Lenovo Yoga 730 15 Review: A Smart Convertible Laptop

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Lenovo Yoga 730 15: At First Glance

The Yoga 730 is a not-so-recent addition to Lenovo’s collection of hybrid laptops. However, instead of being a small-sized casual PC, this 15 inch Yoga is made for creative work.

The Lenovo Yoga 730 15 was released in late August 2018. The laptop builds on a similar design architecture as the previous Lenovo Yoga 720 15.

At first glance, they look identical but they’re different in many other aspects. We will discuss their similarities and differences in the sections below.

In the world of Ultrabooks, Lenovo’s Yoga 730’s price can be regarded as affordable. Speaking of which it starts at a price of $739.00 – valid as of January 2022 when I published this article.

Is the Lenovo Yoga 730 15 really worth the price? Read through this article to find out.

Lenovo Yoga 730 15: Design, Dimensions, and Weight

The Yoga 730 looks good, though the exterior of the design isn’t particularly eye-catching from a distance. However, with a closer look at its aluminum case, you might have a different opinion.

Its smooth aluminum chassis has a dark shade finish that Lenovo names Iron Gray.

Also, the Lenovo Yoga 730 has a simple design which makes it an ideal choice for formal environments, like offices and schools. The chassis is impressively sturdy, there’s little or no amount of flex in the outer part.

The Lenovo Yoga 730 15 has a modest “Lenovo” logo on the left-hand area of the screen. Additionally, the laptop has slim bezels surrounding its display panel and two plain hinges.

Furthermore, the two hinges that hold the display feel very sturdy and of high quality. This is usually the setback for most 2-in-1s laptops, especially the inexpensive ones.

However, the Yoga 730s’ hinges are tight enough to hold the display from shaking.

Still, on its look, the Yoga 730 15 actually looks like it means serious business. Proceeding to the screen, you’ll find a 15.6-inch screen when you open the laptop’s lid.

The screen comes with either an FHD (1920 x 1080 pixels) or 4K UHD (3480 x 2160 pixels) resolution. The 4K resolution touchscreen will keep reflections at a minimum.

Furthermore, the IPS technology of the display indicates that it does well for color accuracy. Its brightness level is 300 nits at a maximum which is good enough.

Hence, the Lenovo Yoga 730 15 actually displays excellent picture and video quality. Also, the Lenovo Yoga 730 15’s display is good for both office and outdoor use.

Overall, the Lenovo Yoga 730’s screen is decent.

For its webcam, it is located above the screen and not below. As a result, Yoga 730 15 will allow you to have conference calls without giving people a look into your nostrils.

Also, the camera is a 720p resolution HD Camera. Therefore, its picture quality is just fair enough.

Proceeding to the keyboard area of the Lenovo Yoga 730 15, the layout is quite good. The keys are decently sized and spaced.

Also, the keys have shallow travel. If you’re wondering what I mean by “key travel”, it is the distance between the resting and fully pressed positions of the keys.

Some people may find this shallow travel uncomfortable at first but will get used to it with time.

Meanwhile, the keyboard has no NumPad section. There are also no dedicated function keys, PgUp/PgDn keys, or Home/End keys.

Impressively, the Lenovo Yoga 730 15 keys are quiet and excellent. As for the trackpad, it is also decent, smooth, broad, and responsive with no visible friction.

Furthermore, a fingerprint reader lies below the keyboard on the Yoga 730 15. However, one feature that is missing on the Lenovo Yoga 730 15 is a battery indicator.

Moving on, the Lenovo Yoga 730 15 has a Lenovo Active Pen 2, included in its box. This is a Bluetooth-enabled capacitive Active pen that works very well.

Although it is slighter thicker than the stylus pen of the Microsoft Surface Pro series, it is still precise and easy to use.

Moving on to the Lenovo Yoga 730 15 speakers, they are excellent. They’re well-balanced and punchy, they also offer ample clarity with enough bass.

Proceeding to the ports, the Yoga has two full-size USB 3.1 ports and a Type-C Thunderbolt port. It also has a full-sized HDMI output.

For connectivity, Lenovo Yoga 730 15 features Bluetooth version 4.1 and WiFi 802.11AC (2 x 2).

In the aspect of weight, the Lenovo Yoga 730 15 weighs 1890 g. In comparison, it is even lighter than its close competitor, the Dell XPS 15 which weighs 2000 g.

For dimensions of the Lenovo Yoga 730 15, it measures 360 x 249 x 16.95 mm (W x D x H). This is a fair level of thinness considering its 15-inch size.

However, the Dell XPS 15 is thinner with a dimension of 354 x 235 x 9 mm (W x D x H).

Overall, the Lenovo Yoga 730 15 has a solid build with a simple, sleek, and minimalist look. Hence, it deserves a rating of nine in this review.

Lenovo Yoga 730 15: Processor (CPU) Performance

When it comes to processors, the processor featured in the Lenovo Yoga 730 15 is Intel Core i7-8550U.

With its Core i7- 8550U, the Lenovo Yoga 730 15’s speed in everyday usage is quite swift. It runs heavy programs smoothly and performs well in benchmark tests.

For everyday usage, the laptop can handle regular office tasks and heavy web browsing with ease. It can also carry out video edits without any problem.

With that being said, I will include the standard Cinebench R15 benchmark test result for information about the laptop’s processor performance. Cinebench R15 is a benchmark test that evaluates the general processing ability of a computer.

In this test, the higher the score, the faster a laptop’s processor.

In the benchmark test result, the Lenovo Yoga 730 15 scored 168 points which is above the category average of 160 points. Comparatively, the Yoga Y30 15 has a better benchmark test result than the HP Spectre x360 which scored 154 points.

However, the ASUS ZenBook Flip 15 performed a bit better with 171 points.

In conclusion, the Lenovo Yoga 730 15 casually flaunts its extreme power in every processor-based computing task. Therefore, it scores nine in this review.

Lenovo Yoga 730 15: (RAM) Performance

In the aspect of memory, the Lenovo Yoga 730 15 has two RAM slots with only a single one upgradable. You can buy the Lenovo Yoga 730 15 with either 16 GB or 8 GB DDR4 2400MHz RAM.

Meanwhile, if you buy an 8 GB model but would love to upgrade it, the maximum memory capacity supported is 16 GB. However, the Lenovo Yoga Y30 is very capable of multitasking even with the 8 GB RAM configuration.

It is important to note that this review centers on the 16 GB DDR4 2400MHz RAM. With the 16 GB RAM capacity, the Lenovo Yoga 730 15 handles every task with ease.

Specifically, the laptop with this RAM capacity can handle up to 30 Chrome tabs effortlessly, alongside a code selection task on Visual Studio, for example. Impressively, the Lenovo Yoga 730 15 operates excellently without any lag.

To understand more about the laptop’s memory performance, I will share a benchmark performance result. Specifically, the benchmark test to be considered in this section is PCMark10.

The PCMark 10 benchmark simulates daily computing tasks such as working on spreadsheets, video chat, online shopping, and other common tasks. Moreover, in this benchmark test, the higher the score the better.

According to the benchmark test result, the Lenovo Yoga 730 15 scored 4,347 points.

This score is actually above the 4,303 setpoints for this laptop’s category. In comparison, the Lenovo Yoga 730 15’s performance is above the HP Spectre x360’s 3,673 points.

In conclusion, Lenovo Yoga 730 15 scores an eight in this review for its brilliant RAM performance.

Lenovo Yoga 730 15: Storage Options and Performance

The Lenovo Yoga 730 15 features a 1 TB, PCIe SSD. However, its storage option does not include an SD media card reader.

As a result of the SSD, this laptop offers a really fast transfer rate. However, it is still an underperformer compared to the Apple MacBook Pro (I will shed more light on that below).

In detail, it took the Lenovo Yoga 730 15 only 12 seconds to copy 4.95 GB of files at a rate of 391.5 MBps. This is quite impressive because it goes beyond the category average rate of 273.86 MBps.

Interestingly, it also beats the transfer rate of Microsoft Surface Book 2 – 318.1 MBps. However, at a great speed of 654 MBps, the Apple MacBook Pro was in a class of its own.

Apart from evaluating how a laptop’s storage performs on a file copy test, we also share a storage benchmark test result. The storage benchmark we use for www.itechguides.com reviews is called CrystalDiskMark.

This is a benchmark test that evaluates the storage performance of a computer’s SSD or HDD. Meanwhile, the higher the score the better.

On a CrystalDiskMark test, the Lenovo Yoga 730 15 recorded a read speed of 1,825 MBps and a write speed of 811.6 MBps. If you’re curious, “read” here may indicate coping or opening a file.

The term “write”, on the other hand, typifies saving a file on your computer.

Finally, the Lenovo Yoga 730 15 has impressive storage speed and storage capacity. Hence, it scores an eight in this section.

Lenovo Yoga 730 15: Graphics Card Performance

Lenovo has equipped the Lenovo Yoga 730 15 with a dedicated NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050. This laptop’s graphics card has a base frequency of 1290 MHz and a maximum frequency of 1392 MHz.

You will be surprised at the performance of the Lenovo Yoga 730 15 in terms of its GPU. The GPU of the Lenovo Yoga 730 15 can run the latest graphically intensive games at decent frame rates.

In most cases, the games can run at Full HD resolution and on medium to high settings. For example, Lenovo Yoga 730 15 can easily play League of Legends at 60 FPS.

Also, it can ran games like Rise of the Tomb Raider at 44.4 FPS, Dirt3 at 185.6 FPS, and  Grand Theft Auto V at 60 FPS – all on maximum settings. However, this laptop may struggle to play Rainbow Six: Siege at high settings.

Having talked about the gaming performance of the Lenovo Yoga 730 15, I will proceed to share benchmark test results. For this purpose, I will use the 3Dmark11 benchmark test.

The 3Dmark11 is a tool that determines the graphics performance of a GPU. To understand how the 3Dmark11 benchmark works, the higher the score, the better the GPU’s performance.

According to the benchmark test result, Lenovo Yoga 730 15 scored 6,935 points.

In comparison, Yoga 730’s does not match up to the Acer Spin 5’s performance of 7,043 points. However, the Lenovo Yoga 730 score still surpasses that of the HP Spectre x360 which scored 4,708 points.

This makes the Lenovo Yoga 730 a better performer than the HP Spectre x360.

In conclusion, Lenovo Yoga 730 15s’ GPU performance is applaudable and therefore scores a nine in this review.

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Lenovo Yoga 730 15: Battery Life and Performance

The Lenovo Yoga 730 15 comes with a 3-Cell 51.5Wh battery. Lenovo advertised that the Yoga 730 15 model with Full HD resolution will last up to 11 hours.

It furthermore disclosed that the UHD display model of the laptop can last for up to nine hours. For the purpose of this battery review, we will focus on the UHD display model.

Hence, in a battery runtime test that involves simulation of web surfing tasks, the Yoga 730 achieves a runtime of 6 h 10 m.

Sadly, the Yoga 730 15 has a shorter battery life than its predecessor – the Yoga 720 15. The 4K resolution display in the Yoga 730 15 can be blamed for its lag in battery performance compared to its predecessor.

Meanwhile, the Yoga 730 15 is also unable to surpass the Microsoft Surface Book 2 which lasts for 11 hours. However, the battery life of the Yoga 730 15 FHD resolution model will definitely last a bit longer than this 4K resolution model.

When it comes to charging the Lenovo Yoga 730 15, it takes a little over 2 hours to get a full charge.

Putting these into consideration, the Lenovo Yoga 730 15 scores eight in this battery review.

Frequently Asked Questions

Conclusion

This Lenovo Yoga 730 15 is a good buy for students and anyone who needs a well-balanced computer for work or occasional fun.

It is a well-built 2-in-1 laptop that has simple a design and a lightweight structure (for a 15-inch convertible). It also features modern hardware and can smoothly handle daily computing chores and more demanding loads too.

However, it sacrifices battery life to some level in order to stay portable, which is something you’ll just have to bear.

You’ll also have to accept the weak speakers, shallow key travel as well as the thick stylus pen.

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