We check out Lenovo’s Alexa-enabled notebook

The Lenovo Yoga 730 is an updated version of the Yoga 720 convertible Lenovo unveiled at MWC in 2017, and from what we’ve seen could be one of the best laptops for students and casual gamers on a budget to arrive this year. It’s available in 13-inch and 15-inch variants.

At first glance both look like a tepid upgrade to the 720, featuring a similar looking aluminium metal chassis and the same flexible hinge mechanism, that lets you turn it into a tablet by folding the screen onto the device’s back. But up close you’ll notice a number of subtle, but important design improvements. The biggest is the addition of four far-field microphones which make it quick and easy to take advantage of its unique selling point: Amazon Alexa support.

Lenovo Yoga 730 – What’s new?

Support for Amazon Alexa has been baked into the laptop’s core Windows 10 software. On the pre-release version I saw, the digital assistant It was shortcut icon on the main desktop, but the final version will reportedly let you activate her simply by saying “Alexa”.

Though it sounds small the addition of Alex is a unique selling point for the laptop anyone with other Amazon smart devices will welcome. For those that have had their head in the sand, Alexa is Amazon’s assistant. It works the same way as Google Assistant, Microsoft Cortana and Apple Siri, letting you do things like shuffle music or get the answer to questions using voice commands.

The demo I saw also worked a treat, with the four microphones easily picking up voice commands in a crowded, slightly noisy conference room. A particular highlight was when the demoer asker the 730 to tell us a joke and we were treated to this dad worthy treat: “why did a jaybird cross the road? To practice its jaywalk”.

Alexa isn’t the only change. Lenovo’s also tweaked the metal frame in a variety of minor ways. These include subtle changes, like making the top screen edge slanted, rather than flat, in a bid to make it more comfortable to hold in tablet mode, to more obvious tweaks, like reducing the display’s bezel size by a couple of millimeters. The screen still isn’t edge-to-edge like the XPS 13 and Huawei Matebook X Pro’s, but it’s a welcome move that makes the 730 look noticeably swisher than many competing sub-£1000 laptop.

I didn’t get a chance to test it, but the addition of Rapid Charging is another welcome addition, that according to a Lenovo spokesperson, will let users get two hours use off 15 minutes at the mains.

Lenovo Yoga 730 specs

Outside of this the specs are pretty similar to the 720. As before, the 15-inch model can be upgraded to feature a GTX 1050 GPU. This means the top specced 730 should be able to play AAA games at 1080p if the graphics settings aren’t maxed out. It’ll also be good enough for basic video and photo editing, which is great as the screen supports Lenovo’s Pen 2 digital stylus.

The only downside is that Lenovo couldn’t confirm colour gamut coverage figures for the IPS screen, which to my naked eye looked fairly similar to last year’s model and features an identical 300 nits max brightness.

The only big change is that Lenovo’s upgraded the two models to run using Intel’s improved 8th Gen CPUs. The move should make both device slightly faster and more power efficient if our past benchmarks of 8th Gen laptops are anything to go by. Though until I get a chance to benchmark the laptop I won’t be able to confirm this.

You can see a full list of the two models specs in the table below.

Device Lenovo Yoga 730 13-inch Lenovo Yoga 730 15-inch
Display 13.3-inch FHD/UHD, IPS touch 15.6-inch FHD/UHD, IPS touch
CPU Up to 8th Gen Intel Core i7 Up to 8th Gen Intel Core i7
Graphics Integrated H620 Integrated H620 or Nvidia GTX 1050
Memory Up to 16GB DDR4 8GB DDR4 + 8GB DIMM
Storage Up to 512GB PCIe SSD Up to 1TB  PCIe SSD
Battery 11 hours 11 hours (FHD), 9 hours (UHD)
Connectivity 2 x USB C (Thunderbolt), 1 x US 3.0, 3.5 mm 2 x USB 3.0, 1 x USB C, HDMI, 3.5 mm
Weight 1.2 kg 1.89 kg

Lenovo Yoga 730 price

*** Note : £1 = $1.40 (correct at time of post)

Exact pricing will depend on the configuration you go for. But the most basic version of the 13-inch will retail for $879 (£629) and the lowest specced 15-inch model will retail for 15-inch $899 (£644). Considering the specs, the pricing is fairly reasonable.

Lenovo Yoga 730 release date

The Yoga 730 is set to launch in April.

First impressions

The Yoga 930 isn’t a huge update on the older 720, but the changes Lenovo’s made appear to be positive ones. The minor design optimisations and move to Intel’s 8th Gen CPU family will help improve performance and usability in a number of ways.

Alex-support is another nice touch that will appeal to people that have already invested in Amazon’s smart ecosystem.

Hopefully the device will make good on its opening promise when we more thoroughly test it in April. Check back then for our full review of the Lenovo Yoga 930.