Lenovo Slim Pro 9i (2023) review: A powerful laptop for on-the-go creators

Lenovo makes quite a few laptops for creators, and after I got to review the Slim Pro 7 (and the Slim 7 Pro X before that), I now get to test the top-tier Slim Pro 9i this time around. This takes things a step further in just about every way, making it one of Lenovo’s best creator laptops and one of the company’s best laptops in general. It comes in two versions, one with a 14-inch screen and one with a 16-inch panel. Both are great, though the larger model is naturally more powerful.

But it looks and feels sleek in either size option. It also has a great display and pretty powerful performance for all your video editing and even some gaming. It’s always cool to see a lot of power packed into a relatively slim laptop, and Lenovo really delivered that here. Plus, that mini-LED panel gets super bright, so you can easily view it anywhere.

That said, for being Lenovo’s premier creator laptop, color accuracy could be a bit better, and the display glass cover is very reflective, which can sometimes be bothersome. Still, the Slim Pro 9i delivers a strong experience.

Lenovo Slim Pro 9i: Pricing and availability

Lenovo announced the Slim Pro 9i back in March 2023, with availability planned for May. Actual availability has been a bit flaky, however, with only the 14-inch model listed on Lenovo’s website and the 16-inch model seemingly not available to buy anywhere, despite having listings on both Lenovo and Best Buy. Plus, Lenovo’s official spec sheet doesn’t mention all the models the company had originally announced, so it’s unclear if they will actually launch.

Regardless, the 14-inch model is available for $1,900 on Lenovo’s website, about $200 above the originally-announced starting price. Best Buy lists this model for $1,870 and the 16-inch version for $2,150, but again, it’s not actually available to buy at writing time.

Design

It looks sleek and clean

Regardless of the size option you choose, the Lenovo Slim Pro 9i is a very sleek laptop. It comes in a subdued yet stylish Storm Grey colorway that feels premium without being overly boring, and both models look pretty much the same besides their size. They’re made of aluminum, which makes them feel solid, albeit a little heavy, but that matches the powerful specs.

Naturally, the 16-inch model is going to be heavier, coming in at 4.92 pounds, while the 14-inch version weighs 3.7 pounds. That puts them in the range of the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro, so they’re decently portable, considering the power they give you.

There isn’t much to say here, though, considering this isn’t a super exciting or unique design. It looks and feels good. That’s all there is to it, but that’s enough considering everything else you’ll get.

Lots of ports for both sizes

Lenovo supplies the Slim Pro 9i with a pretty good selection of ports regardless of the size you choose, although there are some differences. The 16-inch model comes with one Thunderbolt 4 port, three USB Type-A ports (all with 5Gbps speeds), HDMI, a headphone jack, and a full-size SD card reader. That last bit is all too important for photographers and other creators since digital cameras still tend to have these larger cards. The 16-inch model also uses a proprietary charger port with a 170W power adapter.

On the other hand, the 14-inch variant of the Slim Pro 9i includes one Thunderbolt 4 port, but it also has a second USB Type-C port for charging since the included 140W charger uses that port instead of a proprietary connector. It also includes two USB Type-A ports, and it’s otherwise the same as the larger version, with HDMI, a headphone jack, and a full-size SD card reader, which is especially great at this smaller size.

Suffice it to say, the port selection is very good here, for the most part. The lack of a 10Gbps USB port is odd for such a premium laptop, but it might not be a big deal unless you’re moving large amounts of data to a flash drive frequently.

Keyboard and touchpad

It sure has a Lenovo keyboard

Keyboards on Lenovo laptops are always some of the best in the industry, and that holds up here. This one isn’t particularly special, but typing on either Lenovo Slim Pro 9i variant feels great. The keys have the right amount of travel, and they don’t feel harsh when they bottom out, so the typing experience is simply comfortable overall.

That applies to both sizes, but what doesn’t is the inclusion of a numpad. The 16-inch version comes with a numpad on the right, which can be useful if you’re working with numbers very frequently. I like having this feature, though it can lead to an adjustment period if you’re coming from a laptop or keyboard without it.

The touchpad is big and smooth

Below that keyboard sits a touchpad that is positively massive on the 16-inch version of the Lenovo Slim Pro 9i. Even on the 14-inch model, it’s about as big as it could be, but if you really want a big area for your fingers to glide around, the 16-inch model is for you.

It’s nice and smooth, too. Of course, it also has proper physical buttons you can click instead of a haptic touchpad like some other laptops we’ve seen in recent years.

Display and audio

A super-bright screen for creators on the go

A big component of a content creation laptop is naturally the display. You’ll typically want a screen with great color reproduction, but it’s also nice to have a bright panel if you’re planning to do work while you’re on the move and have to deal with harsh or outdoor lighting. Thankfully, the Lenovo Slim Pro 9i has both.

The 14.5-inch model comes in 3072×1920 resolution, while the 16-inch version goes up to 3200×2000, but both panels look great. Most of the advertised specs are the same between the two: up to a massive 1,200 nits of brightness (only for HDR content) and 100% coverage of all main color gamuts, those being Adobe RGB, DCI-P3, and sRGB.

In my testing, I found the actual results to fall a little bit short of those claims. According to my SpyderX Pro sensor, while the sRGB coverage did hit 100% and DCI-P3 hit 99% (on the 16-inch version), Adobe RGB measurements came in at just 88%. That’s not a bad result, but it’s well short of the advertised 100%. Things are slightly worse with the 14-inch version, which achieved 95% of DCI-P3 and 85% of Adobe RGB.

To be clear, this is a great screen, but there’s also better out there. Most OLED screens are on this level or slightly better, and something like the Dell XPS 17 just runs away with the crown here. Lenovo also advertises color accuracy rated at Delta E

Where these laptops really excel, though, is brightness. While I can’t test the 1,200-nit claim since the SpyderX Pro tests aren’t meant for HDR screens, the 16-inch model reached an impressive 695.8 nits in SDR mode. The 14-inch version measured a little lower at 615.8, but those are both very impressive numbers. They’ll ensure that the screen is visible even when there’s bright lighting.

What makes this a little harder is how reflective the panel on the display is. Since both screens support touch, they also have a smooth glass surface, and this one, in particular, is very reflective, which might make it harder to see in bright lighting conditions. I mostly used the laptop at home and constantly found my attention drawn to the display because I thought I saw something move when it was just a small change in the reflection on the screen. That’s not a situation most people will be in, but it illustrates how reflective the glass is.

A strangely bad webcam

Above the display on both laptops sits a 5MP webcam that supports up to 1440p video. While that seems to suggest the camera is good, it’s actually not all that impressive. Even in good lighting conditions, pictures and video look too grainy. And it doesn’t handle low light very well, either, making subjects appear much more pale than they should be.

Thankfully, audio sounds quite great. The 16-inch model, in particular, has a six-speaker setup, and while I expected it to be louder, it’s still more than loud enough for watching movies or listening to music. While they don’t get extremely loud, these speakers do have the benefit of having basically no distortion even when maxed out, and there’s pretty good separation between instruments when listening to music.

Performance and battery life

Plenty of power for such a compact machine

As a creator laptop, the Lenovo Slim Pro 9i needs some beefy hardware, and it delivers on that front. The 16-inch version comes with an Intel Core i9-13905H processor, while the 14-inch model sticks to a slightly slower Core i7-13705H. These shouldn’t be too far off from each other, though the benchmark results I got were interesting. Both units Lenovo sent me came with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4050, so they’re not the most powerful models the company is advertising. It’s also worth noting the 16-inch version has a 100W TGP for the GPU compared to the 80W in the smaller model, which means you’re going to get more performance out of the larger version.

That all makes sense, but the actual difference in performance is more stark than I expected, particularly on the CPU side. The benchmarks I ran show the 16-inch model pulling noticeably ahead across the board, even in tests that mostly rely on the CPU. Even in tests like 3DMark, a good chunk of the difference in the overall score came from the CPU tests.

As for more real-life tests, I tried the usual export test of an 8K video using the latest version of DaVinci Resolve. The video itself is 4 minutes and 23 seconds of sequential footage on a single track, and the Lenovo Slim Pro 9i 16-inch took 6 minutes and 53 seconds to export the file, while the 14-inch variant went up to 7 minutes and 32 seconds. Those are pretty solid results considering the specs, though it’s still not on par with the 2023 MacBook Pro.

Both options have plenty of power, and you could even play some games here, as long as you turned down the render resolution and maybe some other graphics settings. However, that’s not the main point of these machines. If you’re planning to get one of them, though, I’d say the 16-inch model is definitely the way to go, at least assuming the decision is between the two configurations I tested. Even with the same GPU, it’s noticeably faster, presumably because it may also have better cooling.

Battery life is alright, considering the specs

Taking into account the powerful specs and super-sharp display inside these laptops, battery life was decent. I spent most of my review time with the 16-inch model (which was sent to me first), and that got anywhere between 3 hours and 51 minutes and 4 hours and 42 minutes. In fact, most of the tests were above 4 hours and 10 minutes, and the two scores under four hours clearly happened when I enabled the RSS feeds feature in my web browser (Vivaldi), which updates every 5 minutes. It clearly makes a dent.

Despite the smaller size, the 14-inch version has the same exact battery, and since the specs are less power-hungry, the results are a bit better here. At best, I got 5 hours and 20 minutes, while at worst, I got 4 hours and 51 minutes.

Those are solid numbers for the type of laptop this is, but if you’re planning to be out and about for a day, you’ll definitely want a charger on you. That’s something you can say of most creator laptops outside the latest MacBook Pro models, but it’s worth keeping in mind.

Should you buy the Lenovo Slim Pro 9i?

You should buy the Lenovo Slim Pro 9i if:

• You want a laptop that’s both powerful and portable
• You’re looking for something you can use outdoors and still see the screen
• You value a great media experience, including good speakers
• You don’t want to rely on a docking station for your peripherals

You should NOT buy the Lenovo Slim Pro 9i if:

• You need the best color accuracy you can get
• You plan to use the webcam frequently
• You want all-day battery life

The Lenovo Slim Pro 9i is a laptop that gets a lot right. It packs a lot of performance into a fairly thin and sleek chassis that isn’t overly heavy, making it great for anyone who needs that kind of power while they’re on the move. It won’t compete with the MacBook Pro if you care about battery life, but it delivers the goods in terms of performance.

The display is also a big deal, though, at the same time, I feel like it falls a little short for creative professionals. While it advertises 100% coverage of Adobe RGB, it doesn’t quite hit it, so it’s not as great as it should be. Still, the mini-LED panel offers a great experience, and color coverage is still very good — just not as amazing as advertised.

All things considered, though, this is a great creator laptop that’s priced fairly reasonably for what it offers in terms of performance, display, and design. It’s not perfect by any means, but it’s worth considering if you’re looking for a premium creator laptop.