🔬 [REVIEW] Lenovo Yoga 9i (14", 2022) - Dialing it back a bit
29📈 💵 Specs and Prices: https://laptopmedia.com/series/lenovo-yoga-9i-14-2022/
👁️ Buy our display profiles: https://laptopmedia.com/review/lenovo-yoga-9i-14-2022/#buy-our-profiles
🔬 In-depth Review: https://laptopmedia.com/review/lenovo-yoga-9i-14-2022/
➡️ CONTENTS:
[0:00] Introduction
[0:30] Design and construction
[1:08] Keyboard and Touchpad
[1:33] Ports
[1:49] Display quality
[2:42] Battery life
[2:57] Performance
[3:16] Temps and Stability
[3:58] Disassembly and upgrade options
[4:22] Verdict
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🔬 [REVIEW] Lenovo Yoga 9i (14", 2022)
If there was anything negative to point out about last year’s Lenovo Yoga 9i, it’s the touchpad, which wanted to take over the whole wrist rest. This time we have a more standard approach, which is sure to appease more people. Stick with us to see what else the new model brings and if it's the right one for you. Spoiler alert, it totally is, if you’re looking for a fancy and luxurious device with a decent chunk of performance.
[Intro]
The Yoga 9i comes with a very sturdy chassis that’s made entirely of aluminum. The design is one of the best that we’ve seen, with rounded edges and corners. The sides are very shiny, while the lid and base have a more matte anodized finish. There is a slight protrusion on the lid, so you can grip it more comfortably. In terms of dimensions, it's neither the lightest nor the heaviest laptop out there, with a weight between 1.40 and 1.50 kg, depending on the display choice. The notebook is very thin, just 15.25 mm.
[Input devices]
The protrusion on the lid helps with grip, so you can open the laptop with one hand. The bezels on the lid are narrow, while still housing an FHD webcam with an IR face recognition sensor. The keyboard has good key travel and clicky feedback, while there’s a backlight as well. The touchpad has a decent size, however, the glass surface is the real star. It’s very smooth and responsive.
[Ports]
The I/O is split between the left and right sides. The left has a full-sized 10-gigabit USB port and two Thunderbolt 4 ports. Then, on the right, there’s an audio jack, one USB Type-C 10-gigabit port, and a power button.
[Display]
The glass-protected display comes in three variants: a FHD+ IPS panel, a 2.8K OLED panel, and a 4K UHD+ OLED panel. We tested the 2.8K version, which has excellent viewing angles, and a high peak brightness of 400 nits. Also, the contrast ratio is infinite, so colors appear vibrant and deep. The panel fully covers the sRGB and DCI-P3 gamuts. The color accuracy reaches a dE value of below 2 with our Design and Gaming profile in the DCI-P3 space with a D65 white point.
Get our profiles from the link in the description below.
[Battery]
With a big 75Wh battery pack and a Core i7-1260P, the laptop lasts for 7 hours and 13 minutes of Web browsing, or 6 hours and 56 minutes of video playback, which isn’t exactly great.
[Performance]
On the other hand, the Core i7-1260P scores really well, outclassing everything that Intel offered in 2021 while being competitive with the Ryzen 7 6800U from AMD in 3D Rendering. Also, it’s much faster than the AMD CPU in our Photoshop test.
[Cooling]
The laptop uses a decent setup for a P-series CPU, with two heat pipes and two fans. The cooling does well, pushing the Core i7-1260P up to 62W and up to 3.12GHz on the Performance cores, albeit only for 10 seconds. Afterward, the TDP drops to 50W for the next 20 seconds. In long runs, like video rendering, the processor maintains its base 28W TDP.
The machine is comfortable most of the time, but the fans do get loud when using the Performance preset. The base reaches 40°C, which is nowhere near disturbing levels, so we’re quite happy.
[Teardown and upgradeability]
All of the RAM is soldered onto the motherboard, but at least you’re getting very quick LPDDR5 memory that works at 5200 MHz. For storage, there’s one M.2 slot for fast Gen 4 SSDs.
We’ll leave our teardown video in the upper right corner, which shows how to upgrade the Lenovo Yoga 9i.
[Verdict]
The 14-inch Lenovo Yoga 9i Gen 7 is an excellent notebook that dials back on being a testing ground for whatever new technology Lenovo comes up with. After all, the company has the ThinkPad X1 lineup for that. The laptop offers a stylish and durable design, and a great selection of displays, both IPS and OLED versions. Performance is great as well, at least for a 14-inch notebook, so you really have nothing major to worry about if you think to pick one up.
As always, don’t forget to go over to our website to find more information about the Lenovo Yoga 9i Gen 7, including its current prices.