Review of the Lenovo Yoga 920

I bought this laptop some time ago, and have been using it regularly, so I thought I could write a short review to help other people interested in buying a laptop.

The reason I bought this beauty is basically mobility. I have two desktop PCs but sometimes, when travelling, it's important to have a backup, so by no means it's my main computer. Because of this, I wasn't giving priority to features such as GPU or screen size, and was more interested in pure mobility and a light and versatile computer.

The unit I own has an i5, 8 Gb RAM, 1080p screen and 256 Gb SSD. Hardware wise, it's a fairly competent PC, of course I don't plan to crunch numbers at a large scale or use it for intensive processing. Anyway, aesthetically it's a total beauty, with a brushed aluminum body and polished edges. They can be a bit sharp, but for everyday use it's not uncomfortable at all. The hinge is gorgeous, it's like a premium bandwatch and gives the laptop personality; it's fairly easy to tell when someone owns one.

In pure hardware terms, the CPU and RAM is ample enough to run smoothly a variety of applications, and the SSD is lightning fast. Mine boots in 3 seconds. The CPU is a low power one, as expected for a ultrabook, and rarely gets uncomfortably hot. The cooling system it's very well executed, with two fans blowing through the hinge at low rpm, making it almost inaudible even under stress. 90% of the time it's a silent computer.

The screen is good as well, a 1080p AU Optronics IPS unit with an integrated Wacom tablet, that is, you can draw directly on the screen using either your fingers or the included active pen. Drawing in this screen with the pen is very fun, it's quick and precise enough. The screen is bright enough, not reaching the brightness levels that are fashionable today and make you blind, but it's perfectly fine. It's protected by a layer of Gorilla glass (glossy) and feels sturdy.

The keyboard is good, full sized but without numerical keyboard, so it can feel a bit uncomfortable when crunching numbers in Excel. The tactile feedback is excellent in my opinion, about 1.3 mm of travel, white LED backlight and almost silent, obviously we're not talking about mimicking a mechanical keyboard here. The trackpad is excellent, with a thin layer of glass on top that gives a buttery feeling when gliding your fingers, even if they're a bit moist, something that happens in this Northern hemisphere summer. Of course, if you get tired of the trackpad you can plug in a regular mouse of use the touch screen.

Speakers are good enough as well, of course you can't expect superb audio quality and they are small, but well tuned. Can be quite loud and when the laptop is on a hard surface like a table, they sound perfectly good.

Overall, I'm quite happy with this computer, it's a good Windows alternative to the mighty Macbooks. Not precisely a cheap unit, but you get what you're paying for.