Lenovo Slim 9i vs Lenovo Yoga 9i Gen 7 | digital trends

Lenovo has one of the widest ranges of 14-inch laptops. There are a variety of price points and features to choose from across the ThinkPad, Yoga, and Slim lines. The Slim 9i is the company’s premium consumer clamshell laptop, and the Yoga 9i is its premium 360-degree convertible 2-in-1.

They’re different laptops, but they share the same DNA. Specifically, they’ll enjoy the same new rounded design that debuted on the Yoga 9i Gen 7, which is both gorgeous and comfortable to hold. Is the 2-in-1 flexibility of yoga the only thing that speaks for it? We’ll look at that here.

specifications

price and configurations

To be honest, Lenovo pricing can be confusing and changes frequently. At the time of writing, the Slim 9i starts at a premium price of $1,760 for a Core i7-1280P CPU, 32GB of RAM, a 512GB SSD, and a 14-inch UHD+ OLED display. Increase that configuration to 1 TB and you’ll pay a whopping $380 more, at $2,140.

The Yoga 9i Gen 7 starts at $1,000 for a Core i7-1260P, 16GB of RAM, a 512GB SSD, and a 14-inch FHD+ IPS display. The same configuration with OLED costs almost $900 more at $1,880. There are other configurations in between, including 1GB SSD and 2.8K IPS options. The entry-level price is mid-range, but beyond that, you’ll be spending a premium amount.

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Lenovo introduced a new aesthetic with the Yoga 9i Gen 7, moving from a traditional design with sharp corners to a rounded design accented with tasteful chrome. It’s both a sleek aesthetic and a comfortable feel, especially in tablet mode. Speaking of which, the Yoga is a 360-degree convertible that supports four modes: Clamshell, Tent, Media, and Tablet. The laptop’s all-aluminum build quality is unmatched among Windows laptops, and its hinge opens with one hand while the display stays firmly in place in any mode.

The Slim 9i is a clamshell version with the same beautiful and comfortable design. It’s also solidly built with an excellent hinge. But the Slim 9i is not identical to the Yoga 9i. Its lid is covered with frosted glass, which gives it some density and an ultra-smooth finish that increases the elegance factor. These are both nice laptops, but the clamshell has a slight advantage.

Both laptops use Lenovo’s inverted notch at the top of the display to accommodate 1080p webcams and infrared cameras, as well as microphones that contribute to great video conferencing experiences. Passwordless Windows 11 Hello login is made possible by facial recognition thanks to the IR camera, and Lenovo’s Zero Touch Lock and Login are supported on every computer. This feature locks the laptops and puts them to sleep when users leave and wakes them up when users return.

The Yoga 9i Gen 7 has more convenient connectivity than the Slim 9i, with USB-A ports for older devices. Both use the latest radio standard.

Finally, you’ll find essentially the same keyboard and touchpad on both laptops. It’s a solid offering, with plenty of spacing and large keycaps, as well as a light, snappy switch that’s not as deep as the better keyboards in Dell’s XPS and HP Specter lines. The touchpads are the same size and offer a precise surface and quiet, confident keys. Both laptops have touch displays, while the Yoga 9i Slim 7 also supports Lenovo’s active pen.

perfomance

The Slim 9i and Yoga 9i Gen 7 are based on 28-watt 12th Gen Intel CPUs. The clamshell is limited to the 14-core/20-thread Core i7-1280P up to 4.8GHz, while the 2-in-1 offers a choice of the 12-core/16-thread Core i5-1240P up to 4.8GHz offers 4.4GHz and the Core i7-1260P runs up to 4.7GHz.

The two laptops performed similarly in Geekbench 5 and our Handbrake test, which encodes a 420MB video as H.265. Thanks to more cores and threads and a higher clocked CPU, the Slim 9i was significantly faster in the Cinebench R23 benchmark. We used Lenovo’s thermal management utility to test balanced and performance modes, and both results are listed in the table.

These are fast productivity machines that can handle the most demanding workflows. Neither is particularly fast for demanding creativity tasks, mainly because of the integrated Intel Iris Xe Graphics. Gaming isn’t the forte of either laptop either.

display and sound

The Yoga 9i supports more display options than the Slim 9i, which “only” comes with a 14-inch 16:10 UHD+ OLED display. The 2-in-1 also offers FHD+ and 2.8K IPS panels that promise better battery life.

We tested both laptops with OLED panels and they delivered almost identical quality according to our colorimeter. You can’t go wrong with either, thanks to wide and accurate colors, good brightness and deep contrast that delivers deep blacks. Whether you’re productive, editing photos and videos (performance aside), or consuming HDR (high dynamic range) video, you’ll find that both laptops offer spectacular experiences.

The Yoga 9i Gen 7 features the same rotating soundbar that Lenovo introduced on the 2-in-1 a few years ago. Equipped with two tweeters and two 3-watt woofers, it offers high-quality sound regardless of the mode. It’s not as good as we expected, with some distortion at higher volumes. But it was slightly better than the four-speaker setup in the Slim 9i.

portability

The Slim 9i is slightly flatter than the Yoga 9i Gen 7 while being a bit thinner and lighter. Both are well-sized 14-inch laptops that easily fit in a backpack.

Both of our review units featured 75-watt-hour batteries, and both were built around power-hungry OLED displays. The Slim 9i lasted almost three hours less in our battery test surfing the web, which is surprising given the almost identical result in the PCMark 10 application test. Shorter battery life was to be expected given the extra cores running at a higher clock speed, but the clamshell’s battery life when browsing the web was surprising. Both laptops clocked in at around 14.5 hours on our local video test – another surprise given the Slim 9i’s higher-resolution UHD+ display.

The PCMark 10 test is a good indication of battery life in a typical productivity workflow, and according to the results here, any laptop can achieve a workday’s lifespan. However, for more demanding users, both laptops will need to have their power adapters handy.

Clamshell or 2-in-1, take your pick

The Lenovo Slim 9i and Yoga 9i Gen 7 are two of the best 14-inch laptops you can buy. The clamshell is slightly faster but has less battery life, while the 2-in-1 has slightly better sound and is slightly thicker and heavier.

The biggest difference is the price, with the Yoga 9i Gen 7 offering a significantly lower entry price point. That’s important, but if you want a superb clamshell machine, the Slim 9i won’t disappoint either.

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