BARCELONA — Lenovo’s lineup of convertible Yoga 730 laptops are designed to help you get things done, whether you prefer typing on a full-sized keyboard or drawing on a touchscreen with a stylus. Now the 13- and 15-inch Yoga 730s have another way to accomplish tasks, with not one, but two voice assistants.
Alexa joined Cortana on Lenovo’s business-oriented ThinkPad line in January, and now both assistants will share space on the company’s more creative-minded Yoga 730s, which can be used as laptops or tablets depending on your mood.
Lenovo says it’s offering both voice assistants from both Amazon and Microsoft because Alexa is more ubiquitous when it comes to third-party apps and devices, but Cortana is more capable of Windows-specific tasks such as file searching. In our hands-on time with the 2-in-1 lineup at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, we didn’t try out Cortana, but Alexa did tell us an incredibly cringe-worthy joke. Bad dad jokes aside, suffice it to say that Alexa works on the Yoga 730 in the same way the assistant works on other devices.
Lenovo is also freshening up its more wallet-friendly $600 Flex 14 2-in-1, known outside of the U.S. and Canada as the 14-inch Yoga 530, though that device is not gaining voice assistant integration. However, Lenovo is bundling the Flex 14 with a stylus, the Lenovo Active Pen 2 with 4,096 levels of pressure sensitivity.
| Model | 13-inch Yoga 730 | 15-inch Yoga 730 | Flex 14 |
| Price | $880 | $990 | $600 |
| Display | 13.3-inch UHD IPS touchscreen | 15.6-inch UHD IPS touchscreen | 14-inch full HD (1820 x 1080) |
| CPU | Up to 8th-gen Intel | 8th-gen Intel Core i7 | 8th-gen Intel Core i7 |
| Memory | Up to 16GB DDR4 | Up to 8GB DDR4 onboard, 8GB DIMM | Up to 16GB DDR4 |
| Storage | Up to 512GB PCle SSD | Up to 1TB SSD PCle | Up to 512GB PCle SSD |
| Graphics | Integrated H620 | Up to Nvidia GTX1050 | Up to Nvidia GeForce MX130 |
| Colors | Iron Grey, Platinum Silver | Iron Grey, Platinum Silver | Onyx Black |
| Size | 12.08 x 8.52 x 0.55 inches | 14.17 x 9.80 x 0.67 inches | 12.9 x 9.02 x 0.69 inches |
| Weight | 2.46 pounds | 4.16 pounds | 3.25 pounds |
Thinner, Lighter, Faster, Sleeker
The upgraded trio of convertible notebooks have been redesigned with slanted edges to replace the traditional curved clamshell. We found the new edges looked sleek but made the devices more difficult to open and switch between notebook and tablet modes.
The two new Yoga 730s and Flex 14 are all thinner and lighter with smaller bezels than past generations. All three devices support quick-charging, so you can squeeze an extra two hours of battery life out of a 15-minute charge. Aside from their size, the design of the Flex and Yogas differs in one key way: The Flex 14 is mostly plastic with an aluminum palm rest, while the Yogas are entirely aluminum. That makes the Flex 14 feel more lightweight and portable than its 3.25 pounds would belie.
In an interesting move, Lenovo put a proprietary charging port in the Flex 14 and 15-inch Yoga 730, but went with USB-C charging for its 13-inch model. All three devices have at least one USB-C port, and the Yoga 730s have Thunderbolt ports for connecting to a 4K display. Not to be left out, the Flex 14 offers an HDMI port and a 4-in-1 card reader. The Yogas sport a fingerprint sensor for unlocking your device with Windows Hello.
The 13- and 15-inch Yoga 730 will cost $880 and $990, respectively, when they debut in April. The $600 Flex 14 will also go on sale in April. Stay tuned for full reviews of all three devices when they launch this spring.
