Lenovo Yoga C740 review

The Lenovo Yoga C740 ($769 starting, $899 as reviewed) is a brilliant exercise in compromise. The laptop serves up a lightweight, flexible chassis, with mid-tier performance and over 10 hours of battery life, all for well under $1,000. But a dim touchscreen display and a somewhat heavy frame may give some consumers pause. Regardless, the Lenovo Yoga C740 is a solid choice for students and mobile professionals alike. 

Lenovo Yoga C740 pricing and configurations

The base model Yoga c740 costs $769 and comes with a 1.6-GHz Intel Core i5-10210U processor, 8GB RAM, a 256GB PCIe SSD and an Intel UHD Graphics GPU. The Yoga C740 I reviewed costs $899 and doubles the storage to 512GB. For $959.99, you can upgrade to a 1.8-GHz Intel Core I7 10510U processor, 16GB RAM and a 1TB PCIe SSD. 

Lenovo Yoga C740 design

Sleek is the first word that comes to mind with the C740. Its lovely sandblasted aluminum finish strikes a bold business pose. The Iron Grey lid is smooth to the touch, and the glossy Yoga emblem in the top-right corner of the lid adds a measured touch of bling that’s just subtle enough for the boardroom. 

Opening the lid reveals a taut, well-laid out design. You get more of that Iron Gray finish in the palmrest and keyboard deck. The keyboard sits at the top of the deck between a pair of speakers and above a large touchpad. The fingerprint scanner is located to the right of the touchpad.

The Yoga C740's 360-degree hinge is sturdy and allows the notebook to transition seamlessly from a clamshell to tablet. You can also use it in stand or tent modes for viewing movies, to sketch, take notes or video chat.

Measuring just 12.7 x 8.5 x 0.7 inches and weighing 3.1 pounds, the C740 is slightly heavier and larger than the HP Spectre x360 13 (2.7 pounds and 12.1.14 x 7.7 x 0.7 inches). The Microsoft Surface Pro 7 comes in at a petite bantamweight of 1.7 pounds, 12.5 x 7.9 x 0.3 inches.

Lenovo Yoga C740 security

In order to keep your documents, videos and other important files safe, Lenovo has added a few security measures.

There’s the fingerprint scanner, which is compatible with Windows Hello, that allows you to lock/unlock the laptop with your fingertip. The company has also added a physical shutter button for the webcam to protect against potential snooping. 

Lenovo Yoga C740 ports

The C740 is a laptop of few ports. You get a USB 3.1 Type-A Gen 1 port on the right side next to the power button. You’ll find two USB 3.1 Type-C Gen 1 ports on the left side.  

Lenovo Yoga C740 display

The C740’s 14-inch, 1920 x 1080 touchscreen is a thing of beauty thanks to it being very colorful. However, it does tend to pick up a lot of smudges while using it in touchscreen mode. When I watched the Bloodshot trailer, all the definition, tones, and shadows in the scene whereVin Diesel's face gets shot in half and is reconstructed was a gory thing of beauty. And yes, his well chiseled physique looked great on the screen, too, as evidence from my better half’s adoring looks. The reds especially stood out and easily drew my eye. 

When we measured color reproduction, the Yoga C740 hit 111% of the sRGB color gamut. That’s better than the Spectre (109%) and the Surface Pro (97%), but short of the 123% premium laptop average. 

The Yoga C740’s display averages 250 nits of brightness which is dimmer than the 367-nit average, the Surface Pro 7 (395 nits) and the Spectre (369 nits). 

I found the touchscreen on the Yoga C740 to be excellent, as it was both very sensitive and highly accurate. It made me pine for a stylus so that I could let the creative juices flow. 

Lenovo Yoga C740 Active Pen

Lenovo’s Active Pen 2 model is sold for $69.99. The battery-operated stylus offers 4,096 pressure levels for a more natural drawing/writing experience.  

Lenovo Yoga C740 audio

The C740 two top-firing speakers are housed discreetly on both sides of the keyboard. Due to the C740’s taut form factor, I was expecting the quality to be disappointing but the Dolby Atmos-tuned speakers performed very well.

I chose to harken back to my wilder days listening to System of a Down’s “Pyscho.” Every note, every chord, every guttural rageful poetic lyric could be clearly heard with no distortion from across the room. Switching up to some old-school hip-hop, I played Special Ed’s “I Got It Made,” and noticed a  difference in audio quality. Although the audio was still very clear and had some depth, the speakers lack the power to deliver proper bass. 

Ultimately, you’ll want to invest in a good pair of headphones. However, in a pinch or in a meeting situation, the other attendees in the room will hear the audio very clearly. 

The C740 is also equipped with two far-field microphones to awake Cortana and Alexa. The mics worked well, summoning both digital assistants without issue. 

Lenovo Yoga C740 keyboard and touchpad

The keys on the C740’s island-style keyboard are responsive and clicky with bouncy keystrokes. I have large hands so I found the keys to be a bit small, but I soon adjusted and made minimal errors. I took the 10fastfingers typing test and, even though my hands are obnoxiously large for this size keyboard, I scored 60 words per minute with 85% accuracy, which was a very pleasant surprise. 

The 4.2 x 2.8-inch touchpad is highly responsive when navigating websites or documents. The smooth surface is agile, seamlessly performing Windows 10 gestures, such as two-finger swipes and three-finger taps. The bottom corners give very firm feedback when using either right or left clicks. 

Lenovo Yoga C740 performance

With an 1.6-GHz Intel Core i5-10210U processor, 8GB of RAM, a 512GB PCIe SSD and an Intel UHD Graphics GPU, the C740 is a workhorse. It handles all your daily must do’s, including emails, YouTube breaks, document creating, editing, and creative needs with aplomb. I shot photos tethered to it, it used Capture One smoothly, and I edited short videos and rendered those smoothly within an acceptable time frame.

It also did pretty well on our synthetic tests, starting with Geekbench 5.0, an overall performance benchmark. The Yoga C740 scored 3,878, which is short of the 4,206 premium laptop average. The Spectre, with its Core i7-1065G7 CPU, hit 4,074 while the Surface Pro 7 and its Core i5-1035G4 CPU reached 4,443.

However, our review unit had a better time during the Handbrake video editing test, taking 20 minutes and 42 seconds to transcode a 4K video to 1080p. It’s below the 18:44 average, but still quicker than the Spectre (21:13) and the Surface Pro 7 (32:47).

During the File Transfer test, the Yoga C740’s 512GB PCIe SSD took 6 seconds to duplicate 4.97GB of mixed-media files for a transfer rate of 848.2 megabytes per second. The HP Spectre 360x 13 (512GB M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD) hit 318.1MBps, the tortoise of the group was the Surface Pro 7 (256GB SSD) with its 267.9MBps transfer rate. 

Thanks to its integrated GPU, the C740 isn't going to be running any AAA titles any time soon. When we ran the Dirt 3 benchmark, the laptop achieved 31 frames per second, which is just above our 30-fps playability average, but well below the 63-fps category average. With their Intel Iris Plus GPUs, the Spectre and the Surface Pro obtained 47 and 36 fps, respectively.

Lenovo Yoga C740 battery life

The Yoga C740 has enough juice to last a full workday and then some. The laptop lasted a very solid 10 hours and 18 minutes on the Laptop Mag Battery test (continuous web surfing over Wi-Fi at 150 nits of brightness). It’s longer than the 9:08 premium laptop average, the Surface Pro 7’s 7:30 and the Spectre’s 13:20. 

Lenovo Yoga C740 heat

Heat, what's that? The C740 uses Lenovo’s intelligent cooling, which dynamically adjusts thermal settings to match your needs as you're using it. It works, and it works very well. When enabled, I only heard the fans a few times, which is very nice.

We ran a fullscreen HD video for 15 minutes and measured specific spots on the laptop once the time elapsed. The touchpad measured 82 degrees Fahrenheit, which is well below our 95-degree comfort threshold. The middle and the bottom were also under the range at 86 and 88 degrees, respectively.  

Lenovo Yoga C740 webcam

The 720p webcam performs solidly; colors are accurate, however, like most laptop webcams, you need to have good lighting to get the best picture and video clarity. If not, you’re going to have grainy videos and photos. I tested the camera by placing a video call to my daughter who proceeded to tell me I had gained weight and needed to start dieting immediately. 

Lenovo Yoga C740 software and warranty

Lenovo loaded the C740 with a bunch of helpful software including Vantage, which allows you to tweak settings such as power profiles and enabling/disabling Wi-Fi. It also runs system diagnostics and gives you access to quick settings and system updates. 

As is normal with Windows 10 Home systems, there's a fair amount of bloatware, including Skype, Netflix, Microsoft Solitaire collection and Farm Heroes Saga. 

The Lenovo Yoga C740 comes with a one-year limited warranty. See how Lenovo fared in our annual Tech Support Showdown and Best and Worst Brands special reports. 

Bottom line

For a mid-tier system, the Lenovo Yoga C740 has a lot of premium features. For $899, you get a laptop that’s very versatile, with solid graphics and overall performance, and over 10 hours of battery life. True, it’s a bit heavier than the competition and the screen isn’t very bright, but it’s still a great notebook for the price. 

If you’re looking for a better display, battery life and performance, you’ll want to check out the $1,299 HP Spectre x360. However, you’ll be paying $300 more. Overall, the Lenovo Yoga C740 is a great choice for consumers who don’t want to compromise power and endurance by spending less.