Lenovo Yoga Slim 9i review: Arguably the fastest Evo Laptop

Lenovo’s Yoga Slim 9i is a 14-inch laptop with a 3K OLED 90 Hz display and a fast Intel Core i7-1280P. But who’s going to keep track of the Yoga series? Yoga 9, Yoga Slim 7i Pro, Yoga Slim 9i, Yoga 7, Yoga Slim 7 Carbon, and Slim 7 ProX, some being a convertible, while others aren’t. Whilst our Yoga Slim 9i (or just Slim 9i, as it’s called in the US) is beyond doubt a classic clamshell-style laptop of upper mid-range with high-end aspects, which you can already spot by looking at the fancy 3D glass lid.

The term “Ultrabook” has now been replaced by Intel with “Evo Laptop”, but we still use the former here and there. Compared to the predecessor, you can now choose up to 32 GB of RAM, while our SKU features 16 GB and a fast 14-core Intel processor, with the Core i5-1240P as the only alternative. It does not exist in an AMD version like the Yoga Slim 7 .

On top of a 1 TB PCIe 4. 0 SSD, you get a 3K OLED 90 Hz display in our tested SKU, but at Lenovo US, you don’t have a choice but to take the 4K OLED screen with a lower 60 Hz refresh rate (also applies to Canada). At Lenovo UK, the latter is an extra £110, while our SKU is a total of £1,564 .

In the States, prices start at US$2,070 ( now on sale for US$1,760 ) – for an already high-end SKU -, and in Australia, the cheapest model costs AU$2999 . However, you can lower expenses by looking out for Lenovo’s frequent discounts. Despite many perks, our review shows a few flaws remaining from its predecessor, while the competition comes up with powerful devices: Asus’ Zenbook S 13 OLED featuring the new Ryzen 6800U from AMD, Dell’s XPS 13 Plus , and also Apple’s MacBook Air featuring the M2 chip.

Schenker’s Vision 14 , however, excels itself somewhat in our comparison field by its design, dedicated GPU, and RAM slots. Similarly, HP’s Spectre x360 13. 5 , for being a convertible and boasting a 3:2 aspect ratio display.

Recent Lenovo reviews: Most people would describe the Slim 9i’s case as stylish while featuring an appealing, high-quality design. The 3D-glass lid surface adds to that and resembles a smartphone flagship well while it can repel fingerprints. Nevertheless, it still has to prove its durability over time.

Lenovo refers to the color as “Oatmeal”, but it is much lighter than the reviewer’s oatmeal breakfast. The choice for all other materials is 6000-series aluminum alloy, with magnesium and silicone. Thus, the case obtains exceptional sturdiness, leading to a base and lid being non-twistable.

Moreover, the hinges are exceptionally tight, keeping the lid in position no matter what angle, yet opening it with one hand is still possible. Overall, the haptics are good, like the exemplary workmanship. Sharp edges or gaps are non-existent.

Still, everyone has to decide for themselves whether the design pleases them, since Lenovo recently tends to round forms in many spots. Anyhow, you notice you are holding a high-quality product in your hands. At 1.

39 kg (3. 06 lbs), the device isn’t as light as Schenker’s Vision 14 or Asus’ Zenbook S 13 however is still about right for an Ultrabook. The predecessor was 100 grams (0.

22 lbs) less weight because of its smaller battery. Its thinness of 15 mm (0. 59 in) is therefore even more pleasant.

Measuring 11. 3 mm (0. 44 inches), only the 1.

2 kg (2. 65 lbs) MacBook Air M2 is thinner. The footprint of our 14-inch Ultrabook is pleasingly small, but the XPS 13 Plus has the smallest footprint in our comparison field.

Unlike the convertible version , Lenovo foregoes a USB A connection on the Yoga Slim 9i. Anyhow a total of 3 Thunderbolt 4 ports are on board, which by definition support DisplayPort 1. 4 and charging with up to 100 watts (Power Delivery 3.

0). Therefore, the device can be charged from either of its sides. Besides that, there is only the audio jack.

For HDMI, USB A, and VGA, you have to use the included USB-C hub. However, you have to do without RJ-45 and an SD card reader if you don’t have your own adapter at hand. Intel’s AX211 performs well, which conforms to the WiFi 6E standard and exceeds the non-Slim version of the Yoga 9i, although it comes with the same WiFi chip.

Apple’s MacBook Air M2 should’ve been content with the last rank if Realtek (Yoga Slim 7 Pro) wasn’t there to rush for help with even lower transfer rates. Bluetooth 5. 1 is on board (hardware-wise, it’s version 5.

3, while not yet supported by Windows 11). WWAN isn’t available for the Yoga Slim 9i. The built-in 1080p webcam with IR for logging in via Windows Hello is an improvement over 720p, but its image quality is still not what we would’ve wished.

However, the dual-array microphones are of good quality. On the right side of the device is a switch for turning off the webcam electronically. Alongside the 65-watt charger, there is a USB-C hub included, providing HDMI, 1x USB A, and VGA.

A fabric-covered sleeve case made of recycled material is always included. Even the packaging consists of mainly recycled material. Lenovo markets the laptop as the world’s first CO²-neutral certified laptop.

Meaning it is made with recycled materials as well. After loosening 4 Torx T4 screws, you’d think you can remove the bottom plate, at least with the help of a spudger. However, beneath the rubber foot, three additional Philips screws are hidden.

Also, this is hard to remove since it’s glued down in addition to its firm plastic clips. Thus, breaking the foot is a pretty realistic scenario. Mastered this, there is not much to do on the inside anyways: The short M.

2 2242 SSD is replaceable, and RAM and WiFi module are soldered. However, The battery and cooling system is screwed down and thus replaceable or serviceable. Lenovo provides a standard 12-month warranty for the Slim 9i in the States, the UK, Australia, and Canada, which can be extended to up to 4 years of Depot Service or Premium Care.

However, it depends on the region. Lenovo puts a keyboard in place, which equates to the ones from mid-range and entry-level IdeaPads. The key travel of roughly 1 to 1.

2 mm is tremendously low, even for Ultrabook standards. However, thanks to the rich pressure point, fast and precise typing on the 16 x 15 mm (0. 63 x 0.

6 in) keys is no problem. That said, some folks used to deeper key travel will bottom out. Altogether, there are better keyboards with similarly short key travel.

The layout, in general, is good but comes with the typical double assignments, and the up/down arrow keys are half size. The Home and End keys are entirely missing. A two-stage backlight is provided.

Let’s get to our main critique, the touchpad: Though it is made of glass and with 13. 5 x 8 cm (5. 3 x 3.

0 in) has been enlarged by a whole 50% compared to the predecessor, the surface area is slippery, however, which means recurring imprecise gliding and even erroneous inputs. The deep recess of the touchpad exacerbates that problem. The predecessor’s touchpad was flat, so it suffered from the opposite extreme.

Scrolling can be somewhat erratic, too, while drag-&-drop moves are difficult, and precise clicks remain uncommon. Furthermore, the integrated click buttons offer a short travel, featuring unclear feedback. Altogether one of the worst touchpads we tested.

For this reason, it is advisable to use a mouse or the touchscreen instead, as the latter is very responsive and precise, which results in pleasant scrolling, drag-and-drop actions, and pinch-to-zoom. The sharp 16:10 OLED panel has a resolution of 2,880 x 1,800 pixels. The very glossy screen supports touch, but the possible use of a stylus isn’t mentioned by Lenovo.

A refresh rate of 90 Hz holds, even if 60 Hz is mentioned several times by Lenovo, the latter, however, being pre-configured in Windows. Because of that, both the dragging of windows and the scrolling of content show no delay. The fast 2 ms reaction time augments that behavior.

The 4K panel, as the only option in the US, is restricted to 60 Hz and probably will reduce battery life even a bit more. We already perceive the 3K display as a very sharp, top-notch display. It is the same display found in the Yoga 9 convertible , by the way.

Lenovo promises 400 nits of brightness, while we measured 367 nits on average, which should be enough for everyday use indoors. For outdoors, the highly reflective glass surface is not beneficial. But by activating HDR500 it can be increased somewhat, with 617 nits of peak brightness on a completely white background (not measured).

In battery mode, you have to select “optimize for image quality” in Windows HDR settings. Black level and contrast are on the highest levels as expected with OLED. Therefore, backlight bleeding doesn’t occur naturally because the self-lit pixels don’t need a backlight, thus deactivating themselves on a pitch-black picture.

Apple’s MacBook Air M2 , of all IPS displays, comes the nearest to ours, while all the OLED devices, for example, the Zenbooks or the HP Spectre , are equally good. PWM flickering we measured with 357 Hz, holding the possibility of causing inconvenience to some users. The AdobeRGB color space is covered by 97%, enabling ambitious image editing.

Comparable devices with OLED panels achieve mainly equal values, and the MacBook Air, despite its IPS panel, holds its own against our test unit with similar good qualities. However, some colors deviate from the original, even if the average DeltaE2000 value remains just below the perceptible threshold of 3. The reds, in particular, by exceeding a value of 5.

The overall image is somewhat oversaturated by red, as well. After our calibration the reds still deviate somewhat significantly, but all other colors are now below the threshold or just marginally above it. However, the red tint could be levelled out.

Our calibrated ICC profile is available for download next to the brightness distribution analysis chart, as always. Outdoors, the display is only readable in the shade. You should avoid direct sunlight since the display’s surface is highly reflective, and 363 nits of brightness aren’t enough to compensate for this.

You can find a matte IPS variant in the Yoga Slim 7i Pro , for example. The viewing angles of the OLED display remain unaltered beyond even what an IPS is capable. The Yoga Slim 9i is not built for ambitious video editing, lacking a dedicated graphics unit.

Although, the Core i7-1280P, with its six performance- and eight efficiency cores, renders fast enough to enable occasional 4K video editing in theory. Intel’s Core i5-1240P is the only alternative for the Yoga Slim 9i (depending on region) and can save you some money taking into account a performance loss of 15 to 20%. The soldered down 16 GB dual-channel LPDDR5 5200 RAM is sufficient for everyday tasks, whereas 32 GB is an option for more performance-hungry tasks.

Lenovo’s Vantage software provides three performance modes: “Highest Performance”, “Intelligent Cooling”, and “Energy Saving”. All performance-related benchmarks we conducted with the highest performance mode enabled. The installed Intel Core i7-1280P is a 14-core processor with a 28-watt TDP.

To our fortune, it is allowed to consume 35 watts long-term (PL1) in the Lenovo Yoga Slim 9i and, for 40 seconds, even 52 watts (PL2). In intelligent cooling mode, PL2 is even set to 64 watts but only maintained for 15 seconds in that case. These settings allow for vastly satisfying results: Thus, CB R15 achieves 2,113 points in its first run, which is even above the 45-watt strong AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX in the Yoga Slim 7 Pro (2021) .

Also, the Ryzen 7 6800U is beaten effortlessly. As for the fourth run, our Core i7 levels at about 10% beneath AMD’s 5900HX-CPU, while the Yoga Slim 9i is still leading in CB R23, intended for long-term loads. The cooling system could handle more, proved by the similarly thin Slim 7i Pro cooling 50 watts long-term.

However, it does not have an SKU with a 14-core CPU, which is why it eventually does not compute faster than our test unit. However, such a high power limit would’ve meant a mainly unrestricted performance outcome of the Core i7-1280P. We’re checking the maximum potential with the tool “Throttle Stop”, resulting in 2,333 points in the first run of CB R15, 64 watts permanently applied (see screenshots below).

Not one ultrabook could manage that before, but we explicitly recommend not running the system outside the manufacturer’s specified power limits. However, we also wonder why Lenovo did not follow the Slim 7i Pro’s example and thus, create the most powerful 14-inch laptop, especially considering the temperatures of just 68 °C (154 °F) @35W PL1 and 78 °C (172 °F) @52 W PL2 using the presets. Thus, it could have matched even the more bulky, most vigorous 14-inch gaming notebooks In terms of long-term performance: Asus’ Zenbook Pro 14 Duo and Alienware x14 , each with Core i7-12700H .

Nevertheless, it is arguably the fastest Ultrabook or Evo Laptop. On battery, the CPU is strictly limited to 15 watts, resulting in halved performance. In Crossmark, the Yoga Slim 9i is leading in our comparison field, and also at the web surfing benchmarks, it often can score first.

In PCMark, however, its performance stays behind the AMD devices by 10 to 15%. Performance in day-to-day tasks is excellent, apps open instantaneously, and web browsing with multiple tabs during playback of a 4K YouTube video doesn’t limit the system at all. We measure prolonged delays of up to 2,532 µs on the Yoga Slim 9i, mainly caused by Windows’ ACPI driver.

It can lead to issues with real-time audio and video work. Future BIOS updates might improve this. We measured a pretty low CPU utilization of 12%.

During 4K YouTube playback, however, the iGPU’s utilization is high with almost 50%, which is typical for Intel. Samsung’s 1 TB PCIe 4. 0 SSD (PM9B1) is of the shorter M.

2 2242 format. A longer SSD can’t be installed, in contrast to its predecessor. Speeds are not on PCIe 4.

0 level, but overall not bad, although the entire competition in our comparison field is faster. You don’t have to expect any restrictions. At most, when copying larger data sets.

Contact to the bottom plate is made by two thermal pads ensuring good cooling, which leads to long-term steady transfer rates that we measured with the DiskSpd Read Loop. Unlike the slightly larger Yoga Slim Pro X 14 ( Ryzen 7 6800HS + RTX 3050 ), Lenovo foregoes a dedicated graphics solution in the Slim 9i, while Slim 7 Pro and Slim 7 Carbon 14 also offer a dedicated solution. Nonetheless, Intel’s Xe Graphics does reasonably well, likely also due to the fast LPDDR5 5200 RAM.

For games, it suffices for medium details at best, while older ones allow for higher details now and then. However, the Slim 9i is ultimately not designed for that. The Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 in the Schenker Vision 14 is already twice as fast, while AMD’s new Radeon 680M in the Asus Zenbook S 13 pulls away by 15% on average.

However, the CPU already provides enough performance to allow for occasional 4K rendering. On battery, the full graphics performance of Intel’s iGPU is available. When idle, fans remain dead silent, and likewise, they behave ideally during web browsing.

Even someone with swift web surfing and multiple browser tabs will be pleased with the silent laptop. The fast CPU arguably makes short work of a lot, so there will never be high workloads while surfing. Under full load, the fans rev up quite loudly with 43.

6 dB(A), but pleasant noise characteristics remain. In Intelligent Cooling mode, the laptop is much quieter and still provides high performance. Unfortunately, you can sometimes perceive a distinctive and permanent whine when charging the notebook, which affects all charging ports.

Even quieter are HP’s Spectre x360 13. 5 and Apple’s passively cooled MacBook Air . Despite the fast CPU, the Yoga Slim 9i moves in pleasantly chill waters and does not feature any hot spots.

The Spectre x360 13. 5 remains even chillier with its Alder Lake-U processor, and the MacBook Air also looks good here. In the combined stress test (Prime95 + FurMark), the P cores clock speeds are at a mere 750 Mhz, which is far below its base clock.

The reason is the shared 35 W power limit, while the iGPU gets prioritized and, therefore, at least can maintain a clock speed of 1,140 MHz. Solely stressing the GPU, it can almost reach its maximum boost clock of 1,400 MHz. Solely stressing the CPU, P-Cores, with 2.

1 GHz, further remain below the base clock of 2. 4 GHz. That means that the base clock specified by Intel, with a TDP of 28 watts, isn’t possible to attain by the Core i7-1280p.

A 3D-Test, which we performed right after the 1-hour stress test, doesn’t show any losses. The two 2 W tweeters and two 3 W woofers by Bowers & Wilkins are sufficiently loud to fill a large room with sound, outputting 78. 4 dB(A).

Mids and highs return clear and very linear, and there is enough bass, too, thanks to the woofers. We perceived the sound as overly pleasing, and it surpasses 97% of all our tested devices. External sound systems connect via the 3.

5 mm jack or Bluetooth. Idle power consumption is outright high, likely caused by a combination of the OLED display and Alder Lake-P. The Asus Zenbook S 13 manages lower idle consumption despite its 3K OLED panel.

The Lenovo Yoga 9 , with a 12-core CPU and the same OLED display, features a similarly high idle consumption. The included 65 W charger is sufficient to master permanent loads. Only initial boost periods can, in addition, tax the battery short-term.

In our WLAN test, with brightness set to 150 nits and Window’s power mode set to balanced as well as “Intelligent Cooling” in Lenovo Vantage, HDR deactivated and fixed 60 Hz, we measure about 7 hours. That is not that much but still reasonable, given the installed components (3K OLED panel + 14 core processor). The result is on par with the Yoga 9 2-in-1 , using the same panel and a twelve-core Alder Lake-P.

We were somewhat amazed that the results are just 50 minutes shorter at maximum brightness (~360 nits). Our device does not support fast charging. However, “Rapid Charge” is advertised by Lenovo.

In just under 2 hours, the Yoga Slim 9i gets back a full charge. Lenovo Yoga Slim 9i (2022): mid-range Ultrabook or possibly high-end? In any case, it provides the right stuff: an elegant design, including the 3D glass lid, the sturdy 6000 aluminum alloy of the casing, a powerful 14-core processor inside, paired with extra fast RAM, a brilliant 3K OLED 90 Hz display covering 100% DCI-P3 while supporting HDR500. In addition, there are high-quality quad speakers, and a decent FHD webcam and the compact laptop’s emissions remain low, especially given the top-of-the-line performance, unrivaled in an Ultrabook.

Lenovo’s Yoga Slim 9i is arguably the fastest Ultrabook, powered by Intel’s Core i7-1280P, with low emissions but providing mediocre battery life by combining it with a high-res OLED panel. Less of a pleasure to use is the slippery touchpad, which tends to have erroneous inputs, and even for Ultrabook standards, the low key-travel keyboard. Moreover, maintenance is challenging, while only the shortened SSD is replaceable.

Ports are scarce, even though 3x Thunderbolt 4 is not the worst thing to get. The Yoga Slim 9i’s high energy consumption, mediocre battery life, and slow charging are further compromises. The more affordable Asus Zenbook S 13 offers longer battery life and better input devices, and the Yoga convertible has some perks to boot.

On the other hand, HP’s Spectre x360 13. 5 provides a 3:2 display and equally good input devices. Pricing and availability, we discussed in detail in the second section of our introduction .

.