Lenovo Yoga Book 9i review: It’s shockingly good

Whether it’s the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Fold with its foldable screen, or a Surface Pro tablet that was released in the early 2010s, Windows never seems to work well on a new form factor. In most cases, I’ll walk away from the review saying the product is good for a certain niche, but I’m looking forward to getting back to a real laptop. The Lenovo Yoga Book 9i is a different story though, because this thing is shockingly good.

Having two screens on a laptop is a game-changer. Gone are the days of carrying around a portable monitor, something I’ve actually done pretty frequently when traveling to events. If you use a PC with dual monitors at home, I really don’t have to tell you how great it is to be able to do this on the go.

The product is not perfect, with most of its issues coming from the on-screen touchpad and the lack of pressure sensitivity. Indeed, that experience is a bit buggy.

But the accessory keyboard is so good. I’d expect most devices like this to have a pretty low-end Bluetooth keyboard bundled with it, like we saw with the foldable ThinkPad. This feels like a proper 13-inch laptop keyboard. And using it feels like using a proper laptop.

 

Lenovo Yoga Book 9i pricing and availability

The Lenovo Yoga Book 9i begins shipping on June 16, 2023, but you can preorder it now from Best Buy for $1,999.99. As of right now, there seems to be only one configuration, which comes in Tidal Teal and packs an Intel Core i7-1355U, 16GB LPDDR5x memory, and a 512GB PCIe 4 SSD. While the RAM, CPU, and color all seem to be set in stone, it seems like there’s another 1TB variant that will show up at some point.

That price includes the keyboard, the stand, and the pen, and frankly, it’s a pretty solid value. Given how expensive things have gotten over the last few years, most new designs have been really expensive. The only PCs to stay at a normal price point have been ones that have been spec bumps, such as the Surface Laptop 5.

This is a totally new design, with a top-end mobile CPU, 16GB RAM, and a 512GB SSD. There’s no Core i5 model, or a base unit that has 8GB RAM and a 256GB SSD. And then, of course you get the whole dual display form factor. Frankly, when Microsoft announced the Surface Neo years ago, my guess was that it would be $2,500, and that product was always going to be terrible.

Actually using a dual-screen laptop

We can do a rundown of the design, the displays, and the keyboard, but what really matters here is what this thing is like to use, and if that matters to you. It should matter to you, because this thing is good, really good.

There are a number of different orientations that you can use:

1. The two screens on top of each other, using the included stand and keyboard
2. The two screens side-by-side, using the stand and keyboard
3. Laptop mode, using the included keyboard and the touchscreen touchpad
4. Laptop mode, using the touchscreen keyboard and touchpad
5. Tablet mode, with the display folded 360 degrees

All of these scenarios have their purpose. Writing this review on a train right now, I’m using #3. Working on the balcony of a hotel yesterday, I used #1, which is my favorite. #4 is practical if you just pull open the laptop to do small tasks, and you don’t feel like grabbing the physical keyboard.

But while orientations #1 and #2 are so good that they’ll change your work flow, #3 is actually quite buggy. The keyboard is very good, but the touchscreen touchpad is not.

Here’s the biggest flaw of this product: the bottom screen is not pressure sensitive, like you’d see from a haptic touchpad in a more traditional laptop. That means that you can’t press down on it to drag and drop. There are two buttons below the touchpad that you can hold instead.

It takes a lot of getting used to. Remember, this isn’t pressure-sensitive at all, so that applies to the buttons too. That makes it really easy to accidentally click on things.

But of course, if you’re using it in a dual-screen mode, which you should totally do if you’re buying this thing, you’re not using a virtual touchpad. For that, you’ll want to use the Yoga Book 9i with a mouse.

It really turns your laptop into a desktop workstation on the go. It’s fantastic, and not just in the way that you get two monitors.

The Yoga Book 9i turns your laptop into a desktop workstation on the go.

Have you ever used a laptop for work all day, and had your neck hurt from looking down at the screen? Indeed, this problem has only been exacerbated over the past five years or so as bottom bezels get smaller. But with dual displays on a stand like this, you’re looking straight at the top screen, rather than looking down.

Moreover, you’re looking straight at the webcam as well. There’s no more looking down at the camera in a position that, I promise you, makes everyone else on your call totally aware that you’re using a laptop instead of a real webcam.

Do to the stand being foldable in the way that it is, you can’t adjust the angle of the bottom screen. I’ve not found that to be an issue at all. Personally, I think it’s perfect as it is.

The genius design puts the webcam at eye level.

The real flaw comes with storing and carrying the thing. The keyboard magnetically attaches to the stand, and folds up nicely, but it doesn’t magnetically attach to the laptop in any way. That means you have to carry them separately. Also, if you have to bring the whole setup into another room, it’s a pain. You have to pick up the laptop, the stand, the keyboard, the mouse, and probably your power cable.

Design

It looks and feels like a Lenovo Yoga 9i

Lenovo’s Yoga Book 9i isn’t the first dual-screen laptop to be announced. Microsoft originally promised the Surface Neo, a dual-screen PC that never shipped. In fact, the OS it was supposed to use never even shipped, another testament to how good the Yoga Book 9i is with regular old Windows 11. But what really interested me about the Yoga Book 9i’s design the first time I saw it was that it really just looked like a Lenovo Yoga 9i.

The Yoga 9i tops our list of best laptops for a variety of reasons, including its looks. The Yoga Book 9i is similar, albeit coming in a color called Tidal Teal, which I love, instead of Oatmeal. It maintains the rounded soft-touch edges, and they’re polished for a little extra bling. Interestingly, the edges aren’t polished on the keyboard, but that’s neither here nor there.

The point of the comparison is that Lenovo essentially took the best laptop on the market, swapped out the keyboard for a second display, made a few minor modifications, and shipped it. It even keeps the amazing Dolby Atmos soundbar in the hinge.

Some of the modifications come from the ports. There’s no USB Type-A here, nor is there a headphone jack. I’m fine with that too. OEMs have been trying to ditch USB Type-A for a while now, and new designs are finally starting to not include it at all. You can use all the adapters you want if you need to, but frankly, it was probably a bad idea if you were investing in USB Type-A over the last couple of years.

A headphone jack on a PC is a bit more necessary than it is on a smartphone, because things like latency matter. But still, you don’t have to use a Bluetooth headset. USB is still there.

In fact, all three ports are Thunderbolt 4, with one on the left side and two on the right. That means that you can connect dual 4K displays on a single port, plug in an external GPU, and more. Thunderbolt 4 is the most powerful and versatile port you can get. It does everything.

There’s also a switch at the bottom to block the camera. It’s an internal disconnection, so there’s no visual indication that the camera is being blocked.

Overall, I love the design of the Yoga Book 9i, in the same way that I praised the Yoga 9i when I reviewed that. I do kind of miss the pale gold of the Yoga 9i though, but the Tidal Teal is pretty slick too.

Display

There are two of them

The Lenovo Yoga Book 9i has two 13.3-inch 2880×1800 OLED displays, which is pretty sweet. One thing I really want to hammer home is that this isn’t just a dual-screen laptop. This is a good dual-screen laptop, so like other parts, the screens are premium.

Interestingly, the screen is a bit smaller than the 14-inch one you’d find on the Yoga 9i or the Slim 9i. Honestly, I’m not sure what drove Lenovo to make this a 13-inch device instead of a 14-inch laptop. One other difference with the display is that those other laptops allow for their 2880×1800 configurations to be set to 90Hz. If I had to guess, that’s not happening here because there’s already a lot going on with two displays, and then it also has a lower-powered 15W processor.

Testing came in at 100% sRGB, 93% NTSC, 95% Adobe RGB, and 100% P3, which as you can imagine, is excellent. These are really only the kinds of numbers you see with OLED displays, which can produce more dynamic colors. The only non-OLED displays that can be this good, that I’ve seen, ship on Dell’s XPS laptops.

In my testing, max brightness came in at 372.6 nits, which is lower than the 400 that was promised. One thing that I have never seen in testing with the SpyderX Pro that I use is a 0.00 black level, leaving a contrast ratio of 0. With OLED displays, pixels get turned off, so you get what’s considered true black. But still, that number is usually around 0.01 or 0.03, leaving the contrast ratio still way beyond anything you’d get with a non-OLED screen. But this is perfect true black. It’s impressive.

It doesn’t just have two screens; it has two OLED screens.

The webcam above the display is 5MP with 4:3 aspect ratio, capable of recording 1440p (3.7MP) video at 16:9. It’s pretty great, but like I noted above, the best part of the webcam is that if you place the Yoga Book 9i so that the two screens are stacked on top of each other, the webcam is perfectly at eye level, or close to it depending on your height.

Performance

Intel 13th-gen U-series is the right choice

As far as I know, every Lenovo Yoga Book 9i that exists comes with an Intel Core i7-1355U and 16GB LPDDR5x memory. And if you follow my reviews at all, then you know that this is where I praise Lenovo for using a U-series processor.

15W processors have been the norm for laptops, ultrabooks, and convertibles for a very long time, but ever since Intel 12th-gen, some devices have shown up with 28W chips, or even 45W CPUs. Naturally, the higher wattage means worse battery life, so these companies often compensate by using larger batteries. Moreover, the performance gain isn’t even meaningful. No one is asking for productivity performance, and if you’re looking toward creative work, you’re buying something with dedicated graphics anyway.

As you’d expect, general performance is fine, especially for productivity work. Productivity performance has been solved for a while now, and Intel has moved onto things like adding more cores for better multitasking. I also edited all of my photos on the Yoga Book 9i, and Lightroom Classic and Photoshop worked just fine. However, I did have to boost the power slider to get the performance I needed for photo editing when not connected to power.

Also, one thing to be aware of is that you should totally use a mouse if you’re doing things like photo editing. The touchpad isn’t pressure sensitive, so dragging and dropping exactly where you want to isn’t super easy.

Benchmark scores are better than last year, but again, it’s not really something to concern yourself with. If you’re buying a machine like this, you’re probably not thinking about speeds and feeds.

Battery life was battery than I thought it would be, pretty consistently coming in at around six hours and 15 minutes. You can probably attribute that to the fact that Intel is focusing more on efficiency, and that Lenovo chose the option that doesn’t pump more power into the chip to capitalize on that. Still, with two high-resolution OLED displays, I didn’t expect it to be this good.

Should you buy the Lenovo Yoga Book 9i?

You should buy the Lenovo Yoga 9i if:

• You’ve got a dual monitor setup at home
• You multitask a lot
• You do any work that requires reading from a source and writing notes / answering questions in a separate program

You should NOT buy the Lenovo Yoga 9i if:

• You don’t multitask, focusing more on things like distraction-free writing
• Easy portability is important to you

The Lenovo Yoga Book 9i is one of my favorite laptops ever. When I first played with it at CES, I figured it was yet another Windows device in a new form factor that doesn’t make sense. After all, Microsoft pushed Windows tablets in 2012 and other companies adopted it, at least for a time. After that, the Surface Book form factor, the Surface Studio form factor, and foldable screens never caught on. It seemed like Windows was destined to stick with the traditional clamshell.

But when Lenovo actually sent me this unit and I started using it outside of my home, everything clicked. I’m no longer limited to a second screen when I’m on the road, and in fact, I even used it with a portable monitor at one point for a third screen. If you’re a multitasker, this is for you. Same thing goes for if you’re a student that might be taking notes from a book, or doing something else where there’s something on one screen and you’re working from it on another.

If none of that sounds useful to you, then put simply, it’s not. There are people that want a single, small screen because they just want to do one thing at a time. Writers are a great example of people that don’t want distractions.

The other thing that might hold you back from buying this is portability. There are just so many pieces here, between the laptop itself, the keyboard, the stand, and the pen.

The bottom line is this. If you use two screens at home and that sounds useful on the road, the Lenovo Yoga Book 9i is for you.