At the top of Lenovo’s popular Yoga line is Yoga 9i, which was launched earlier this year in India. The laptop features Intel’s latest 13th gen processors, a 4K OLED display, and a gorgeous new design. But with these improvements, the price has jumped too. Is it worth the upgrades? Read on in my review.
Design and Build Quality
While most laptops feature sharp corners and distinct lines to stand out from the crowd, the Yoga 9i embraces rounded corners and edges. On all four sides, the edges and corners are smoothly rounded, and it improves the ergonomics significantly. This is especially useful when using the laptop in tablet mode.
The build quality is, as expected, fantastic. There is metal all around and there is little chassis flex. I was also pretty satisfied with the tightness of the hinge, which made it quite easy to shift between various positions enabled by the 360° hinge. The keyboard deck and lid also did a decent job of rejecting fingerprints, however the edges have a glossy finish, and it did pick up fingerprints easily.
The display is surrounded by thin bezels on all four sides, and the top bezel houses the webcam and IR cameras for Windows Hello facial recognition. Above the camera, there is a small lip extending out from the laptop’s lid to make opening the laptop easier.
Just like most Yoga laptops, the hinge enables full 360° rotation of the display. You can use the laptop in normal mode, tent mode, tablet mode and anything in between. And it is so nice to hold the laptop in tablet mode as the edges are rounded and it does not dig into your hand.
Display
There are two display options with the Lenovo Yoga 9i – a 4K OLED, IPS 60Hz option or a 2.8K OLED, IPS 60Hz option. Our model came with the former, with an aspect ratio of 16:10, a maximum brightness of 400 nits, support for Dolby Vision and 100% coverage of the DCI-P3 colour space.
With technical specifications like these, it is no surprise that the display experience is fantastic. Colours look brilliant, and the contrast is impressive. You get deep blacks thanks to the use of OLED technology, and it is DisplayHDR True Black 500 certified. The 16:10 aspect ratio also makes it great for productivity, although the 4K resolution does feel a bit overkill for a 14-inch display. I’d recommend sticking to the 2.8k display, which should still be plenty sharp.
Since the laptop is a convertible, it is touch-enabled, and Lenovo includes a stylus in the box. Windows 11 has a number of optimizations for touch-enabled displays, so it is nice to have this feature in the Yoga 9i.
Regarding the latency of the pen, I’d say its on par with other Windows laptops, which is not particularly great.
Performance and Thermals
Under the hood, the Yoga 9i is powered by Intel’s latest 13th Gen Core P-series processors. Our model is configured with Intel Core i7-1360P processor, paired with 16GB LPDDR5 and a 512GB PCIe SSD. The laptop is also Intel EVO certified.
The Core i7-1360P is a 12-core processor with 4 performance cores and 8 efficiency cores. It has a max boost frequency of 5.0GHz and features Intel Iris XE integrated graphics. It is based on Intel’s Raptor Lake architecture and it is built on the Intel 7 process node.
For everyday use, the processor is excellent. It can handle web browsing, word processing, watching media online, etc. with ease, and it can even handle light photo editing and video editing. This is Intel’s second generation of hybrid-architecture processors, and it feels a lot more optimized in terms of performance and efficiency. It can deliver good performance when needed and dial down the power when it’s idle and running background tasks.
Coming to benchmarks, the Yoga 9i performed as expected. In Cinebench R23 it scored 1775 in single core and 9326 in the multi-core test. In Crossmark it recorded a score of 1801 and in PCMark 10 it scored 6372. There is a notable improvement over the 12th Gen Intel Core i7, but it’s not substantial. Overall, it’s a still an excellent chip for daily productivity use.
Keyboard and Trackpad
The keyboard on the Yoga 9i feels like every other flagship Lenovo laptop keyboard, which is to say that it is very good. The keys feel satisfying to click and the layout was good. There is a decent amount of travel and the white backlighting is appreciated.
One quirk about this laptop is the presence of 4 extra on the right edge of the keyboard. They allow you to change the performance mode, blur your background, mute the volume, and toggle between dark/bright mode. I don’t particularly find these buttons useful, and unfortunately you can’t customize the function. There is also a fingerprint sensor that is additional biometric authentication besides the Windows Hello IR sensors in the top bezel.
The trackpad, on the other hand, was fine. Decent size, good tracking, and the click mechanism was satisfying. No real complaints here.
Ports and Connectivity
For ports, the Yoga 9i has 1xUSB Type-A 3.2 Gen 2 port, 1xUSB-C 3.2 Gen 2 ports, 2xThunderbolt 4 ports and a 3.5 combo jack. For a thin-and-light laptop, this is a good selection of ports. I would have maybe liked to see an SD card reader, but It’s definitely not a dealbreaker. The laptop also charges via the USB Type-C port, which is very convenient.
Battery
The battery inside the Yoga 9i is a 75Wh cell that promises up to 14 hours of local 1080p video playback. That number is based on ideal test conditions and is definitely not indicative of the real world. During my review process, I was able to get around 7–8 hours of real-world use, which is still pretty good. The efficiency cores of the Core i7 really make a difference now to the battery life.
Conclusion
The Lenovo Yoga 9i has a lot to offer. It has a beautiful display, ergonomic and stylish design, and good performance. The keyboard is excellent and the 2-in-1 form factor offers a lot of functionality. It also has a good amount of ports, which is not common with thin-and-light machines. The performance is what I’m most impressed with though. The 13th Gen Intel Core processors have improved a lot and increase the value proposition of the laptop.
At a price of Rs. 1,67,105, the Lenovo Yoga 9i does seem a little expensive at first glance. However, after using it for my review, I think the price is reasonable and definitely makes the laptop worth checking out.
The Lenovo Yoga 9i is available for purchase on Lenovo’s online store and in offline stores