Lenovo’s Yoga 9i (previously Yoga 900) laptops have been among the best to suggest previously due to their premium really feel and strong function units, however they’ve, lately, lacked a sure one thing. The MacBook Air will get by on construct high quality and excellent efficiency, HP’s Spectres are pure luxurious, and Dell’s XPS combines distinctive supplies with a contemporary design. Lenovo’s Yogas, although deserving of the excessive marks they usually obtain, are inclined to rapidly fade into the background, turning into an afterthought in a crowded area of premium convertible laptops.

It appears Lenovo felt the identical approach when it was designing the the most recent Yoga 9i. Now in its seventh technology, the laptop computer was redesigned with rounded, polished edges for what Lenovo calls a “comfort design.” The glossy, enticing look alone ought to preserve the Yoga 9i related as rivals arrive all through the remainder of the yr. But there’s a lot extra to like: the Yoga 9i now sports activities Intel twelfth Gen CPUs, beautiful OLED show choices, a 1080p webcam, and among the best touchpads outdoors of Cupertino. If you’re out there for a premium ultra-thin laptop computer, the Yoga 9i is a standout selection.

Price and configurations

As Lenovo’s flagship client laptop computer, the Yoga 9i isn’t low-cost. The least costly mannequin I may discover proper now’s on sale for $1,229 and comes with a 1920 x 1200-pixel IPS show, an Intel Core i7-1260P CPU, 8GB of RAM, and a 256GB SSD.

I’m having hassle discovering different configs accessible on the time of writing, however Lenovo assures me that the unit I examined, which has a 2880 x 1800-pixel OLED show, a Core i7-1260P CPU, 16GB of RAM, and a 512GB SSD will likely be accessible later this month completely at Best Buy for $1,729. Another Best Buy unique with a 4K OLED show and a 1TB SSD will go for $1,929.

Rounding out the sides

Lenovo fairly actually smoothed out the sides of the Yoga 9i’s design. Exaggerated spherical edges and corners are essentially the most putting updates to this convertible’s aluminum chassis. As trite as it’s to check something to an Apple product, I can’t assist however be reminded of the rounded edges of an iPhone X or Apple Watch, particularly with the little hole-punched grilles that act as speaker cutouts.

There is a sure retro-futuristic high quality in regards to the new look that I like. The polished chrome provides an expensive ingredient whereas the smoother entrance edge doesn’t minimize into your wrists as you sort—it’s why Lenovo calls this a “comfort design.” In any case, whereas the previous few Yogas had been uninteresting except for their mere specs bumps, the straightforward adjustments made to this one give it a softer, extra refined look that basically speaks to me.

It may seem as if the Yoga 9 has a notch, however calling it that may be unfair. A tiny lip on the highest bezel homes a 1080p webcam and provides you simply sufficient area to pry the lid up along with your fingertips. It additionally rises up and away from the display screen reasonably than chopping into it.

About that webcam: it’s nonetheless not nice. The colours in my graphic t-shirt had been precisely captured in a selfie I shot however there was a lot visible noise that I couldn’t inform the photograph aside from one taken along with your common 720p webcam.

The Yoga 9i has the continental breakfast of I/O buffets. It’s predictably restricted however will get the job achieved. On the left facet are two Thunderbolt 4 inputs alongside a full USB Type-A port; on the correct facet is a 3rd USB-C port and a 3.5mm headphone jack. That USB-A is a savior and prevented me from utilizing a dongle once I wish to join my 2.4Ghz wi-fi mouse. The one main omission here’s a microSD slot, which you’ll be able to nonetheless discover on many 14-inch laptops, together with the HP Spectre x360 14.

At 12.52 x 9.06 x 0.6 inches and three.1 kilos, the Yoga 9i is a reasonably transportable system. That got here in useful, as a result of I took a carry-on-only Frontier flight from Austin to Denver and the laptop computer barely took up a lot area in my backpack. If it had been any thicker, I may need been pressured to pay the airline’s egregious checked baggage charges.

OLED, sufficient mentioned

I solely wanted to have a look at the Yoga 9i’s spec sheet to know my retinas had been in for a delight. Whenever that four-letter acronym—O-L-E-D—seems within the “display” part, you may rely on vivid colours and ideal black ranges. Sure sufficient, the Yoga 9i’s 14-inch, 2880 x 1800-pixel OLED panel is magnificent.

The display screen gave life to each video I watched or photograph I admired. Even Windows 11 felt rejuvenated due to the splendidly vibrant colours of its redesigned icons and soothing backgrounds. Colors had been punchy, blacks had been inky, and the hovering contrasts made the whole lot pop. I’m additionally glad that Lenovo shifted from a 16:9 to a 16:10 facet ratio, a slight tweak that provides you extra vertical display screen actual property. Perfect for shopping the online or writing up a doc.

My solely gripe, and I’m nitpicking right here, is that the display screen doesn’t get notably brilliant. I clocked a max brightness of 318 nits (Lenovo charges it at 400 nits, curiously), which is sufficient to view the display screen below most lighting circumstances however, as I came upon, not splendid when the Texas solar is thrashing down on you.

I’d most likely select this OLED show if I had been configuring a Yoga 9i, although I wouldn’t blame you for saving a buck and going with the 1920 x 1200-pixel IPS panel, which ought to allow longer battery life. If you’re a inventive professional needing the very best decision, Lenovo additionally affords a 4K OLED show, although these further pixels received’t be beneficiant to the battery.

Closing the storage

Recent Yogas are recognized for 2 standout options, solely certainly one of which made it to this newest mannequin. Returning to the Yoga 9i is the soundbar hinge, a intelligent engineering feat that provides the laptop computer 360-degree audio.

The audio system typically sound wonderful. Tuned by Bang & Olufsen, they get extraordinarily loud and didn’t distort on the most quantity ranges. The 3W subwoofers on the perimeters of the laptop computer and twin front-facing tweeters positioned on the hinge even produced an honest “thud” of bass whereas conserving the midrange and treble clear and crisp. That mentioned, advanced instrumentation can sound shrill as I realized when listening to The Killer’s “Mr. Brightside,” a music most laptops can’t appear to comprise.

Sadly, the pen storage didn’t survive the redesign, so we will return to looking for stylii between sofa cushions and within the backside of backpacks. The stylus slot was a beloved add-on, however the 9i’s suite of helpful options that also contains an IR digicam, a devoted fingerprint scanner, and a sliding webcam cowl.

Massive touchpad, shallow keyboard

Speaking of practicality, the Yoga 9i’s keyboard and touchpad are each fairly good. The touchpad, particularly, deserves accolades. The 5.4 x 3.2-inch floor is now 45% bigger and one of many largest you’ll discover on a conveyable laptop computer—we’re speaking virtually MacBook massive. Better but, my fingers effortlessly glided throughout its glass coating like skates on a freshly Zamboni-ed sheet of ice.

The keyboard can be positive; its fingertip-shaped keys are adequately sized and generously spaced, a combo that made my arms really feel proper at dwelling the second I began typing this evaluate. Unfortunately, below-average key journey prevents this keyboard from difficult the HP Spectre and Microsoft Surface—I discovered myself bottoming out, or hitting the deck, simply as key inputs had been registered. That didn’t gradual me down, although, and I typed at a speedy 123 phrases per minute with a 97% accuracy on a standardized on-line typing check.

On the correct facet of the keyboard is a vertical row of what Lenovo calls “1-click functions.” From high to backside, these embrace an influence mode changer, a background blur button for video calls, an audio profile switcher (music, gaming, video calls), and a light-weight/darkish mode slider. I’ve blended emotions in regards to the devoted keys. On one hand, it’s nice that customers could make easy adjustments to customise their expertise with out tinkering with software program. On the opposite, a few of these capabilities—darkish/mild mode, audio profiles, battery profiles—may simply be automated. I may see myself utilizing the background blur button, although I want Lenovo had included a video on/off key (there is a mute microphone key) as it could have been simpler than sliding over the sticky webcam cowl.

I’ve already mourned the lack of the stylus storage, however that loss of life makes approach for the Precision Pen 2, a full-size stylus with tilt help that’s included with the Yoga 9i and might be saved in a fake leather-based sleeve—one other good accent that comes within the field. This new stylus is rather more snug and succesful than the petite one that may slot inside earlier Yoga fashions. I’m under no circumstances an artist, however the stylus retains up with my erratic swipes and the lean perform labored as marketed.

Intel twelfth Gen P-erformance

This is the primary ultra-thin laptop computer I’ve reviewed with Intel twelfth Gen processors and the outcomes, to date, have been optimistic. My Yoga 9i is powered by an Intel Core i7-1260P processor paired with 16GB of RAM. If you’re confused by that “P,” these new P-series processors are 28W processors that slot between the ultra-low-power U-series and high-performance H-series chips. You can count on to see Intel P-series in compact methods just like the XPS 13.

This one within the Yoga 9i has 12 cores break up amongst eight efficiency cores and 4 effectivity cores. It has a minimal assured energy of 20W and most turbo energy of as much as 64W. In observe, the Yoga 9i delivers significantly sooner efficiency than comparable methods working on last-gen chips.

On the Geekbench 5.4 general efficiency check, the Yoga 9i notched a single-core rating of 1,792 and a multi-core rating of 9,516. It demolished the Samsung Galaxy Book Pro 360 (1,468, 5,570) working on final yr’s Core i7, and had an edge on the Asus ZenBook 13 OLED (1,349, 6,824) and its Ryzen 7 5800U CPU.

It took the Yoga 9i round 6 minutes to render a 3D picture in Blender, a process the Razer Blade 13 wanted greater than 9 minutes to finish. The Yoga misplaced out to the ZenBook 13 OLED (5:18) however simply squeaked by with a win over the MacBook Air with M1 (6:24).

On the video encoding check, the Yoga 9i took 9 minutes and a pair of seconds to transform a 4K video to 1080p. Again, the Lenovo defeated the Galaxy Book Pro (12:29) handily and was simply barely outpaced by the MacBook Air M1 (8:52).

I’m hopeful that Intel’s now-shipping Arc discrete graphics will ultimately discover their approach into methods just like the Yoga 9i. Until then, ultraportables will depend on Intel Iris Xe graphics, an built-in resolution that received’t do a lot for avid gamers.

Just sufficient juice

The Yoga 9i is additional proof that choosing a high-res OLED panel doesn’t essentially imply being plugged into an outlet all day. With the display screen set to 200 nits, the system lasted for 8 hours and 41 minutes on our video playback check.

That’s an honest outcome if you issue within the OLED display screen, and nearly matches the Spectre x360 16 (8:48). Of course, if battery life is of utmost precedence, then I like to recommend dropping right down to the 1920 x 1200-pixel IPS panel.

Should you purchase the Yoga 9i?

I’m asking myself the identical query as I look over at my battered Dell XPS 15. I’ll want to purchase a brand new laptop computer quickly, and my choice is one thing ultra-portable with an ideal display screen that doesn’t compromise on efficiency or battery life.

To be sincere, I wasn’t anticipating the Yoga 9i to be in competition. As talked about, the earlier variations simply didn’t maintain my consideration—there weren’t any evident flaws, however they didn’t encourage, both. And for that cause, I’ve been leaning towards an HP Spectre x360 14 or Dell XPS 13. With its refreshed design, OLED show, and quick twelfth Gen processors, the Yoga 9i Gen 7 positive factors the “it” issue earlier variations had been lacking.

Would I like to recommend this laptop computer to of us looking for an ultra-portable journey companion? Yes, and with out hesitation. It does nearly the whole lot proper, boasting wonderful efficiency, a surprising OLED show, a best-in-class touchpad, and highly effective audio system. I want Lenovo had squeezed in a microSD card slot, and the keyboard and battery life are solely OK, however these are minor shortcomings on a tool that does a lot proper.