Lenovo ThinkPad C13 Yoga Chromebook Review: A Beautiful Marriage

Lenovo’s new ThinkPad C13 Yoga Chromebook has every little thing ThinkPad followers love—there’s an important keyboard, a sturdy, no-nonsense design, and sure, the little purple TrackPoint within the center—however as a substitute of Home windows or Linux, it runs Google’s Chrome OS.

It isn’t the most affordable nor the prettiest Chromebook round, however that is the nicest I’ve used. The two-in-1 design comes with a built-in stylus, the trackpad has buttons on the prime, and there are many ports. If you happen to love ThinkPads and are contemplating dipping your toes into Chrome OS land, this laptop computer is for you.

ThinkPad {Hardware}

The C13 Yoga is Lenovo’s first time bringing the ThinkPad title to a Chromebook, so it is fascinating to see what Lenovo sees because the defining traits of a ThinkPad. 

Every little thing I like about my favorite ThinkPad, the X270, is right here within the C13 Yoga—the keyboard is almost equivalent to each different ThinkPad of current reminiscence (the format follows the Chromebook model), the TrackPoint is current, and the trackpad buttons are on the prime. You will additionally discover a fingerprint reader and a slew of ports, together with two USB-C, two USB-A, a MicroSD card reader, and an HDMI. Curiously, it has a phone-style quantity rocker too.

What makes it extra fascinating is it is one of many first Chromebooks utilizing AMD’s newest 3000C-series processors. There are a couple of configurations, beginning with the entry-level mannequin that makes use of the Athlon Gold chip with 4 gigabytes of RAM. Then there’s the Ryzen 3 mannequin, additionally with 4 gigabytes of RAM, adopted by the mannequin I examined, which has a Ryzen 5 chip and eight gigabytes of RAM (a higher-tier Ryzen 7 can be out there). Laborious drive choices vary from a paltry 32 gigabytes to 256 gigs on the mannequin I examined. All of the SSDs use PCIe NVMe connections.

The Ryzen 5 chip in my check unit is loads quick. Chrome OS does not ask an excessive amount of of a processor, in order that’s not shocking. However even enhancing photographs in an Android app, opening dozens of tabs in Chrome, and typing that is in Vim utilizing Linux options did not gradual it down in any respect. It is each bit as quick as premium Chromebooks like Samsung’s Galaxy Chromebook or the Pixelbook Go.

The 1080p display screen is brilliant and sharp, a pleasant change from inexpensive Lenovo Chromebooks that are likely to have washed-out, muddy screens. There’s additionally an choice to get a 4K OLED display screen with the C13 Yoga, however given the battery life, I’d hesitate so as to add a power-hungry display screen (extra on that later).