Lenovo Unveils First Snapdragon 850 Always-on Notebook: 13.3-inch Yoga C630

We’ve talked a lot about Qualcomm’s Snapdragon always-on notebooks in the past, but there’s one word we’re somehow only discovering just now: nomophobia. That’s the fear of being without your mobile device, either because it was plucked from your grasp, or because the battery finally gave up on life. I shouldn’t be surprised that such a word exists, but fortunately, it shouldn’t be hard to remember.

I used to have a certain level of nomophobia, but current-gen phones tend to last so long on a single charge, I’ve actually begun to not even care if my battery is at 25%, whereas I used to want to plug it in at 60%. With “always-on” notebooks, people who suffer from nomophobia are hopefully never going to have to feel the ill effects of it.

To date, three notebooks have shipped with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 835, and with recent Windows updates, they’re a solid option for those who would like to go the entire day without having to plug in their notebook. Things will only get better from here on out, and Lenovo’s just-announced Yoga C630 WOS is the first proof we’re seeing of that.

“WOS” stands for “Windows on Snapdragon”, and what immediately sets the C630 apart from the rest is its inclusion of Qualcomm’s newest Snapdragon, the 850 it announced at Computex in June. It was actually Qualcomm we received news of this notebook from, not Lenovo, so there’s a big push on the Snapdragon front, but that’s to be expected.

This notebook is supposed to be 30% faster than the previous generation, and offer greater efficiency overall to boot. LTE support on tap can handle up to 1.2Gbps using the Snapdragon X20 modem. Despite a business slant with these notebooks, this WOS model runs with Windows 10 Home, not Pro. Being a Lenovo product, the C630 fortunately supports Lenovo Pen and Windows Ink for those who like to take notes by handwriting (or like to draw, for that matter).

Here’s a big promise: the Lenovo Yoga C630 could last up to 25 hours on a single charge while playing back locally stored video. Clearly, that’s going to assume a screen being run at a modest brightness, but even so, those are numbers we don’t see talked about with regards to notebooks.

Other key specs of the C630 include a 1080p 13.3-inch touchscreen display, a weight of just 1.2KG, a completely fanless design, and a €999 price tag (VAT included) when it launches next month. No word quite yet on American pricing. Something tells me Lenovo won’t last long as the lone company behind Snapdragon 850.