Lenovo Ideapad 730S review – Lenovo’s thinnest laptop yet

Today’s star of our review is a 13-inch premium IdeaPad (yes these two words can exist in a single sentence). It’s called the Lenovo IdeaPad 730S, or as they call it in Europe – Yoga S730. Truly, Europeans know nothing about Yoga, since all this laptop can do is lay flat on the ground… like a drunk European on October fest.

Where were we?! Ah, yes, the IdeaPad 730S. Indeed it is a magnificent looking device with all aluminum built, glass protection on top of the screen and incredibly thin profile – 11.9mm to be precise, and according to Lenovo it’s the thinnest laptop they’ve ever made. On the inside, you can find a Whiskey Lake quad-core CPU – either the Core i5 or the Core i7 counterpart. Now let’s dig further to evaluate what has Lenovo sacrificed in order to achieve such a thin form factor.

You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: https://laptopmedia.com/series/lenovo-ideapad-730s-13/

Contents


Specs Sheet

Lenovo ideapad 730S 13 technical specifications table

Acer
Not available
Display
13.3”, Full HD (1920 x 1080), IPS
HDD/SSD
256GB NVMe SSD
M.2 Slot
1x 2280 PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe M.2 slot See photo
RAM
8GB DDR4
Dimensions
307 x 210 x 11.9 mm (12.09" x 8.27" x 0.47")
Weight
1.10 kg (2.4 lbs)
Body material
Aluminum
Ports and connectivity
  • 1x USB Type-C 3.2 Gen 2 (10 Gbps), Thunderbolt 3, DisplayPort, Sleep and Charge, HDMI
  • 1x USB Type-C 3.2 Gen 2 (10 Gbps), Thunderbolt 3, DisplayPort, HDMI
  • 1x USB Type-C 3.2 Gen 1 (5 Gbps)
  • Wi-Fi 802.11ac
  • Bluetooth 4.1
  • Audio jack combo audio / microphone jack
Features
  • Web camera HD 720p
  • Microphone
  • Speakers 2x 2W
  • Security Lock slot

What’s in the box?

Opening the box we are presented with the IdeaPad 730S, hidden in black protective cloth – nice touch Lenovo. Despite the relatively large box, though, there is nothing more to be excited about – just a 65W charging brick.


Design and construction

Ideapad 730S’ strongest point is its form factor. As you may already know, if you didn’t skip the intro of this review, it has an aluminum unibody which measures 11.9 mm in thickness and weighs just 1100 grams. Despite the thin design, it is far from being the lightest device out there as it is 120 grams heavier than the Acer Swift 5 (SF514-52). Well… yes 120 grams is obviously nothing but fraction-wise it is good 12% from the Swift’s weight. However, the Ideapad 730S feels a lot sturdier with a super solid chassis, which is hardly bendable.

The bend resistance is transferred to the lid, mainly thanks to the hard aluminum cover and glass protection of the screen. It comes so close to being opened with a single hand, just to lift its bottom around 70 degrees.

Next, we move to the keyboard compartment. It looks tightly packed, but the keys are incredibly large for a 13-inch laptop. It certainly got us interested as it has a decent travel and tactile feedback – feature unseen at this thickness. Actually, it is one of the best 13-inch laptop keyboards we’ve tested. But wait! There is more! It has a backlight. And if you think that is all a keyboard can handle, Lenovo is here to disprove you. They have given the keyboard an important task of supplying the fan with breathing, by letting cold air through its structure. This has its disadvantages, though – the moment you spill that rich coffee on top, it is immediately absorbed by the Ideapad 730S’ internals.

Enough for the apparently pretty important keyboard. It’s time to bring the touchpad in the game. It has a relatively large area (for a Windows laptop). It is as well, tactile on touch, and feels accurate and responsive. On the right to it, there is a fingerprint reader. Moreover, an incredibly fast and accurate one. We weren’t fast enough for it to challenge its full speed, since every time we tried to trick it – the sensor still got our fingerprint – a’ la OnePlus.

WidthLengthHeightWeight
Lenovo Ideapad 730S307 mm (12.1″)210 mm (8.3″)11.9 mm (0.5″)1.1 kg (2.43 lbs)
Dell XPS 13 9370302 mm (11.89″)199 mm (7.83″)16.2 mm (0.64″) (+36%)1.27 kg (2.8 lbs) (+13%)
ASUS ZenBook 13 UX333302 mm (11.89″)189 mm (7.44″)16.9 mm (0.67″) (+42%)1.09 kg (2.4 lbs) (-1%)
Apple MacBook Air 2018304 mm (11.97″)212 mm (8.35″)15.6 mm (0.61″) (+31%)1.25 kg (2.8 lbs) (+14%)
Acer Swift 5 (SF514-52)329 mm (12.95″)228 mm (8.98″)15 mm (0.59″) (+26%)0.97 kg (2.1 lbs) (-12%)

Ports

There is not much to talk hear, whatsoever. The I/O comprises of only three USB Type-C connectors and a headphone jack. At least two of the USBs have Thunderbolt support, whilst the other one is just 3.1 (Gen. 1). Thankfully, all three can be used to charge the laptop, although in order to use most of the accessories currently available you need to purchase a dongle.


Disassembly, upgrade options and maintenance

We are happy to say that Ideapad 730S is one of the easiest devices to dig into. There are a total of 9 Torx-head screws on the bottom plate. After removing them, traditionally, you have to unpry the panel which is also pretty easy, as most of the mounting pressure is left on the screws themselves rather than on plastic brackets.

Now, after we’ve laid our first look upon the guts of this Lenovo, we are left with mixed feelings.

First, take a look at the cooling solution. There is one relatively fat heat pipe, which goes from the CPU straight down to the fan-blown heatsink. However, despite the lack of an external GPU option, there is a second, thinner heat pipe which leads the opposite way. Contrary to the bulkier one, it uses the bottom plate of the device to dissipate the heat. While it is a nice touch from Lenovo, which probably is going to result in slightly higher frame rates in some non-demanding games, it has its downsides as well. It will only work if you don’t use it on your lap, as it will start transferring the heat from your body towards the CPU and basically will neutralize the effect of this system.

Sadly, there is no chance to upgrade RAM, so pick your devices carefully when you buy them. Honestly, we weren’t really expecting the RAM to be upgradable since at 12mm there is no real space for them. Even the thicker (15mm) Acer Swift 5 didn’t have them.

However, we are happy to see an M.2 NVMe slot, which in this case is occupied by a Samsung PM981 PCIe NVMe drive.

Finally, there is the battery. It takes around half of the space inside the chassis and is rated at 42Wh.


Display quality

Lenovo Ideapad 730S has a Full HD IPS panel, AUO B133HAN05.1 (LEN8190). Its diagonal is 13.3-inch (33.78 cm), and the resolution – 1920 х 1080p. Additionally, the screen ratio is 16:9, the pixel density – 166 ppi, their pitch – 0.153 х 0.153 mm. The screen can be considered Retina when viewed from at least 53 cm (from this distance, the average human eye can’t see the individual pixels).

It has comfortable viewing angles. We offer images at different angles to evaluate the quality.

The maximum measured brightness is 330 nits (cd/m2) in the middle of the screen and 321 nits (cd/m2) average across the surface with a maximum deviation of just 2%. The Correlated Color Temperature on a white screen and at maximum brightness is 6430K – almost matching the 6500K standard temperature for sRGB. The average color temperature through the grey scale before profiling is 6670K.
In the illustration below you can see how the display performs from uniformity perspective. The illustration below shows how matters are for operational brightness levels (approximately 140 nits) – in this particular case at 75% Brightness (White level = 142 cd/m2, Black level = 0.095 cd/m2).
Values of dE2000 over 4.0 should not occur, and this parameter is one of the first you should check if you intend to use the laptop for color sensitive work (a maximum tolerance of 2.0 ). The contrast ratio is excellent – 1520:1 (1450:1 after profiling).

To make sure we are on the same page, we would like to give you a little introduction of the sRGB color gamut and the Adobe RGB. To start, there’s the CIE 1976 Uniform Chromaticity Diagram that represents the visible specter of colors by the human eye, giving you a better perception of the color gamut coverage and the color accuracy.

Inside the black triangle, you will see the standard color gamut (sRGB) that is being used by millions of people in HDTV and on the web. As for the Adobe RGB, this is used in professional cameras, monitors, etc for printing. Basically, colors inside the black triangle are used by everyone and this is the essential part of the color quality and color accuracy of a mainstream notebook.

Still, we’ve included other color spaces like the famous DCI-P3 standard used by movie studios, as well as the digital UHD Rec.2020 standard. Rec.2020, however, is still a thing of the future and it’s difficult for today’s displays to cover that well. We’ve also included the so-called Michael Pointer gamut, or Pointer’s gamut, which represents the colors that naturally occur around us every day.

The yellow dotted line shows Lenovo Ideapad 730S’s color gamut coverage.

Its display covers 97% of the sRGB/ITU-R BT.709 (web/HDTV standard) in CIE1976, ensuring a vibrant image.

Our “Design and Gaming” profile delivers optimal color temperature (6500K) at 140 cd/m2 luminance and sRGB gamma mode.

We tested the accuracy of the display with 24 commonly used colors like light and dark human skin, blue sky, green grass, orange, etc. You can check out the results at factory condition and also, with the “Design and Gaming” profile.

Below you can compare the scores of Lenovo Ideapad 730S with the default settings (left), and with the “Gaming and Web design” profile (right).

The next figure shows how well the display is able to reproduce really dark parts of an image, which is essential when watching movies or playing games in low ambient light.

The left side of the image represents the display with stock settings, while the right one is with the “Gaming and Web Design” profile activated. On the horizontal axis, you will find the grayscale and on the vertical axis – the luminance of the display. On the two graphs below you can easily check for yourself how your display handles the darkest nuances but keep in mind that this also depends on the settings of your current display, the calibration, the viewing angle, and the surrounding light conditions.

Response time (Gaming capabilities)

We test the reaction time of the pixels with the usual “black-to-white” and “white-to-black” method from 10% to 90% and vice versa.

We recorded Fall Time + Rise Time = 32 ms – relatively slow panel.


Health impact – PWM / Blue Light

PWM (Screen flickering)

Pulse-width modulation (PWM) is an easy way to control monitor brightness. When you lower the brightness, the light intensity of the backlight is not lowered, but instead turned off and on by the electronics with a frequency indistinguishable to the human eye. In these light impulses, the light/no-light time ratio varies, while brightness remains unchanged, which is harmful to your eyes. You can read more about that in our dedicated article on PWM.

We are continuing our combo of testing non-PWM laptop displays. This means the Lenovo Ideapad 730S is safe for use for the entire workday, without providing a further strain on your eyes in this aspect.

Blue light emissions

Installing our Health-Guard profile not only eliminates PWM but also reduces the harmful Blue Light emissions while keeping the colors of the screen perceptually accurate. If you’re not familiar with the Blue light, the TL;DR version is – emissions that negatively affect your eyes, skin and your whole body. You can find more information about that in our dedicated article on Blue Light.

You can see the levels of emitted blue light on the spectral power distribution (SPD) graph.

Conclusion

Lenovo has chosen an incredible 13.3-inch panel for the Ideapad 730S. It has a Full HD resolution and comfortable viewing angles. Yet, the most exciting aspects of the display are yet to come – high maximum brightness, wide color coverage (97% of sRGB) and it doesn’t use PWM for brightness adjustment. And last but not least, it’s white balance matches almost perfectly the sRGB standard, while its default color settings are also pretty adequate. This means the Lenovo Ideapad 730S is perfect for web-designers on the go.

Buy our profiles

Since our profiles are tailored for each individual display model, this article and its respective profile package are meant for Lenovo Ideapad 730S configurations with 13.3″ AUO B133HAN05.1 (LEN8190) (FHD, 1920 × 1080) IPS panel.

*Should you have problems with downloading the purchased file, try using a different browser to open the link you’ll receive via e-mail. If the download target is a .php file instead of an archive, change the file extension to .zip or contact us at [email protected].

Read more about the profiles HERE.

In addition to receiving efficient and health-friendly profiles, by buying LaptopMedia's products you also support the development of our labs, where we test devices in order to produce the most objective reviews possible.

Office Work

Office Work should be used mostly by users who spend most of the time looking at pieces of text, tables or just surfing. This profile aims to deliver better distinctness and clarity by keeping a flat gamma curve (2.20), native color temperature and perceptually accurate colors.

Design and Gaming

This profile is aimed at designers who work with colors professionally, and for games and movies as well. Design and Gaming takes display panels to their limits, making them as accurate as possible in the sRGB IEC61966-2-1 standard for Web and HDTV, at white point D65.

Health-Guard

Health-Guard eliminates the harmful Pulse-Width Modulation (PWM) and reduces the negative Blue Light which affects our eyes and body. Since it’s custom tailored for every panel, it manages to keep the colors perceptually accurate. Health-Guard simulates paper so the pressure on the eyes is greatly reduced.

Get all 3 profiles with 33% discount


Sound

Surprisingly, given the form factor, the Ideapad 730S’ speakers sound loud and deep. They utilize Dolby’s Atmos technology. In addition to that its tones are clear throughout the entire frequency range.


Drivers

You can find everything you need for the Ideapad 730S no Lenovo’s official web page: https://pcsupport.lenovo.com/bg/en/products/laptops-and-netbooks/700-series/730s-13iwl/downloads

Storage performance

Sadly, there is no way to be sure if Lenovo is going to choose the same SSD for your region. However, we got lucky, because in our case, they used Samsung PM981, which is one of the best NVMe drives currently available on the market – 3.41 GB/s Read and 1.88 GB/s Write speeds.

SSD model (240-256GB variants)Max.Seq.Read (GB/s)Max.Seq.Write (GB/s)IOPS 4K ReadIOPS 4K WriteLatency Read (ms)Latency Write (ms)
Samsung PM9813.411.8812199279610.0400.035
Toshiba KBG30ZMS256G1.480.248091198201.5640.309
LITE-ON CA3-8D512-Q113.181.669864251360.1710.041
Intel Pro 6000p Series1.830.597792282660.0750.033

Battery

Now, we conduct the battery tests with Windows Better performance setting turned on, screen brightness adjusted to 120 nits and all other programs turned off except for the one we are testing the notebook with. Here we have a big for the size of the device 42Wh battery on board.

We are more than happy of the battery life of this notebook – around 11 hours of web browsing and almost 9 hours of video playback will be more than enough for your best needs away from the plug. In addition to that, you can play some Minesweeper and DOTA2 for around 2 hours before it dies.

In order to simulate real-life conditions, we used our own script for automatic web browsing through over 70 websites.

We use F1 2017’s built-in benchmark on loop in order to simulate real-life gaming.


CPU options

At the moment of writing this review, Ideapad 730S is available with two processor options. They are both a part of the Whiskey Lake family – Intel Core i5-8265U and the Core i7-8565U. Either of them is of a quad-core / octa-thread configuration and in this form factor, we reckon that the i5 would be a more appropriate choice since it works on a lower clock, hence produces less heat.


GPU options

Quite obviously, Ideapad 730S can be bought only with the integrated UHD Graphics 620.

Intel UHD Graphics 620 is a refresh of the HD Graphics 620 found as an integrated solution in many ULV Kaby Lake processors. UHD Graphics 620 is codenamed “Kaby Lake R U GT2” and it’s a part of the Gen 9.5 generation.

Intel UHD Graphics 620 has roughly the same performance as HD Graphics 620, depending on the other components in the system. UHD Graphics 620’s performance is similar to AMD Radeon R5 M420X and NVIDIA GeForce 910M/920M.


Gaming tests

Lenovo IdeaPad 730S performs more or less the same as ASUS ZenBook 13 UX333 with the UHD 620 onboard graphics.

cs-go-benchmarks

CS:GOHD 1080p, Low (Check settings)HD 1080p, Medium (Check settings)HD 1080p, MAX (Check settings)
Average FPS57 fps33 fps15 fps

DOTA 2HD 1080p, Low (Check settings)HD 1080p, Normal (Check settings)HD 1080p, High (Check settings)
Average FPS77 fps39 fps16 fps

GTA-V-benchmarks

Grand Theft Auto V (GTA 5)HD 768p, Normal (Check settings)HD 768p, High (Check settings)HD 768p, Very High (Check settings)
Average FPS35 fps– fps– fps

Temperatures and comfort

Max CPU load

In this test we use 100% on the CPU cores, monitoring their frequencies and chip temperature. The first column shows a computer’s reaction to a short load (2-10 seconds), the second column simulates a serious task (between 15 and 30 seconds), and the third column is a good indicator of how good the laptop is for long loads such as video rendering.

Average core temperature (base frequency + X); CPU temp.

ASUS ZenBook 13 UX3333.12 GHz (B+95%)@ 89°C2.50 GHz (B+56%)@ 95°C2.27 GHz (B+42%)@ 83°C

Intel Core i5-8265U (15W TDP)0:02 – 0:10 sec0:15 – 0:30 sec10:00 – 15:00 min
Lenovo Ideapad 730S2.47 GHz (B+54%) @ 84°C2.39 GHz (B+49%) @ 90°C1.83 GHz (B+14%) @ 76°C
HP ProBook 440 G62.55 GHz (B+59%) @ 59°C2.56 GHz (B+60%) @ 67°C2.09 GHz (B+31%) @ 67°C

Ideapad 730S expectedly didn’t perform brilliantly in the temperature tests. It started off at 2.47 GHz at 84C which is not too bad given the tight space. Further, into the test, the average clock speed dropped ever so slightly while the CPU was starting to glow red at 90C. At the final, the frequency was barely 230 MHz above the base clock speed at reasonable temperature values. You can compare it to HP ProBook 440 G6’s stability, which certainly ensures longer life of the CPU, thanks to a much better cooling and a wider space inside the chassis.

Gaming comfort

Well, obviously we have a very thin device here. So, high temperatures on the outside were inevitable. High temperatures are indeed what we got here – 50C right above the “I” key. Saying that we should also note the relatively warm right side of the palm-rest area. Thankfully, your left hand is safe. However, if you remember our teardown, you should know that there is a free heat pipe transferring heat from the CPU to the bottom plate. Hence, we measured the highest temperature of the bottom plate and it was 42C – meaning your legs are going to have a hard time under heavy load, further disrupting the thermals of the Ideapad 730S. Poor thinking.


Verdict

Definitely an interesting laptop from Lenovo. As it is interesting, it is not for everybody. If you want a device that is going to serve you as a long-lasting companion, or you need it for the university, meeting rooms or somewhere where you need to be quiet – well, that’s not the laptop for you. With its 11.9 mm thickness it is a brilliant piece of technology and looks stunning, but be sure that this little fan is going to kick in at any time. Even when copying files and especially, when updating your favorite Windows.

In addition to that, there is the weird “Enter” key shape and the hard to get used to the layout of the keyboard. Although we were very surprised by the key travel it had to offer – we’ve seen substantially thicker devices with nowhere near the key travel. At the end of the day, we’ll place the keyboard more towards the Pros rather than the Cons.

One more advantage of this laptop is its performance – despite the heat output, it manages to get very competitive benchmark scores. Plus, it is super snappy in day-to-day use. In addition to that, it has very good speakers and the screen suffices in every possible aspect (of course, except the size for some people). It (AUO B133HAN05.1 (LEN8190)) has good contrast, covers sRGB almost fully (97%) and hits the sweet spot of color accuracy even with default settings. Moreover, the 330 nits maximum brightness should be enough for outdoor use.

We would clearly recommend this product, just if it wasn’t for the ZenBook 13 UX333, which has more performance, smaller footprint, and runs significantly cooler on the outside. Quite frankly, the Ideapad 730S has something up its sleeve against its opponent – despite the justified lack of full-sized USB ports, it is equipped with two Thunderbolt-enabled Type-C ports.

Pros

  • Long lasting battery
  • 11.9 mm thin chassis
  • Surprisingly long key travel
  • Very high contrast, 98% sRGB coverage and accurate default settings (AUO B133HAN05.1 (LEN8190))
  • It doesn’t use PWM to adjust screen brightness + it has decent maximum brightness (AUO B133HAN05.1 (LEN8190))
  • Good benchmark scores, despite the tight cooling
  • Thunderbolt Type-C connection


Cons

  • Lacks essential I/O ports
  • Heats up under pressure
  • The fan kicks in during simple load

You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: https://laptopmedia.com/series/lenovo-ideapad-730s-13/

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James
James
4 years ago

Grabbed this laptop, currently on offer at £699.

Thanks for the ICC Profile. The Gaming and Design one will do fine!