We recently reviewed the 14-inch Lenovo Yoga 9i, a compact convertible laptop with plenty of upside, but maybe you’re in the market for something a little larger. Its big brother, the 15.6-inch Lenovo Yoga 9i ($1,799.99 as tested), brings the same high-quality hybrid form factor to a roomier display. Of course, the increased size makes the larger Yoga a little unwieldy as a tablet, but it also delivers more power. (The hybrid’s snappy Intel Core i7 H-Series CPU and Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 Ti graphics will impress.) Long battery life and an included stylus sweeten the pot for what is a good, if not standout, convertible. The premium HP Spectre x360 15 remains our favorite big-screen 2-in-1 machine.
Yoga Time: A Sturdy Big-Screen Convertible
The design of the Yoga 9i is unassuming bordering on dull, but it certainly won’t offend and is a fit for professional use. It’s trim and relatively slim, especially for a 15-inch laptop, and its metal chassis is a sleek slate-gray color. The build itself is top quality, a sturdy system with essentially no flex in any area. The exact measurements are 0.78 by 14 by 9.4 inches (HWD) and 4.4 pounds.
That makes for a pretty standard laptop in terms of size, ready to travel when necessary, even if it won’t be mistaken for an ultraportable. For comparison’s sake, the Spectre x360 15 measures 0.79 by 14.2 by 8.9 inches and weighs 4.2 pounds. While both are reasonably portable, we generally find 15-inch convertibles unwieldy—it’s a lot of screen to grasp and rotate, and such systems are far too heavy to hold in one hand (or anywhere except a lap) in tablet mode. So we prefer 13.3- and 14-inch 2-in-1s.
For those who won’t compromise on screen size and want only occasional tablet or kiosk use, however, the big Yoga 9i is certainly a functional solution. It just doesn’t fit on your lap or on a petite cafe table or airline tray table quite as well.
One feature that does make it easier to use in different configurations is the included stylus. Tapping away with the pen in tablet mode is more precise and feels more natural than using your finger. The pen slots nicely into the system’s right side when not in use, where it will charge until you reach for it next time.
Speaking of the display, it’s a high-quality screen. The bezels aren’t imperceptibly thin like some ultraportables’, but they’re skinny enough to keep the system’s overall size relatively compact and make the display look larger. While a 4K (3,840-by-2,160-pixel) panel is available, our test unit featured full HD or 1080p resolution. Both are, of course, touch screens. The picture quality is good; the display is bright and sharp with vibrant colors, so I have no complaints.
Though the Yoga 9i’s silver-slab look is fairly ordinary, the build quality is above average, more in line with the premium price tag. The 360-degree display hinge is very sturdy, and resists smaller motion or pressure so the screen doesn’t flop around as you move the laptop. The keyboard is a breeze to type on (travel is a touch more shallow than I’ve come to expect from Lenovo laptops, but still comfortable), and this 15-incher features a full-size number pad. The touchpad is especially smooth, tracks nicely, and is firmly set in place (unlike some loose alternatives on cheaper laptops).
Last but not least for the physical build, we come to the ports. The left flank of the laptop is home to two USB-C ports with Thunderbolt 3 support, as well as a headphone jack. The right side includes just one USB 3.1 Type-A port, leaving this laptop a bit short on physical connectivity. I’ve seen 13-inch ultraportables with more connectivity, so it’s a little disappointing this desktop-replacement-sized laptop offers the bare minimum. The USB-C connections support DisplayPort monitor connections and charging, so the bases are all covered, but an HDMI port and perhaps another USB port would be appreciated.
Components: Intel Core i7, Nvidia GTX Graphics
Sold at Best Buy, our $1,799.99 test model includes a six-core Intel Core i7-10750H processor, 16GB of memory, an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 Ti GPU, and a 1TB solid-state drive. The dedicated graphics chip is definitely a head-turner in this category: Most convertibles rely on integrated graphics or low-grade discrete GPUs, but the 4GB GTX 1650 Ti is a legitimately capable choice for mainstream productivity and creativity apps and even mid-level gaming. It won’t satisfy media pros who need a full-on mobile workstation or hardcore gamers who demand one of Nvidia’s GeForce RTX chips, but it’s a solid, versatile solution.
If our Best Buy configuration doesn’t catch your eye, you can custom-tailor a Yoga 9i at Lenovo’s site—the base model, $1,449.99 at this writing, features a slightly more modest 12GB of RAM and 512GB SSD. Stepping up to the 4K screen, an eight-core Core i9 CPU, and a 2TB SSD would set you back $2,169.99. Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth are standard on all models. On the whole, our test unit feels a little pricey for what you’re getting; the HP Spectre x360 15 we tested in October 2020 cost $50 more but had a 4K AMOLED display.
Performance Testing: Core-H Speed and Capable 3D
To get a sense of what this laptop is capable of, we ran it through our comprehensive suite of benchmark tests and compared the results to those of other big-screen convertibles. You’ll find their names and specs in the table below. (See more about how we test laptops.)
Productivity, Storage, and Media Tests
PCMark 10 and 8 are holistic performance suites developed by the PC benchmark specialists at UL (formerly Futuremark). The PCMark 10 test we run simulates different real-world productivity and content creation workflows. We use it to assess overall system performance for office-centric tasks such as word processing, spreadsheet jockeying, web browsing, and videoconferencing. PCMark 8, meanwhile, has a storage subtest that we use to assess the speed of the system’s boot drive. Both tests yield a proprietary numeric score; higher numbers are better.
The Yoga 9i held a fairly comfortable lead in PCMark 10, with more separation from the competition than we’ve seen in most recent reviews. This margin won’t add up to a world of difference, but the Lenovo proved demonstrably quicker at everyday tasks than its already fast peers, so you’ll rarely if ever see much slowdown from multitasking. As for PCMark 8, all of these SSDs are more or less equally snappy, ensuring speedy boot and load times.
Next is Maxon’s CPU-crunching Cinebench R15 test, which is fully threaded to make use of all available processor cores and threads. Cinebench stresses the CPU rather than the GPU to render a complex image. The result is a proprietary score indicating a PC’s suitability for processor-intensive workloads.
Cinebench is often a good predictor of our Handbrake video editing trial, another tough, threaded workout that’s highly CPU-dependent and scales well with cores and threads. In it, we put a stopwatch on test systems as they transcode a standard 12-minute clip of 4K video (the open-source Blender demo movie Tears of Steel) to a 1080p MP4 file. It’s a timed test, and lower results are better.
We also run a custom Adobe Photoshop image editing benchmark. Using an early 2018 release of the Creative Cloud version of Photoshop, we apply a series of 10 complex filters and effects to a standard JPEG test image. We time each operation and add up the total. As with Handbrake, lower times are better here.
As in PCMark 10, the Yoga 9i led the pack in these three tests, though only once by big margins. Again, none of these 2-in-1s qualifies as a media workstation, but they can get the job done, and the 9i can do it slightly better than the others.
The greater performance is likely due to the fact this is an H-Series chip, usually seen in higher-power machines such as gaming laptops. You’ll note it’s faster than even the newer-generation Core i7-1165G7 in the Dell, as G-Series processors (the “G” indicates their boosted integrated graphics) don’t push as much power as their H-Series cousins. The two G-Series laptops here lag behind the rest, even the older 9th Generation chip in the Yoga C940.
Graphics Tests
3DMark measures relative graphics muscle by rendering sequences of highly detailed, gaming-style 3D graphics that emphasize particles and lighting. We run two different 3DMark subtests, Sky Diver and Fire Strike, which are suited to different types of systems. Both are DirectX 11 benchmarks, but Sky Diver is more suited to midrange PCs, while Fire Strike is more demanding and made for high-end PCs to strut their stuff. The results are proprietary scores.
Next up is another synthetic graphics test or gaming simulation, this time from Unigine Corp. Like 3DMark, the Superposition test renders and pans through a detailed 3D scene and measures how the system copes. In this case, it’s rendered in the eponymous Unigine engine, offering a different 3D workload scenario for a second opinion on each laptop’s graphical prowess.
Many non-gaming laptops have only integrated graphics, putting their 3D performance on the, shall we say, less relevant side. The Yoga 9i (and most in this best-in-class field), however, boast moderately powerful discrete GPUs. Its Fire Strike score points to decent 3D proficiency, and 35fps in Superposition’s 1080p High preset indicates modest gaming performance. Again, it won’t match a true gaming laptop with a beefier GPU, but you can absolutely play real games on this system (albeit at lower settings for modern 3D titles).
Battery Rundown Test
After fully recharging the laptop, we set up the machine in power-save mode (as opposed to balanced or high-performance mode) where available and make a few other battery-conserving tweaks in preparation for our unplugged video rundown test. (We also turn Wi-Fi off, putting the laptop in airplane mode.) In this test, we loop a video—a locally stored 720p file of the same Tears of Steel short we use in our Handbrake test—with screen brightness set at 50 percent and volume at 100 percent until the system quits.
Though just short of being a chart-leader, the Yoga 9i boasts a nice, long battery life. Longer runtimes belong mostly to smaller laptops, but the Lenovo delivers all-day productivity for a commute or travel (if you’re currently doing either). If you want to unplug and take the convertible to your couch or bed to surf the web or stream a movie, you don’t have to worry about the battery.
A Complete Convertible
The big Yoga 9i doesn’t do anything too out of the ordinary, but it does everything competently. It sports a quality build, a nice screen, and speedier performance than most of its peers.
On the less positive side, the design is a bit dull, and I would expect more ports on a laptop this size. Like all 15-inch convertibles, it’s somewhat bulky and awkward, but that is the nature of the beast, and it’s useful enough for displaying a movie or presentation in various setups. It may not be a machine you’ll run out and tell your friends about in excitement, but it plays its role well.
