Lenovo Yoga 720-15 Laptop Complete Review

person typing on laptop

The best laptops in the current market are great all-in-one machines. The performance is excellent, whether you are browsing the web, watching your favorite streaming service, or working. Gaming laptops offer even more outstanding performance if you wish to play something more demanding. Despite having ultra-powerful internals, all but the most basic models of laptops in 2022 will have excellent battery life. They all extend beyond 10 hours in some cases significantly. In addition to excellent build quality, you’ll get lightweight designs and a variety of ports on most options.

Origination Of Lenovo Tech Experts

The headquarters were originally a dusty, two-room guardhouse in Beijing when Lenovo Group was founded in 1984. With employees in over 60 countries, it is the largest PC maker in the world and one of the world’s foremost manufacturers of intelligent connected devices. The company’s culture still shows the entrepreneurial spirit and innovative mindset.

Eric Mok became the firm’s global company secretary in 2005, becoming increasingly clear to him. Lenovo had purchased IBM’s prized Personal Computer Division (PCD) for $1.25 billion just a few months earlier. As a result, the company underwent a radical and, at times, challenging transformation to become a truly global corporation from a local Chinese operation.

All About Lenovo’s Yoga Models

The Lenovo Yoga is an Ultrabook that can convert from a laptop into a tablet by merely folding the screen. It becomes the bottom of the unit when the keyboard is bent back (which is automatically disabled). Steve Miller, Lenovo’s executive vice president, called the device the world’s first multilocation laptop.

Windows 8 will run on the device which won’t be available until Microsoft releases the upcoming operating system. The device won’t be available with Windows 7.

In terms of thickness, the notebook is 17 millimeters thick, which is standard for Ultrabooks. It’s also a touchscreen device that Miller calls “10-finger multitouch.” So, the fingers of each hand can play a note on a piano keyboard separately.

For example, laptops that can be converted to tablets are nothing new; however, most are designed to swivel. Here’s one that bends. The palm rests have a leathery area in the middle. It doesn’t feel like genuine leather but looks like it. Palm rests are made from a solid aluminum cover.

At the show, Lenovo announced several products, including Yoga. In addition to the A720, the company displayed a unique touchscreen desktop that can be folded back to use as a tabletop, which could prove helpful for games resembling board games. About $1,300 will be the price of that PC, which runs Windows 7. The notebook has many advanced features compared to the Samsung Notebook.

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Lenovo Yoga 720 2-in-1 15.6″ 4K UHD IPS Touch-Screen Ultrabook, Intel Core i7-7700HQ, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050, Thunderbolt, Fingerprint Reader, Backlit Keyboard -Win10

Finding a laptop with powerful discrete graphics, flexibility, and an affordable price can be extremely daunting. However, the 15-inch Lenovo Yoga 720 ($999.99 to start, $1199.99 as tested) satisfies both requirements. In addition to its fast Intel Core i7 processor, this computer packs a powerful Nvidia GTX 1050 GPU. The Nvidia 10-series graphics make it the first convertible model ever seen. Also, it comes with a machine powerful enough to handle designing and gaming in laptop mode and viewing movies in tablet mode. So, if you love gaming, video editing, or designing, this can be your perfect partner. 

Other than that, the Lenovo Yoga 720 2-in-1 15.6″ is not just a powerful convertible with all-day battery life and a gorgeous display. Apart from being robust, it has a stunning display, powerful audio, and one of the best displays on a 15-inch laptop. Now, what could be better than this? There’s more for you. Let’s get started:

Stunning Designs

On the Yoga 720, you’ll find an impressive 15.6-inch, 1080p display with vivid colors and razor-sharp details. While watching the trailer for Marvel’s Inhumans, the red wig on Medusa (however fake it looks) popped against her lavender dress, and small wrinkles appeared in Black Bolt’s leather suit.

With 114 percent of the sRGB color gamut, the Yoga screen is slightly better than the average (95 percent) for mainstream notebook screens and even outshined by the Spectre x360 (113 percent) and Notebook 9 Pro (107 percent). With the XPS 15, you get an outstanding 188 percent gamut coverage. However, those colors don’t appear to be very accurate. Based on the Delta-E accuracy score, the panel scored 4.2 (0 is perfect). In comparison, the Yoga 720’s screen measured 272 nits on our light meter, falling just under the average of 276 nits. Yoga 720’s display measured 272 nits on our light meter, just under the benchmark average of 276. While the XPS 15 was better than both the Spectre (255 nits) and Notebook 9 Pro (266 nits), it fell short of the luminous Spectre (282).

photo of different views of operations
Photo source: Amazon.com

Easy To Use Touchpad & Keyboard

Lenovo has established itself as a leading manufacturer of great keyboards, and the Yoga 720 is no exception. Even though the rectangular keyboard doesn’t have the “wow” factor of ThinkPads, it offers a good amount of travel and is a joy to type on. It has a precise pressure point and a well-defined drop. The keys are evenly spaced and of a good size. There’s only one complaint that the arrow key layout is a bit cramped. In response to complaints concerning the half-sized Shift key on the Yoga 710, Lenovo redesigned the arrow keys to provide a full-sized right Shift key. The new design is warmly welcomed. 

Although the Yoga 720’s keyboard could have used more travel, it is still quite well built. Despite having only 1.2 millimeters of travel, the 71 grams of actuation provide a satisfying click. Also, even though the laptop has a darker, uniform color, you can still see the platinum silver accents around the lid, touchpad, and fingerprint reader, which, when the light catches them just right, makes the rest of the laptop stand out.

However, the Yoga 720’s keyboard isn’t as comfortable as Lenovo’s ThinkPad keyboard, but typing on it for extended periods is still enjoyable. As you type, you’ll hear a satisfying click, and there are three levels of backlighting so you can work in the dark. Now, that’s a perfect solution.

As with a ThinkPad, there isn’t quite as much essential travel as you see on this keyboard, and the deck isn’t as cushioned as it would be with a ThinkPad keyboard. Even so, this keyboard is among the favorites to type on. In addition, the F1 to F12 keys allow you to adjust volume, brightness, lock, and toggle the touchpad when using an external mouse.

people using laptop as tablet
Photo source: Amazon.com

Touchscreen

The Yoga 720 features an excellent 10-point touchscreen that displays touch information precisely and reliably. There was very little input lag, and the system recorded input exactly where the screen was touched. The touchscreen also supports Windows Ink, which is ideal for digital artists. Using a compatible pen (like the Lenovo Active Pen), Lenovo advertises that the system can register 4096 levels of pressure. However, due to the lack of Active Pen, the testers could not verify this claim. 

In addition, the 15.6-inch display is a bit awkward to navigate in the hands as a tablet due to its size and weight; while it is responsive, it’s a bit hard to hold.

folded laptop showing touch screen ability
Photo source: Amazon.com

Outstanding Display

The display of a laptop holds tremendous significance. Unfortunately, any large 2-in-1 is heavy when used as a tablet. To make it more comfortable, prop it on a flat surface or place it on your lap. The Yoga 720 15’s 360-degree convertible design makes holding it awkward at first because it has a keyboard and touchpad under your fingers. It’s not difficult to adjust, but you will miss having hardware volume buttons.

Despite its FHD (1920 x 1080) IPS touch display, the Yoga 720 is also available with a 4K option. When you see a screen with a small bezel, you’ll immediately notice how good it looks. Although the bezel is slim, there is a 720p webcam mounted at the top of the display; no nose cam here. The display’s color and contrast are in line with what you’d expect, and testing showed 97% sRGB and 78% AdobeRGB, both decent for a production of this kind. The glossy finish sometimes makes working outdoors or in direct sunlight difficult, but fortunately, the screen becomes exceptionally bright when you drag the slider from 90 to 100 percent. With two batteries inside, Lenovo is no doubt trying to squeeze as much life out of one, so that’s why there’s not much of a difference in the middle brightness range.

sideview of open laptop
Photo source: Amazon.com

Gaming Friendly

The Yoga 720 is an ideal laptop for light gaming with its 2GB VRAM and GeForce GTX 1050 GPU. Based on a benchmark using 3DMark Sky Diver, a score of 14,916 was achieved, which is greater than 46 percent of all results. In comparison, the highest score from a GTX 1050 is 26,968. Without a doubt, it is pushed to its limits. Using Diablo III at 1080p and all graphics settings on high, it is benchmarked to measure performance. At 4X High anti-aliasing. However, the average frame rate was 66.5 frames per second. The middle frame rate was 70.1FPS when anti-aliasing was off.

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Its real-world opinion is that the Yoga 720 can do well as a gaming machine if you don’t push it too hard. The laptop is primarily made as thin as possible, so it doesn’t have quite the same thermal performance as a dedicated gaming machine. As soon as the GPU starts working, the laptop becomes quite hot, and the fan must work hard and loud to prevent everything from going to pieces. Nevertheless, you can play newer games on this laptop at medium settings, and it’s a respectable machine when it comes to gaming.

front facing view of open laptop
Photo source: Amazon.com

Remarkable Performance

No significant performance issues were found after manual testing of the Yoga 720 as an everyday device for over a week. On the contrary, it performed well in every activity, including gaming. This is because the Intel Core i7-7700HQ quad-core CPU improves the usual U-series Ultrabook CPU but consumes more electricity.

That doesn’t seem to matter when using the 72WHr battery since it lasted between seven and eight hours on a single charge. As you play steadily, this number decreases by about three hours, and with a 4K display, that number will probably decrease as well. Lenovo still uses its proprietary charger instead of USB-C, which is a minor complaint.

sideview of width laptop
Photo source: Amazon.com

Battery Life

You should start with the usual caveat: your experience will vary depending on how your model is configured. The review unit has an Intel HD Core i7 CPU processor and 8GB of memory, close to the top-tier model but not quite there. Nevertheless, these benchmark results prove that a laptop is a powerful machine. Overall, the YOGA 720 is fast and performs well in everyday usage. If you’re inclined, you can use this laptop for gaming or virtual reality, and it efficiently runs more demanding software such as Photoshop.

Product Quality 

A Lenovo laptop is indisputable in terms of quality. Business users can almost exclusively rely on them. The product features too many benefits to highlight. For instance, you can easily convert it into a notebook computer. The device is relatively thin and sleek in design. In terms of weight, it is relatively light at 2 kg. Everything seems to be well so far. This is where it gets interesting. It has an Intel HD Core i7 7700HQ processor and a GTX 1050 GPU. What is the worst about it? The memory is only 8GB. Oops! That’s devastating. 

You would consider a laptop with such a combination as a gaming laptop if you saw it on a regular laptop, wouldn’t you? What about convertibles? Can they be considered gaming laptops as well? The people who will be using the laptop need to do a lot of presentations and do creative work. The MX150 or even the GT-940M would be sufficient and benefit the battery life if this were the case. Battery life does not seem to be an issue. With this configuration, the device can achieve 7.5 hours of run time for just browsing the Internet. So it is not an all-day laptop. 

The biggest issue with this config for its users is the RAM soldered to the mainboard. Since this is a convertible, upgrade options are already limited, and the soldered RAM restricts upgrade options even more. No sensible person would pay this laptop over 1000 Euros to play games on a convertible. It was evident that for this price, you can get a better gig with better specs to play games. The nice thing is that it has a Thunderbolt 3 port and features 512 GB SSD storage. So, it is future-proof even if the processor is from the 7th generation. 

With great power comes great responsibility, or to put it another way: with outstanding performance comes increased cooling requirements. For such a thin device with this kind of hardware, the Yoga 720 is trying its best. Fans can be loud sometimes, but they are quickly turned on. Whether you are considering this device for gaming or office work, it is suggested you do good research about alternatives. Since there are no great touch games for PCs yet, you should get something else for gaming. For office usage, there are better models in terms of weight. In my opinion, you will not need a 7700HQ, so it is better to go for a device with i7 8550U and MX150 GPU. Those models will be thinner and lighter, thus resulting in better battery usage. Hands-on article by Ümit Yılmaz Güneş.

Final Words

Since 2012, when Lenovo introduced its Yoga notebooks, Lenovo has been the market leader in convertible notebooks. Each year, new 2-in-1 notebooks with 360-degree hinges are developed, enabling the devices to be used in 4 different modes: laptop, tent, stand, and tablet. Despite some criticisms of the keyboard layout, screen flicker, and port selection, last year’s Yoga 710 line was a commercial and critical success. To address these issues, Lenovo has tweaked its Yoga 720 line’s design and upgraded its components.

As a result, Lenovo’s Yoga 15-inch is the largest and most powerful Yoga model yet. Lenovo’s Yoga 720 15 can also be customized at the time of purchase, and there is no shortage of options available. A Full HD (1920×1080) IPS touch screen and a 2 GB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 are among the features of this model. The unit also comes standard with 8 GB of RAM and a 256 GB NVMe SSD, both of which can be upgraded to 16 GB, DDR4 RAM, and 1 TB. Lenovo typically has sales on this particular configuration, which sells for around $1,260. 

The Yoga 720 is reviewed in several categories. This device fits the bill as a convertible, but it is also a multimedia notebook because it features an i7-7700HQ processor and a GTX 1050 graphics chip. Although at lower settings, the Yoga 720 benefits from the moderate power of the GTX 1050. Therefore, when you examine each aspect closely, you can see how this unit compares to notebooks from each of these categories.

This review compares the HP Spectre x360 15 and Dell XPS 13 9365 2-in-1, both excellent convertibles. In addition, the Yoga is sometimes compared with other multimedia notebooks, specifically the Dell XPS 15 9560 (UHD) and HP Pavilion 15t-bc200. Finally, the Lenovo Legion Y520 and the Samsung Odyssey are entry-level gaming laptops that provide a good sense of gaming capabilities. 

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