Lenovo's new Yoga laptop doesn't do 360-degrees, gains new AI tricks instead

At CES 2019 Lenovo was in full force, introducing three new members to its Yoga notebook and PC family. Interestingly, that includes one model that doesn’t even offer the signature Yoga 2-in-1 features and instead opts for a more conventional clamshell design.

The new Yoga S940 loses its most iconic feature, gains new tricks

The Yoga brand has always been strongly associated with 2-in-1 designs, letting you transform your laptop into tent mode or even a tablet with its 360-degree display hinge. The new S940 removes this iconic trait in favor of a clamshell design. Despite losing one of the Yoga’s arguably best features, the S940 gains some new AI features that are part of Lenovo’s Smart Assist suite.

For remote workers like myself, the S940 allows you to filter out backgrounds in video calls and can even filter out ambient noise, helping eliminate possible background distractions like pets and children. There’s also AI sensors that can detect if you leave your computer and auto-lock the display to protect your computer from would-be snoopers.

It’s not all about security as the AI features also have productivity implications. For example, if you look from your main laptop over to a screen screen, the laptop will automatically track this movement and shift open windows and content to the external screen.

In what is a bit of a trend at CES 2019, there’s also hands-free PC log-in features that use a proximity sensor to detect when you are near and a Windows Hello camera to perform the actual log-in process.

Hardware will vary depending on the configuration but is backed by Intel 8th-gen Core i7, 8 or 16GB of RAM, up to 1 TB of storage, and battery life of up to 15 hours. The 13.9-inch IPS display supports full HD with optional 4K configurations available.

The Yoga S940 will be available this May starting at $1,499.99.

The Lenovo Yoga C730 goes back to tent mode

The other new Yoga notebook announced at CES, the C730, keeps the 360-degree display hinge design that most of the Yoga laptops have had over the years. The C730 weighs 4.16 pounds but has a big 15.6-inch UHD AMOLED touchscreen with a resolution of 3,840 x 2,160. Inside, the Windows 10 notebook has an Intel 8th-gen Core i7 processor, support for up to 16GB of RAM and up to 512GB of storage. The battery life is “targeting” up to 8 hours on a single charge.

The Lenovo Yoga C730 has a lot of features for people working on the go. It includes an Active Pen 2 stylus that provides owners with 4,096 levels of sensitivity. It also comes with JBL speakers on board, and it even has far-field microphones if you want to use your voice to command some of its functions. It’s due out in April for the starting price of $1,699.99

The Lenovo Yoga A940 is an all-in-one PC made for artists

Finally, we have the Lenovo Yoga A940, an all-in-one desktop PC that looks much like Microsoft’s Surface Studio, although its overall design is a bit bulkier than Microsoft’s model. The A940 has a 27-inch touchscreen display that can rotate 25 degrees so people can use it as a digital drawing pad. It also throws in a Precious Dial tool that can be placed on either the left or right-hand side of the display. It allows for digital artists and draftsmen to get even more precise control over their work, including adjusting the brush size, design and more while holding a digital pen in the other hand.

The big display can be purchased either with a 1080p or 4K resolution screen and inside you can get the PC with five Dolby Atmos speakers.  Inside, you get an Intel 8th-gen Core i7 processor, up to 32GB of RAM and up to 2TB of onboard storage.

Probably one of the coolest features outside of the drawing aspects is the integrated wireless charger. This pad lets you charge up your supported smartphone while you work. Unfortunately the mouse is not wireless charging cable, as Lenovo said that they experimented with the possibility but ultimately determined it just wasn’t a practical solution.

The Lenovo Yoga A940 is due for release in March starting at $2,3499.99.