The IdeaCentre Yoga A940 (starts at $2,299.99, in the model tested) is Lenovo's take on Microsoft's Surface Studio concept: that is, a convertible all-in-one desktop.
Like the Studio's, the A940's touch screen reclines for use as a digital drafting board, making it possible to sketch, model, and do general tasks all on one PC.
Two useful accessories, a stylus and the Surface Dial-like Precision Dial, come bundled, and the A940 packs a bit more speed than the Studio 2 at a lower price.
By and large, the A940 hits its target, but it underwhelms in places, notably in the quality of its build and screen.
The Surface Studio 2 remains our top pick in this admittedly niche category of PCs, but if you're on a tighter budget and the concept syncs with your workflow, the Yoga 940 is a unique, functional alternative.
Living Up to the Yoga Name: A Convertible All-in-One Desktop
On its own merits, the IdeaCentre Yoga A940 is a uniquely handy desktop.
The concept behind all-in-one (AIO) PCs like this and the Surface Studio is that they simultaneously serve as professional PCs for work and as sketch panels for digital creation.
To this end, Lenovo's desktop works.
The display measures 27 inches diagonally, with a two-pronged rear hinge that lets you stand it upright like a normal desktop monitor, or lean it back at a steep slant for easier drawing and other creative endeavors, stopping at any degree of incline in its range.
The maximum recline angle is 25 degrees—it doesn't go completely flat, nor could it with the base in the way.
The hinge takes a tad more force to move than you may expect, but it won't slip out of position too easily when in use.
One design decision I had to get used to (a seemingly intentional one) is that, when you're reclining the screen, the bottom of the panel will hit the desk about midway through the tilt range.
A pad on its bottom edge cushions the impact, stopping your free motion briefly, which can be jarring.
This initial spot of resistance is a good angle at which to use the A940 screen while standing, so it braces itself against the desk somewhat.
If you keep pushing on, it slides (not overly smoothly) along your desk surface until it hits the lowest incline point, should you prefer a lesser angle.
Overall, though, the recline function is intuitive and works.
While it's not the only other reclining all-in-one we've tested, the Surface Studio 2($3,663.32 at Amazon) is the obvious comparison here.
And to put it simply, the Yoga A940's build isn't as high-quality as the Studio 2's construction.
I'll cover each of these in more detail, but it's thicker, it's less sleek, it uses lower-quality materials, and the screen isn't nearly as sharp.
But those quality differences are reflected in the price, as even the lowest-end configuration of Microsoft's device is $3,499—a significant $1,200 gap.
It's clear, by comparing components, that much of that dollar difference goes toward the Studio 2's build quality.
The Yoga A940 isn't cheap, by any stretch, but even so, those are two very different price tiers.
If you're at or near the top of your budget in looking at the Yoga A940, a Surface Studio 2 is likely out of reach.
At 0.7 inch thick, the display panel is only "thick" compared to the Studio's super-slim panel, not that it really matters for anything other than aesthetics.
The base, however, will eat up more of your desk.
It is twice the height of and much wider than the Studio 2's small square, stretching the full width of the display itself.
To be precise, it measures 25 inches horizontally and is 1.7 inches tall.
A speaker is also built into the front, offering solid, if not booming and impactful, sound.
Part of this extra width is taken up by a Qi-compatible wireless charging mat on the right side, and I think that's worth the real estate.
While I'm personally not big on wireless charging for my smartphone, many users love the feature, so having it built in at a convenient spot should be a plus.
The base portion also has a divot for the included Active Pen (more on that below).
The material is all dark grey plastic, which feels...merely okay.
Again, the all-metal Studio 2 is much more expensive, but its chassis is a major part of the difference.
The Yoga A940 feels far less premium.
Don't take that as cheap.
But given that it's an investment in its own right, I wanted it to feel more like a multi-kilobuck PC.
This extends to the most important part of this system, the display.
On paper, the panel sounds great.
The screen employs favored in-plane switching (IPS) technology and features a 4K (3,840-by-2,160-pixel) native resolution.
It also supports multi-touch input, and it covers 100 percent of the Adobe RGB color spectrum.
In reality, though, several sets of eyes on it came to the same conclusion: Its panel quality is lackluster.
I expect better from a pricey all-in-one's screen.
The picture looks a little dull overall, not crisp or vibrant, even when cranked to maximum brightness.
Despite the IPS panel and the 4K resolution, the colors don't pop much, and even the desktop doesn't look overly sharp, with a default design that Lenovo could have chosen to highlight the panel talents.
It doesn't come close to the Studio 2's brilliant display, and even among average AIO PC screens, it's underwhelming.
I had more than one colleague echo my sentiments when I asked them to check out the screen, so it's safe to say this isn't a personal bias.
One even suggested that pushing the screen to maximum brightness might help, and I told him it was already at its limit (to which, he grimaced).
The display is serviceable, just disappointing for the price and for the kind of PC the Yoga A940 means to be.
Creative types, in particular, are likely looking for an especially good screen for media, not a merely average one.
Despite its shortcomings, the Yoga A940 represents value because of the type of PC it is.
It falls into a niche group of systems that make direct comparisons difficult, as few offer the same combination of features in one package.
The Surface Studio 2 is the obvious parallel, and you also can't help but draw comparisons to the 27-inch Apple iMac.
That machine does have a brilliant high-resolution display, but no touch support (and, as such, obviously no need for a reclining display and no pen).
Similarly, the Dell OptiPlex 7760 All-in-One($1,399.00 at Dell Technologies) features a beautiful 4K display, but you can't pair that resolution with touch technology.
Neither offers the ability to replace both your data-crunching PC and your standalone drawing tablets and peripherals, making them imperfect competitors for this type of product.
Among recent systems that we've reviewed, that really just leaves the Surface Studio 2 as a 1:1 comparison.
If we go a little further back, the Dell XPS 27 (now discontinued) also fits the bill.
That system features a reclining 4K touch display, but it was released in 2017, making the components dated for current-day shoppers.
This relative uniqueness will come into play more in the performance breakdown coming up, but it's important to keep in mind when looking at a PC like this.
Ports and Components
The upside of the chunky base is that it has room for plenty of ports.
Many of these are located around back, while others are on the left side.
The rear holds four USB 3.0 ports, an HDMI port, and an Ethernet jack.
On the left, you can find one USB 3.1 port, a USB Type-C port with Thunderbolt 3 support, a three-format card reader, and a headset jack.
The left-side ports are easier to reach than the rear ones, which is a leg up on the Surface Studio 2.
All of its ports are located on the back side, which makes plugging in common peripherals or flash drives cumbersome, as you have to look and reach around the large screen or turn the whole system to see what you're doing.
Now that I've covered the design and exterior in detail, let's take a look inside this unit.
The IdeaCentre Yoga A940 model being reviewed here is available at Best Buy, priced at $2,299.99.
For that, you get an 8th Generation Intel Core i7-8700 processor, 16GB of memory, AMD Radeon RX 560X graphics, a 256GB boot-drive SSD plus a separate 1TB hard drive, and, of course, the reclining 4K touch display.
Another model, available through Lenovo's website, is quite similar but offers 32GB of memory.
That model is priced at $2,599.99, though it's currently on sale for $1,949.99 at the time of publishing, a pretty steep discount.
Whether that will still be in effect when you read this is uncertain.
Dialed In: The Included Accessories
In addition to a bundled keyboard and wireless mouse, the system comes with the Lenovo Active Pen to facilitate your drawing and creation, so you don't have to buy a stylus separately.
As an aside: The keyboard and mouse are only a modest bit above budget-basic, but the base portion of the computer has a custom-size stowage spot for the keyboard (under the screen) that more or less binds you to that keyboard if you want to maintain the system's clean aesthetic.
You might want to put the included keyboard there to get it out of the way when you pull the screen forward or aren't typing, or just to clear your desk.
Putting a different keyboard there may well overhang the space to either side.
The stylus is satisfying to use, with a comfortable cushioned tip for smooth drawing.
It features pressure sensitivity, crucial for artists, and the screen has appropriate palm rejection to prevent stray touch input from your hand when it's leaning on the display.
The combination of a reclined screen angle and the Active Pen make the A940 feel like a digital drafting board, so mission accomplished on that front.
The Active Pen is useful, if a fairly standard stylus of its kind.
The other main accessory is the more interesting of the two.
Lenovo packs in the Precision Dial, a twistable knob that plugs in to the side of the system.
You can use it to manipulate menus and the like in content-creation software.
I hope you can forgive another comparison to the Microsoft Surface Studio, because this is a clear analogue to the Surface Dial, a very similar accessory.
Both are meant to allow physical manipulation of digital programs, prompting bespoke menus to make precise selections easier.
The implementation, however, is quite different.
The Surface Dial is designed to be used on your desk, or placed directly onto the screen, as a standalone item.
The Lenovo Precision Dial, in contrast, must be attached to a USB port on the left or right side of the display (a helpful switcheroo option for righties and lefties).
The USB ports on both sides have circular magnetic lids for when the Dial isn't in use on that flank.
Keeping these covers on keeps the smooth aesthetic intact, and since they're magnetic, you can just position them on the back of the display to keep from losing them.
The Precision Dial has spinnable outer and inner rings, which you can turn to control the UI in various ways depending on the program.
It also has a button on its end, which you can tap or long-press for different commands.
The Precision Dial is supported by Windows 10, Microsoft Office 2019, and Autodesk's Sketchbook Pro for Enterprise (2018, and versions 8.0, 8.6.0), as well as a host of Adobe applications:
- Photoshop: Creative Cloud 2019 and 2018; CS6 and CS5
- Illustrator: Creative Cloud 2019 and 2018; CS6
- Elements: Creative Cloud 2018; versions 14 and 15
- Premiere Pro: Creative Cloud 2018
- Lightroom: Creative Cloud 2019; Classic CC 7.0, 6.4
The Dial is entirely customizable, so you can set the inputs to whichever commands you use most often.
For example, if you're using Photoshop, you can set the button tap to show or hide the brush panel, while the inner ring can scroll through your action history.
This way, you don't have to take your eye or hand off your work to click menus or use keyboard commands.
It does work as described, and it is mostly seamless to understand.
Considering it's an add-on, it's a strong selling point of the system as a whole.
There's also something satisfying about using physical input.
The Precision Dial may have been inspired by the Surface Dial, but it's very much its own thing, and well-executed.
Plus, unlike the Surface Dial, you don't need to worry about it sliding down an inclined screen when you place it there (though the onscreen radial menu that appears around the Surface Dial is very cool).
The Precision Dial's own aesthetic fun comes from an LED ring that changes color to match the theme of the program you're using.
It's not an essential accessory, but I can absolutely see it speeding up an artist's workflow, and unlilke the $99 Surface Dial, it's included in the box.
Performance Testing: A Good-Grunt AIO
The uncommon design of the Yoga A940 makes relevant head-to-head benchmark testing a bit tricky.
As mentioned, few systems directly match up in function or power, but I've compiled a batch of desktops that match the A940 in as many facets as possible.
Whether that's design, components, pricing, or some combination of the three, the systems listed in the table below can provide some context for the A940's performance, even if they can't all serve as digital drafting boards, too.
While the aforementioned Dell OptiPlex 7760 All-in-One and Dell XPS 27 are good comparisons for the design and feature sets, I had to leave them out of the testing mix because they were reviewed under our old suite of benchmark tests, and we no longer have access to those systems.
That leaves us with three all-in-ones of various kinds, and one standard desktop.
On the high end, the Surface Studio 2 and the 2019 27-Inch Apple iMac($1,799.00 at Amazon) set the bar for the category, while the much more affordable Acer Aspire Z 24, at just $1,099, can show us the difference between a more budget-minded system and this one.
These are rounded out by the Maingear Vybe, a boutique desktop in the same price range as the A940.
It doesn't have a built-in screen, so the functionality is completely different, but it demonstrates the raw component power you can get for around the same price in a standalone tower.
It's always possible to buy separate drawing devices and connect them to a desktop, but that, of course, adds significantly to the cost and is a wholly different usage model.
Productivity and Storage Tests
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