Lenovo Yoga 9i Review: Hidden Gem in the 2-In-1 Convertible Space

So last year we saw the 15-inch yoga C940 with a beefy processor and a dedicated GPU making it one of the more powerful two-and-ones that you could buy. This year I'm reviewing the Lenovo Yoga 9i which is the new name for the C940 lineup. This is the 14-inch version which doesn't have that dedicated GPU, but it's still a two in one. Meaning you can flip the display 360 degrees right on it or just use it as a tablet. It's very well made with CNC aluminum. It's clean, It's simple, and it has a very appealing design.

The only complaint that I have is the pen placement on the previous Lenovo Yoga 9i. They placed the pen on the right-hand side but on the new one they placed it on the back. Now if you have the laptop closed it's not too hard to get to but once you have the laptop opened, and you want to get the pen on the back the display gets in the way making you having to close the display first in order to take it out.

Now ports are a bit less than before because on the left-hand side you only have a USB port, two thunderbolt 4 ports and an audio jack. Then on the right-hand side you have your power button. It's not a heavy laptop you can open it up with one hand but as soon as you get to the top due to the tightness of the hinge the bottom of the laptop will lift a little which isn't a big deal.

The keyboard is fantastic to type on. You have Lenovo's U-shaped keys. It's a bit soft, and it doesn't have that tactile click compared to like their ThinkPad lineup but overall a very good typing experience. You have chunky arrow keys, and you have different levels of backlighting to choose from, and you have a very big touchpad. It's a fantastic touchpad though it's not as good as the surface laptop or MacBook Pro, but it's one of the better ones that you can get on a laptop today.

You have Windows Hello using the fingerprint scanner, but you don't have it for facial recognition. Lenovo Yoga 9i display is 14 inches, and it's 1080p IPS display panel. It has pretty good color accuracy like you could totally do design work on this and feel super comfortable. It has good color gamut and not the best screen brightness and there is a 4K model you can choose from.

There are two things I would have loved them to change about the display. The first one being the aspect ratio 16x9. A lot of companies with their business and consumer laptops are moving to 16x10 or even 3x2. The second thing is the webcam. This is still a 720p cam and a lot of people are working from home now. So having a better webcam is super important. However, the good thing is you have great sound with this Lenovo Yoga 9i.

Not only do you have two main speakers on the bottom but you also have a rotating sound bar that has two tweeters. So no matter which way or which position you have the laptop in the speakers on the top will always be facing you.

The model we have reviewed has an Intel i7 tiger lake processor paired with 16 GB of RAM, 512 GB NVMe SSD and an Intel Xe integrated graphics. The intel chip inside here is going to give you great single core clock speeds. The only area that it's going to lose out on is when it comes to multi-core. The AMD processors out there are just significantly better so if you're developer looking at this you're probably better off buying a laptop with an AMD processor.

If you're someone who's doing design work that requires a two-in-one then you don't have a lot of high-end AMD tuned ones to choose from and this one does a formidable job. Even the integrated GPU inside here is one of the faster integrated GPUs can buy. It's faster than the RX Vega 7 which comes with most U-series AMD processors. So you could potentially even use this for some very light gaming.

As for heat management Lenovo's taking a very conservative approach with Lenovo Yoga 9i. Sometimes you'll see the processor hit 90 degrees Celsius but as soon as it does Lenovo will power throttle the CPU in order to keep temperatures in check and with that you don't get those high clock speeds consistently. So you do get low fan noise. This laptop's underflow doesn't surpass 43 decibels.

Now I'm not an artist, so I can't comment on how good this pen is for design work but based on other devices I have used the latency is a bit slower than let's say an iPad, but it still feels very smooth. If you're using this for notes during classes then you're not going to have any issues.

When it comes to the internals not a lot is upgradeable. The RAM is soldered onto the motherboard so whatever size of memory you choose that's what you're stuck with until you decide to move on to something else. You can swap out the NVMe SSD and replace it with something bigger or faster down the road. I do appreciate the cooling system Lenovo's using. Two fans and two copper heat pipes which will help and a massive battery of 58 watt hours. I got 15 hours and 13 minutes of use before needing to charge. If you're looking for good battery life in a two-in-one this is the one to take a look at.

So here's the thing, the Lenovo Yoga 9i may not be perfect. I would have loved a few more ports and the pen to be on the right-hand side. Plus having a 16x10 aspect ratio and maybe even an AMD processor would have helped, but it's still a solid two in one and one of the better ones out there that you can buy today especially for the price. The sound alone is good, the battery life is amazing and the build quality is good. If you're just looking for a very solid two-in-one then this might be the one for you.