Lenovo Yoga C930 Laptop Review: Dolby Vision And Atmos Deliver
Lenovo Yoga C930: Dolby Makes Everything Better
Dolby Vision and Atmos are the two of the latest technologies and buzzwords plastered on everything from televisions to smartphones. The Lenovo Yoga C930 is among them and incorporates both technologies. Both versions of the 13.9-inch LCD support Dolby Vision technology and an app lets you choose between three profiles – Dark, Bright or Vivid.
Lenovo claims the 1080p display in our review unit maxes out at 300 nits, which is a far cry from the 1000+ nits achieved by the latest TV sets. We caught up on a couple episodes of Marvel’s Iron Fist season 2 on Netflix, which supports Dolby Vision via the Microsoft Edge browser, for the sake of testing and walked away impressed.
The colors were vibrant, and the black levels were inky black. While the whites weren’t blindingly bright as we’ve become accustomed to from high-end TVs, the overall image had more depth to it than anything else we’ve come across that isn’t OLED.
Small notebooks aren’t really known to produce good audio. All the tweaking and tuning can’t overcome physics of such a small footprint. However, Lenovo manages to impress with the Yoga C930’s audio system, which replaces the previous version’s watchband hinge. The soundbar incorporates two tweeters that can project optimal audio regardless of the notebook’s orientation. A pair of woofers in the base widen the sound stage while Dolby Atmos technology applies audio wizardry to produce the best laptop sound system we’ve heard in a device this size.
Dolby Atmos comes with an accompanying app that provides different audio profiles for Movie, Music, Game and Voice use. A 10-band equalizer is available for those that prefer to tweak audio themselves. There’s a Dynamic profile that automatically selects the best settings for your content, but we found manually selecting the audio profile yielded better sound quality.
Dialogue was crystal clear when we watched Marvel’s Iron Fist and we managed to crank the volume up to 100 without any distortion. We listened to several songs, including Santana’s Black Magic Woman, The Weeknd’s I Feel It Coming and Lindsey Stirling’s Brave Enough, and found clarity and detail with a semblance of bass. You shouldn’t expect room shaking bass by any means, but the Yoga C930 can recreate mid-bass smoothly without distortion, which is an impressive feat in something so thin and light.
While we may gush about the Dolby Atmos sound bar in the Yoga C930, it cannot overcome physical limitations. The woofers in the base may widen the sound stage overall, but it resonates throughout the entire chassis. You can feel bass reverberate through the keyboard at higher volume levels. There’s very little stereo separation either, but that’s not possible considering how narrow the sound bar must be to fit the form factor.
Despite our nitpicking, the Dolby Atmos-tuned audio is an impressive feat in a small notebook. It’s good enough to make you think twice about getting external speakers.
Lenovo claims the 1080p display in our review unit maxes out at 300 nits, which is a far cry from the 1000+ nits achieved by the latest TV sets. We caught up on a couple episodes of Marvel’s Iron Fist season 2 on Netflix, which supports Dolby Vision via the Microsoft Edge browser, for the sake of testing and walked away impressed.
The colors were vibrant, and the black levels were inky black. While the whites weren’t blindingly bright as we’ve become accustomed to from high-end TVs, the overall image had more depth to it than anything else we’ve come across that isn’t OLED.
Small notebooks aren’t really known to produce good audio. All the tweaking and tuning can’t overcome physics of such a small footprint. However, Lenovo manages to impress with the Yoga C930’s audio system, which replaces the previous version’s watchband hinge. The soundbar incorporates two tweeters that can project optimal audio regardless of the notebook’s orientation. A pair of woofers in the base widen the sound stage while Dolby Atmos technology applies audio wizardry to produce the best laptop sound system we’ve heard in a device this size.
Dolby Atmos comes with an accompanying app that provides different audio profiles for Movie, Music, Game and Voice use. A 10-band equalizer is available for those that prefer to tweak audio themselves. There’s a Dynamic profile that automatically selects the best settings for your content, but we found manually selecting the audio profile yielded better sound quality.
Dialogue was crystal clear when we watched Marvel’s Iron Fist and we managed to crank the volume up to 100 without any distortion. We listened to several songs, including Santana’s Black Magic Woman, The Weeknd’s I Feel It Coming and Lindsey Stirling’s Brave Enough, and found clarity and detail with a semblance of bass. You shouldn’t expect room shaking bass by any means, but the Yoga C930 can recreate mid-bass smoothly without distortion, which is an impressive feat in something so thin and light.
While we may gush about the Dolby Atmos sound bar in the Yoga C930, it cannot overcome physical limitations. The woofers in the base may widen the sound stage overall, but it resonates throughout the entire chassis. You can feel bass reverberate through the keyboard at higher volume levels. There’s very little stereo separation either, but that’s not possible considering how narrow the sound bar must be to fit the form factor.
Despite our nitpicking, the Dolby Atmos-tuned audio is an impressive feat in a small notebook. It’s good enough to make you think twice about getting external speakers.
