With the massive 70WH battery, the 920 excelled with an impressive 8.61 hour battery life in our web browsing test.
Next we take a look at the brand new 8th generation Intel Core i7 8550U processor. It’s a 4C/8T CPU with a turbo frequency of up to 4GHz and it does all this while using just 15W. Our x264 and WinRAR benchmarks are designed to pin the CPU to measure both single and multi-core performance across different processors. As expected, the Yoga 920 comes out on top. WinRAR shows single-core performance has increased slightly from the competition. Multi-threaded performance is a totally different story with the Yoga 920 coming in at 65% higher performance than our previous top contender. The x264 benchmark shows another large gain but not quite as much. Overall the Yoga 920’s CPU puts up great numbers for short burst tasks. Longer, more sustained loads may slow due to throttling, but that is to be expected.
The Samsung SSD is a great storage option and although write speeds are slightly slower than the HP Spectre 360, the Yoga 920 dominates in read performance. For random reads and write, the 920 falls to third place in our roundup. This result will likely only matter to those with highly specialized, storage-heavy loads.
On to the RAM now where the 920 is situated right in the middle of the pack. I would have expected it to have done better here. Although I don’t have the model to test, I would guess the higher-end configurations with 16GB of RAM to put up better results.
The Futuremark PCMark8 benchmarks simulate typical use cases for office work, content creation, and home use. The 920 leads our charts in the Work Suite test but falls to fourth place in the Creative Suite test and second place in the Home Suite. This may be caused by excessive throttling and limited RAM. The 920 isn’t necessarily designed a workstation-class laptop so despite the high price tag, you shouldn’t expect game-changing performance out it.
In our 3DMark tests, the Yoga 920 did well for what we’re used to see from Intel integrated graphics. This is a graphics-heavy test, so it’s not at all surprising that the Surface Book pulls ahead with its (modest yet dedicated) GTX 940 GPU while the Yoga 920 is using onboard Intel 620 graphics. What is surprising is that the 920 beats the Surface Book in the Cloud Gate Test. Compared to the new Ryzen APUs that we tested recently, Intel’s integrated graphics lag way behind though (8011 score in Sky Diver, 11832 in Cloud Gate).
Lenovo’s Windows installation comes with a few programs that you should uninstall, but overall it’s not too bloaty. Bootup and login times are fast thanks to the SSD and fingerprint sensor. That about wraps it up. Starting at $1,200, Lenovo’s Yoga 920 2-in-1 is not the most affordable ultraportable you will find, but you certainly get what you pay for. The all-metal exterior makes the laptop feel premium on the outside and the internal component selection makes it premium on the inside as well. Although it feels one notch too tight for me, the hinge system is truly the best that money can buy right now. If you’re in the market for an ultrabook or 2-in-1 device, it’s hard to go wrong with the Yoga 920. Shopping Shortcuts: Cons: Very few user-upgradeable components. Limited I/O.
