Lenovo Yoga 720 (13-Inch) - Review 2022

The 13-inch Lenovo Yoga 720 (starts at $749.99; $799.99 as tested) is an attractive convertible laptop with some killer features: a supremely comfortable keyboard, a bombardment that will last all day and then some, and an intriguing sub-$one,000 price tag. And since Lenovo pioneered this category, it has a elevation-notch pedigree. The Yoga 720 earns an Editors' Choice award, mostly for its feathery weight and balance of features and toll, but if y'all don't program to carry it around all the time, you lot'll need to pore over its spec list to determine whether information technology'due south a better buy than the also-excellent Dell Inspiron thirteen 7000 (7378).

Looks Good, If You Like Silvery

Lenovo has been building convertible laptops with head-turning looks for nearly a decade, which is long enough to convince people who call up that the only sleek laptop worth ownership is a MacBook or MacBook Pro to change their minds. The Yoga 720 follows in the footsteps of the Yoga 700 and the Yoga 710, which offered consistently appealing styling and excellent build quality. From the outside, the Yoga 720 admittedly looks rather apparently. That'due south mainly considering information technology sports a conventional ii-swivel design for the lid, dissimilar the watchband way hinge that spans the full width of the Yoga 920, adding a noticeable bling factor. Still, the unmarried color option—silver—is quite sleek. There'south picayune to mar the clean lines of the exterior, except for an embedded Yoga logo in the corner of the brandish lid and left and correct edges that taper ever so slightly toward the front end of the laptop.

Size and weight are likewise strong suits. Our review unit weighs 2.83 pounds, which is practiced for a 13-inch convertible, especially if it's going to be a frequent companion on your commute, vacations, or business organization trips. Information technology's near the same weight as the Dell Inspiron 11 3000 Series 2-in-1 and the more-expensive HP Spectre x360 13, and it'south significantly lighter than our previous elevation pick for midrange convertibles, the iii.five-pound Inspiron 13 7000. Notation, though, that there are lighter, similarly sized convertibles available, including the Toshiba Portege X20W-D.

The chassis is atomic, at to the lowest degree compared with the 13-inch laptops of yesteryear. The Yoga 720 measures 0.6 by 12.2 by 8.iv inches (HWD), while the MacBook Air (a xiii-inch pattern that was breathtakingly thin when it was introduced about 10 years ago) is 0.68 by 12.viii by 8.94 inches. The result is that information technology'due south actually possible to comfortably agree the Yoga 720 in your hands in Tablet mode. It'southward certainly not as comfy as an bodily tablet, like the Microsoft Surface Pro or the Apple iPad Pro, merely neither is it equally unwieldy as the crop of 15-inch convertibles—including a 15-inch version of the Yoga 720—that manufacturers strangely proceed to sell.

Thin Bezel, Bright Screen

Open the lid to reveal a 13.3-inch, 1,920-by-1,080 (total HD) display. Every bit is the norm for this line, the screen features a very thin bezel, which extends less than an inch from the brandish to the laptop's left, right, and top edges. We institute the screen to be enough bright enough in the fluorescent-lit PC Labs as long as the brightness level was set to 90 or 100 pct. The glossy screen has considerable glare from bright lights, merely information technology features in-plane switching (IPS) technology, which means that yous tin can experience its vivid, vivid colors and crisp text from nearly any angle. Lenovo does sell versions of the Yoga 720 with a 4K display, simply full HD is arguably the sugariness spot. Cramming in more than pixels jacks up the price and will likely reduce bombardment life.

Lenovo Yoga 920 1

The screen is bear on-enabled, responding to finger jabs as well as the optional Lenovo Agile Pen 2, which approximates the feeling of writing on paper cheers to a fine-tuned rubber nib. The screen bounces a scrap if you lot tap it or write on information technology in laptop mode, but that'south a common problem for touch on-screen laptops. 1 notable exception is the Yoga 920, which has its watchband hinge that makes the display markedly sturdier. Some convertibles, including the Portege X20W-D, come bundled with pens, merely we appreciate that Lenovo doesn't accept that approach, since not everyone finds them useful. For conventional cursor control, in that location's a touchpad that's on the small side, but still tracks well and responds promptly when you punch up the sensitivity setting.

Above the Yoga 720's screen is an Hard disk webcam, which is adequate for video conferencing, but doesn't support Windows Hello face up recognition for logging in, unlike the Inspiron 13 7000'due south Hello-compliant webcam. Below the screen is a fingerprint reader that does work with Hullo, along with one of the virtually comfy Windows laptop keyboards we've used. These keys offer an even more satisfying typing experience than the one on the Yoga 920, mainly because they feel much sturdier and offer a deeper clicking sound when yous press one. It's alike to the difference between closing the driver's door of a brand-new motorcar (which makes a satisfying thud), versus slamming a door on a fragile 1990s-era Buick.

Lenovo Yoga 920 2

Along the left edge, you'll find two USB-C ports. One of them supports Thunderbolt 3 for speedy connections to newer external difficult drives or displays, a feature that's missing on the Inspiron 13 7000. The other USB-C port is for USB three.0 peripherals, and both tin charge the laptop using the included USB-C power adapter. The right edge sports a power button and a conventional USB 3.0 connector. A total of three USB ports is adequate for a 13-inch convertible at this price, and the Thunderbolt iii back up is welcome if yous programme to keep your Yoga 720 for more than a year or two.

The speakers are mounted on the bottom of the chassis toward the front end, and are downwards-facing. While the Yoga 920'due south similairly positioned speakers offer suprisingly robust sound, the sound from the Yoga 720 is about what you'd expect from a thin laptop: tinny and a bit anemic, even at higher volumes.

With 8GB of retentivity and a 256GB SSD for storage, our review unit is well-configured for a convertible priced less than $1,000. However, prospective buyers who store everything in the cloud tin likely make do with the entry-level model, which comes with 4GB of memory and a 128GB SSD. Wireless connectivity options include 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.1, and the Yoga 720 comes with a standard one-yr warranty.

Lasts All Twenty-four hours, Into the Night

Our test unit comes with an Intel Core i5-7200U CPU running at two.5GHz. It'due south a workhorse mobile processor that we've tested a few times before in both convertibles like the ThinkPad Yoga 370 likewise as conventional laptops like the Microsoft Surface Laptop. Information technology offers plenty of power for everyday computing tasks, even though information technology's already out of date at present that Intel has released its eighth-generation mobile fries. It helps the Yoga 720 attain a class-leading score of three,092 on our comprehensive PCMark eight benchmark that measures give-and-take processing, video conferencing, web browsing, and other common PC activities.

Lenovo Yoga 720 Performance Chart

On our specialized multimedia editing tasks, the Yoga 720 performed about in the middle of the pack, taking 2 minutes and 44 seconds to transcode a video in Handbrake and just more than iv minutes to complete a series of prototype manipulations in Photoshop. The clear leader on this test is the MacBook Pro, which has a reputation for computing prowess, just also for commanding a price premium.

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Anyone buying a convertible laptop in 2022 should expect it to terminal through a full day of piece of work or travels and and so have enough battery life leftover to watch videos in Tablet or Tent manner on the burrow or in the hotel room. The Yoga 720 does non disappoint, achieving 12 hours of battery life on our rundown test, merely over again, the MacBook Pro is the clear winner here, forth with the Surface Laptop, each of which lasted for more 16 hours. The pattern continues when comparing results of our gaming and graphics performance tests, which the MacBook Pro again dominated, although you shouldn't wait to play immersive games on any laptop with an integrated GPU.

Lenovo Yoga 720 Graphics Performance Chart

Worthwhile Compromises

It's little surprise that Lenovo makes some compromises to keep the Yoga 720 as comfy, good-looking, and affordable every bit it is. If y'all're willing to forgo cutting-edge features like a 4K display and a Windows Hello-compatible webcam, yous tin get a convertible notebook that rivals the build quality of much more expensive machines similar the HP Spectre x360 13 or the Lenovo Yoga 920, though admittedly not the computing performance of the more conventional MacBook Pro. Plus, the Yoga 720 is much lighter than its direct competitor, the Dell Inspiron 13 7000. That means it's a amend selection for road warrior workers who want to take some juice left over for watching videos in a hotel room with difficult-to-discover power outlets.