We are pleased with the outcome because Lenovo essentially rectified every problem we had with the Yoga 9i from the previous year. But it’s also far more difficult to find the device now than it was a year ago. We wish it weren’t currently so tough to purchase this fantastic laptop, which continues getting better. also you will learn our article on Lenovo Yoga 9i Gen 7 review. However, Lenovo’s high-end consumer laptops are some of the prettiest available. They don’t go through the same MIL-STD 810G durability testing as ThinkPads, and they aren’t matte black (this one is, of all things, a color called “Oatmeal”). With a stunning OLED touch screen, a 12th Generation Intel Core i7 CPU, and luxurious touches everywhere you turn, the 14-inch Yoga 9i Gen 7 is a 2-in-1 convertible. Our new Editors’ Choice winner among premium convertibles, it surpasses the HP Spectre x360 14 thanks to its more modern technology.
Lenovo Yoga 9i Gen 7 review: Design
Have you ever seen house seekers on HGTV bemoan how inadequately childproof a home is? In other words, the household contains ominous, jaggedly-edged furnishings that might endanger the security of their children? And since the Storm Gray Yoga 9i has a soft, rounded, glossy, comfort-edge design and wouldn’t hurt a fly, it would be the ideal addition to their new home. A sizable Yoga logo with a contemporary, futuristic font is located on the top-left corner of the lid. The Lenovo badge is located in the bottom-right corner. The strong, durable 360-degree hinge will begin to work its magic once you lift the lid. It has so many little pores that it resembles a sieve made of stainless steel. The hinge is crucial to the audio system, as we’ll go over in more detail later. We had little trouble converting the Yoga 9i into any position, even into tent and tablet modes. You’ll need to exert some additional effort to change positions because there is some resistance while switching between modes, but not any that will make you perspire, of course. Alternately, maybe we should just stop skipping arm day at the gym. We were correct that the display looks to be taller than a conventional laptop panel. It has a 16:10 aspect ratio, which gives you more screen space than a typical 16:9 monitor. There are almost no bezels, although the top bezel has a little protrusion that accommodates a 1080p IR webcam. The chassis’ Storm Gray design is carried over to the deck. The enormous touchpad, which nearly occupies half of the deck, is one feature that attracted my attention. The Yoga 9i isn’t the lightest convertible we’ve examined in terms of weightlessness, but it’s also not the heaviest either. We can claim that it passed our one-hand test, since we were able to lift it with only our noodle arm without the aid of our other hand. Its dimensions are 12.5 x 9.06 x 0.6 inches and it weighs 3.1 pounds. It weighs the same as Samsung Galaxy Book 2 Pro 360, another 2-in-1 device. The Samsung convertible, on the other hand, has a larger 15.6-inch display and is smaller at 14 x 9 x 0.46 inches.
Keyboard and touchpad
The two-stage white illumination on the dark grey keyboard can be turned on automatically with the help of an ambient light sensor. This is a good keyboard, and despite the minimal key travel (we estimate 1-1.2 mm), the keystrokes are quite accurate and solid. Regular keys type extremely quietly as well, adding to the feeling of high quality. There are still two problems: the bottom row of keys, particularly the space bar, have a tendency to clatter a little, and the extra column on the right side requires some getting used to. At first, we frequently press the fingerprint scanner rather than, say, the right arrow key. With features like switching from dark to bright Windows colour mode or the performance mode, which can also be toggled using the well-known key combination Fn+Q, the other additional keys are not that helpful either. The big clickpad glides smoothly and performs incredibly well. The loud clicking sound that occurs when you really press it down is the main issue, and it does not really fit the high price tag. We advise you to simply tap the pad to activate clicks. Additionally, Lenovo’s Precision Pen 2, which can be recharged using USB-C, comes packaged with the Yoga 9i 14. It can no longer be kept inside the chassis, but it is also a bigger pen and looks fairly similar to a standard pen in exchange. The larger pen will undoubtedly be a better choice if you take plenty of notes or write a lot, even though it is less comfortable to transport.
Lenovo Yoga 9i Gen 7 review: Display
When used as a laptop or tent, the 14-inch touchscreen OLED display is ideal for watching videos. You’ll have more vertical room while navigating across online sites or viewing documents because of the 16:10 aspect ratio. The OLED screen makes content like the teaser trailer for Thor: Love and Thunder appear spectacular. The contrast between light and dark aspects, such as the vivid orange alien sunset and the thick shadows it cast, greatly impressed us. The sombre Moon Knight also has a great appearance. According to Lenovo, the 2-in-1’s maximum brightness is 400 nits. The average brightness, according to our Tom’s Guide brightness test, was 351 nits. Even though it falls a little short of the advertised brightness, it outshines the Samsung Galaxy Book Pro 360’s 264 nits and surpasses its predecessor’s 334 nits. The Microsoft Surface Laptop Studio outshines them all, with an average brightness of 487 nits. The Yoga 9i delivered 197.9% of the sRGB color spectrum according to our colorimeter test (the closer to 100%, the better). In addition to outperforming the model from last year (107.3%), this also outperforms the Galaxy Book Pro 360 (120.2%) and Surface Laptop Studio (105.6%). Many people may be disappointed that the Yoga 9i doesn’t support the current craze for 4K displays. However, in my opinion, Full HD displays work very great with 14-inch computers. Additionally, the stunning OLED display more than compensates for the HD pixel count.
Audio
Even though it is small, the Yoga 9i has respectable sound quality. With the proviso that it’s still a laptop, you get reasonably good sound from the two front-facing tweeters on the 360-degree sound bar and the two 3W subwoofers on the sides of the laptop. you can read our article on Lenovo Yoga 9i Gen 7 review. This gadget has a very loud volume. Little Boots’ “Stuck on Repeat” blared around our apartment while we conducted our testing. We discovered that we didn’t actually need to turn up the level past 65% to hear the song’s blend of synths, drumming, and sing-along vocals. While present, the bass was somewhat underwhelming. Although you may turn up the level even higher, we discovered that the sound started to become slightly distorted at the very top of the volume selections. The laptop’s Vantage software has presets for music, movies, and games that can be quickly switched with a dedicated keyboard button. Although the “dynamic” option to choose the optimal mode is actually a really good alternative, we would advise most people to continue with the default music setting.
Lenovo Yoga 9i Gen 7 review: Graphics
Since the new Alder Lake CPUs continue to use the well-known Iris Xe Graphics G7 with either 80 or 96 execution units, we can keep the GPU part brief. Our Core i7-1260P has the speedier model, which has 96 EUs and a 1.4 GHz maximum core clock. The overall performance remained constant, and the iGPU is still an excellent choice for routine chores like playing back high-resolution videos. Although the performance is consistent under heavy workloads, overall gaming performance is not great. You should concentrate on older or less demanding games since the majority of games may only be played on low or medium settings.
Performance
The Lenovo ThinkPad Yoga 9i Gen 7 can easily do general computing duties like web surfing, movie streaming, word processing, and similar activities. Be aware that even when performing simple processing activities, the internal fans can become a little noisy. Although they don’t interfere with the fantastic speakers, the fans can be a little bothersome. During a week of testing, the Yoga 9i handled a variety of workloads with ease, including picture editing, 4K video on YouTube, and Netflix. Our benchmark tests performed in line with predictions. GeekBench achieved a multi-core score of 9650 compared to Cinebench R23’s 7244. Due to the PCIe 4.0 SSD, there wasn’t much visible delay, and apps loaded fairly rapidly. The only time the machine stutters is when you try to run some gaming benchmarks on it. Scores of 1736 for Time Spy, 4440 for Fire Strike, and 15876 for Night Raid were obtained throughout all 3DMark runs. Expect the 2-1 gadget to do less gaming and more general computing and tablet-focused duties. The Yoga 9i averaged about 23 frames per second on Total War: Three Kingdoms even at low settings in 1080p. Given the Full HD camera and rapid backdrop blur option, among other features, it is obvious that video conferencing was taken into consideration when Lenovo created the Yoga 9i Gen 7. On the 2-in-1, using Zoom or other video conferencing software, the image clarity is crystal clear even in dim lighting. Customers who are interested in the Yoga 9i Gen 7 will find that the specifications offer more than enough power. This 2-in-1 is excellent whether used as a tablet or laptop.
Lenovo Yoga 9i Gen 7 review: Battery life
The efficiency of Intel’s 12th-generation CPUs is another important issue. We anticipate longer battery life than the previous generation, but that expectation is based only on marketing statements from Intel without independent benchmarks to support it. The Yoga 9i 14 Gen 7 isn’t simply able to take advantage of 12th-gen efficiency, though. Additionally, it has a 75 watt-hour battery capacity, which is a lot for a 14-inch laptop, even one with an OLED display, which consumes a lot of power. Therefore, when assessing the laptop’s durability and making any judgments on Alder Lake CPUs, we must bear it in mind. With our web browsing test, which cycles through a variety of well-known websites, the Yoga 9i 14 Gen 7 got off to a lacklustre start. With an average score of just over nine hours, it falls far short of significantly more durable devices like the MacBook Pro 13 M1 (16 hours) and MacBook Air M1 (15.5 hours), all of which include very effective Apple M1 processors. The Yoga 9i 14 Gen 7 ran for 12.75 hours in our video test, which runs through a local 1080p movie trailer; once more, this is an average result. The MacBook Pro 13 M1 reached 21 hours, the MacBook Air M1 clocked in at 18.5 hours, and the Spectre x360 14 managed 10.75 hours. The Yoga 9i 14 Gen 7 lasted 8.5 hours on the PCMark 10 Applications battery test, which is the best indicator of productivity battery life. That is less than the HP Spectre x360 14, which had a smaller 67 watt-hour battery and lasted 35 minutes longer, and is somewhat below average. The Yoga 9i 14 Gen 7 lasted an average of two hours in the PCMark 10 Gaming battery test, which measures how hard a laptop works when using battery power. We find it interesting that battery life wasn’t a strength overall. Given 12th-gen efficiency and the large battery in the Yoga 9i 14 Gen 7, we anticipated a longer battery life despite the high-resolution OLED display. It will take more machine reviews before we can make a definite judgement, but as of right now, it doesn’t appear that Alder Lake inherently increases lifetime. Depending on your workload, the Yoga 9i 14 Gen 7 might allow you to complete a full day of work on a charge, but there is no guarantee.
Heat
We played a 15-minute, 1080p video to test the thermal performance of the Yoga 9i, and it’s one cool cucumber. Remember that our comfortable temperature range is 95 degrees Fahrenheit. At 81.5 degrees, the touchpad is still chilly. Center and bottom of the laptop’s keyboard measured 92.5 and 93.5 degrees, respectively. The laptop’s underside, next to the vent, reached a temperature of 101.5 degrees. also you can check our article on Lenovo Yoga 9i Gen 7 review.
Configuration options
On Lenovo’s official website, you can buy the Lenovo Yoga 9i, which features a 12th generation Intel CPU, starting at $1,078. It has a 14-inch, 1920 x 1200 pixel display, a 12-core, 2.1 GHz Intel Core i7-1260p processor, 8GB of RAM, a 256GB PCIe SSD (Gen 4), Intel Iris Xe graphics, and Windows 11 Home. Our evaluation machine has the same CPU, GPU, and operating system as the aforementioned setup, but it also has 16GB of RAM, a 512GB SSD, and an OLED panel with a resolution of 2880 x 1800 pixels. The cost is currently unknown because we can’t seem to discover a product listing for this particular item. In order to clarify its MSRP, we contacted Lenovo; once we hear back, we’ll update this area. If you want something more upscale, you can purchase the Yoga 9i with a 4K display for $1,759.
Conclusion
We love it; this laptop is really interesting. We have learned the hard way in the past that we cannot merge our laptop/tablet or our phone/tablet, so we still don’t think we’d truly acquire one. Each, in my opinion, has its applications, and we typically make the most of each environment with distinct technologies. However, we are the only ones who can see the utility for a device like this, especially if you’re attempting to do away with the necessity for a tablet. If you now own an iPad, this won’t even come close to replacing it because iOS differs greatly from Windows. However, we can definitely see the value for the Yoga if you’re on the fence about trying to avoid an iPad and you mostly use your computer for media consumption. We might use it to browse the internet or watch a movie because it is portable and lightweight enough. However, we still choose an iPad or even the Surface Pro for taking notes.
