extreme battery life and LTE make this $800 laptop exceptional

The Lenovo Yoga C630 is the second Windows 10 PC to feature the new Qualcomm Snapdragon 850 processor (the other being the Samsung Galaxy Book2). Featuring a 13-inch full Hard disk brandish and upwards to 8GB of RAM, what makes the Yoga C630 so intriguing is both its super-long battery life and its affordable cost of around $800.

I've been using the Yoga C630 for the terminal calendar month, and it is i of my favorite always-connected PCs (ACPCs) to date. That lower toll comes with a few tradeoffs, merely none are deal breakers.

Farthermost battery

Lenovo Yoga C630

From $700

Lesser line: Lenovo created a more than traditional 2-in-1 laptop with the latest Qualcomm applied science, 4G LTE, and exceptional battery life and great typing.

Pros:

• Traditional 2-in-1 design.
• Good typing.
• xv+ hours of real-world battery.
• 4G LTE with optional eSIM.
• 8GB of RAM pick.

Cons:

• Display is a bit yellowed for whites, not punchy.
• Inking is only OK, and the pen costs extra.
• Weak front-facing camera.
• Speakers lack richness.

Differentiators

What makes Lenovo Yoga C630 unique?

The Yoga C630 differs from the Samsung Galaxy Book2 both in price and course. The Galaxy Book2 is a Surface Pro clone with a Qualcomm chipset but likewise runs $200 more than the Yoga C630. Granted, the Galaxy Book2 has a gorgeous, college resolution AMOLED display and comes with a very good Samsung S-Pen, which helps justify that toll. This is the second ARM device from Lenovo, with the other being the decent Miix 630.

The Yoga C630 is mostly a traditional laptop design that tin can too flip into dissimilar modes including tent, screen-first, or tablet. It has the latest Snapdragon 850 processor, only unlike about Windows 10 on ARM devices, it has 8GB of DDR4 RAM instead of simply 4GB. That actress bit of RAM helps when running browsers with multiple tabs open or many apps in the groundwork.

Pen support is here but the stylus is not included, and Lenovo is non pushing this hard every bit an inking device. Lenovo uses N-trig for pen technology (versus AES), then you lot can use a Surface Pen with it. Simply the accuracy and pressure-levels are mediocre at best.

Familiar pattern

Lenovo Yoga C630 await and feel

The Yoga C630 looks a lot like a standard 2-in-i laptop from Lenovo. That's a adept matter, though, every bit many people oftentimes gravitate to such course factors, which are practical for productivity.

The Yoga C630 is solid with no flex in a sturdily-reinforced chassis. The keyboard deck has a overnice soft-touch paint texture to it, making it warm and inviting and not cold like metallic. The fe greyness colour scheme works well, looking professional and hiding fingerprints.

The hinges are a new style for Lenovo, deviating from the patented watchband blueprint found on older Yoga laptops. The new hinges await nifty and are besides a sugariness spot for Lenovo'due south logo instead of the display chin. The hinges are stiff, which is what you'd await for a 2-in-i.

Category	Lenovo Yoga C630 Windows on Snapdragon
Processor	Qualcomm Snapdragon 850
RAM	4 or 8GB LPDDR4X
Storage	128GB or 256GB UFC 2.1
Modem	4G LTE Snapdragon X20 1.2Gbps
Display size	xiii.iii-inch (1920 x 1080) IPS Touchscreen
Graphics	Qualcomm Adreno 630
Ports	2x Blazon-C Left port supports: USB 3.0/PD Right port supports: USB 3.0/PD/DisplayPort Audio Jack SIM card holder
Biometrics	Windows Hullo Fingerprint reader
Audio	Stereo speakers
Battery	Up to 25 hours 61WHr
Dimensions	12.08 in x 8.52 in x 0.49 in 306.8 mm x 216.9 mm ten 12.5 mm
Weight	two.65 lbs (ane.2 kg)

At two.65 lbs (1.ii kg), the Yoga C630 is on the lighter side for a thirteen.iii-inch laptop, and its 12.5mm thickness (when closed) makes information technology one of the thinnest laptops around.

Overall, the Yoga C630 is conservative looking compared to flashier laptops on the market, simply it's difficult to criticize information technology for being unsightly. The rounded edges and clean, minimalist expect are a welcome alter from busier offerings.

For ports, there are not a lot of options. There are two USB Type-C 3.0 ports for power, brandish and information, a headphone jack, and a power button. The ports piece of work well enough, especially for charging, merely you will demand a Type-A adapter (not included) to use any older peripherals.

Lenovo added a pinhole LED light on the side to permit you know the laptop is charging. The power button on the side also has a white LED and it turns vivid orange when the laptop has xx percent or less bombardment.

and then-so screen

Lenovo Yoga C630 display

While the price for the Yoga C630 is great, the display takes a hitting. The Full-HD resolution is fine for this form of device and screen size, only it's articulate this is a lower-quality display than most Ultrabooks.

Whites are a bit yellow – a common theme with Lenovo screens – and the colors are not very punchy. Effulgence is decent, nearing 300 nits, but at that place is no HDR-type support, which is establish in the Windows 10 October Update and beyond. Bear upon responsiveness is fantabulous, just the inking requires a lot of pressure level to actuate, and the elevate on the display is non well-nigh equally polish as college-end PCs. Clarity of the Yoga C630 display is splendid, equally well, and I have no complaints using it day to day as my piece of work laptop.

typing master

Lenovo Yoga C630 keyboard, trackpad, and fingerprint reader

Lenovo is often regarded as the king of keyboards, and that applies to the Yoga C630. The familiar key manner with an adequate corporeality of travel and consistent actuation brand this an splendid typing feel. The keys take ii-phase backlighting controlled via the role cardinal – a standard Lenovo practice – and are quite visible in depression-light situations.

The trackpad is spacious, drinking glass and it uses Microsoft Precision drivers. The lower corners click and overall this is a solid trackpad; it'due south non the best only far from the worst.

In that location is also a Goodix-branded fingerprint reader for bio-authentication. While an infrared facial recognition photographic camera would be better, a fingerprint reader is a adept alternative that also saves buyers some money. Information technology tin can be used to wake the Yoga C630 and has consistent and reliable reads.

Getting there

Lenovo Yoga C630 performance

I believe the Qualcomm Snapdragon 850 will blur the lines between Intel (x86) and Qualcomm (ARM) performance. The 2.96GHz Snapdragon 850 is the first specifically-tuned ARM chip for Windows 10, and it'southward a welcome improvement over the previous Snapdragon 835, which was almost good enough.

In that location is the recently announced Qualcomm 8cx processor, simply that chip is not displacing the Snapdragon 850. Instead, it is a higher-tier 1 for fifty-fifty more powerful devices (and likely more expensive ones), similar how Intel has Core i5 while also selling the Pentium chip. The Snapdragon 8cx is also non due until the autumn of 2022, giving the Snapdragon 850 some breathing room.

Evaluating performance is tricky with ARM since it only surpasses Intel's lower-end processors for single-cadre but trounces those aforementioned chips for multi-core, due to the dissimilar compages. Geekbench four.3 tin can now benchmark Windows 10 on ARM, too as 32-bit applications running under ARM.

CPU SSD

CPU

Geekbench four.0 benchmarks (higher is improve)

Device	CPU	Unmarried core	Multi core
Yoga C630 (ARM)	SD850	two,287	seven,215
Yoga C630 (x86)	SD850	one,345	iii,560
Milky way Book2 (ARM)	SD850	2,262	vii,405
Milky way Book2 (x86)	SD850	1,345	4,164
HP ENVY x2 (ARM)	SD835	ii,111	six,314
Surface Become	Pentium	2,078	3,934
Surface 3	Cantlet x7	1,078	2,777
Surface Pro 4	m3 6Y30	2,854	v,350
Surface Pro 4	i5-6300U	iii,319	6,950
Surface Pro 2022	i5-7300U	4,302	eight,482
Surface Pro 2022	i7-7660U	4,513	9,346

SSD

CrystalDiskMark (higher is better)

Device	Read	Write
Yoga C630	791 MB/s	220 MB/due south
Galaxy Book2	722 MB/s	205 MB/due south
HP Envy x2	513 MB/south	197 MB/s
Surface Become (SSD)	1,185 MB/due south	133 MB/s
Surface Get (eMMC)	260 MB/s	145 MB/due south
Surface 3	149 MB/s	33 MB/s
Surface Pro 4	758 MB/south	159 MB/s

If you are sticking with Windows x native apps including the Edge browser, Office 365, Mail, Weather, News, and about 95 percent of the apps on the Microsoft Shop, the Yoga C630 feels very much like a Core i5 on the Surface Pro 4 for multi-cadre tasks. For unmarried core, it's going to beat out the Surface Become barely.

For those who don't similar the Microsoft Edge browser both Chromium and Firefox are going to back up ARM64 very soon. That means those two will run natively on this PC and perform only like Edge, only with all the things you like almost either Chromium or Firefox.

Where the Qualcomm Snapdragon 850 still struggles is the emulation of Win32 apps – things that y'all download from the internet like Google Chrome or an Adobe app. Those will run, just more slowly.

Functioning is better than an Intel Cantlet processor for single-core, but near what the Surface Become gets for multi-core.

I accept had no bug running the Snapdragon 850 for my work, which includes web browsing (Edge), mail, Twitter, Microsoft Word, Skype, Slack, and a few other productivity-based applications. It feels very similar to a Surface Get except that native ARM apps perform much better with multi-core on the Yoga.

Battery life is incredible.

Gaming is also not a potent suit for the Yoga C630, although information technology can run some casual titles with ease.

Lenovo uses a 128GB Samsung eUFS (KLUDG4U1EA-B0C) drive which yields effectually 800 MB/s for read and over 200 MB/s for write. Information technology's non nearly every bit fast equally a proper NVMe solid-state drive (SSD), but it also doesn't feel like it is slowing down annihilation either.

The real winner for the Yoga C630 is battery life. Lenovo promises 22 hours, which is generous, but that sizeable 61WHr battery does give me easily around fifteen hours of real-world usage. Information technology'due south virtually painful to count as the Yoga C630 goes and goes. Information technology's and then far, the longest-running Windows x PC – either ARM or x86 – that I have used. The bombardment life is incredible.

100% internet all the time

Lenovo Yoga C630 LTE and eSIM

One of the main points of a Qualcomm-enabled ACPC is the native 4G LTE that comes with the chipset.

The Yoga C630 uses the Qualcomm X20 modem with speeds up to ane.2 Gbps. The laptop is also SIM-unlocked and so that y'all can driblet in whatsoever carrier's SIM into the side-slot. Speeds with AT&T and Verizon were fantabulous – around 60 Mbps with only three bars of betoken.

Lenovo enabled the embedded SIM (eSIM) on the Yoga C630. Users tin can switch to "SIM2" on the device and purchase data from various sellers for the day, month, or past six-months. Data is not cheap, but the ability to acquire data piecemeal when traveling is convenient. Plus, users can proceed the physical SIM in the device and switch betwixt 2 carriers. Windows 10 is still messy for buying and setting upwardly eSIM, but hopefully, Microsoft volition tweak the feel with future OS updates.

Because of the always-connected and extensive battery life, the Yoga C630 is kind of the dream laptop for writers, business concern people, students, or fifty-fifty casual users who live mostly in a browser or watch Netflix. As long as yous don't mind paying for data.

most well-rounded

Lenovo Yoga C630 is the perfect work companion

Assuming you do not demand to run graphics-intense applications, video games or exercise video editing, the Yoga C630 is ane of the best and most well-counterbalanced productivity laptops effectually.

That'southward easy to say because the price is $800 with 8GB of RAM, touch screen, 15 hours of battery life, and 4G LTE – no other laptop has all of that for that cost.

A Surface Go with LTE is also an attractive alternative, as its pricing with a keyboard nears $800 every bit well. But the contrast in that location is battery life – do you desire something that lasts 5 to six hours, only runs all Win32 apps or a laptop that lasts for 15 hours, simply ideally runs just ARM64 apps? That's a big difference. You can find the Yoga C630 on sale for $700 in the U.S. making it the ameliorate value.

The Samsung Galaxy Book2 is also a great alternative, only information technology costs at least $200 more. It has a much better brandish and inking experience, but the bombardment life is a few hours less than the Yoga C630.

Where the Yoga C630 could improve is with a better, punchier display, better inking, and an improved web camera. None of those are bargain-breakers, though, especially at $800. The 8GB of RAM gives the Yoga C630 some extra punch, and while there is a cheaper 4GB choice, the cost departure is negligible making it best to go with more RAM.

Audio is simply OK. The summit-firing speakers make the sound better than it should be, only it still lacks some richness and bass. If the Yoga C630 were more than $ane,000, it'd be a significant drawback, simply over again, the price here makes information technology acceptable.

Simply if yous need a capable laptop that tin can be used every bit a tablet with some inking abilities, and adopt extraordinary battery life and ever-connected LTE, you tin't do much better than the Lenovo Yoga C630. For $800 it should be on your list of productivity-focused laptops, and if yous can get it on auction, information technology'south even better.

Get to work

Lenovo Yoga C630

A convertible laptop with exceptional battery life and 4G LTE that doesn't break the bank.

The Lenovo Yoga C630 is a archetype two-in-1 laptop with modest looks, but it packs crazy multi-mean solar day battery life, 8GB of RAM, and 4G LTE to proceed you lot working on the become.

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Source: https://www.windowscentral.com/lenovo-yoga-c630-review

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