Lenovo Pro 9n 15 Gen 11 First Impressions

The Lenovo Pro 9n is a 15.3-inch portable workstation aimed at creators and powered by Nvidia RTX Spark. And while all the first-generation RTX Spark laptops are identical in many ways, this one offers a few unique advantages, including a bundled smart pen and a power supply that won’t disconnect so easily from a receptable.

The Lenovo Pro looks similar to the Yoga Pro and IdeaPad laptops with its rounded corners, communications bar on the display lid, and scalloped, island-style keyboard. But it also has more minimalist styling, with just a single Lenovo logo in the center of the outer display lid.

The Lenovo Pro is quite handsome with its dark Thunder Grey color, and it has a premium-feel aluminum body. It won’t turn heads per se, but it looks as powerful as it is and is clearly designed to get work done.

From a specifications perspective, the review unit provides an interesting peek at what “entry level” means for RTX Spark, as this configuration is aimed at what I would call traditional creators rather than those living on the AI bleeding edge. It comes with lower-end N1X processor with 18 CPU cores and 5120 Blackwell GPU cores, 32 GB of 9400 MT/s LPDDR5X RAM, and 1 TB of PCIe Gen 4 M.2-based SSD storage. There are, of course, other configurations with the other N1X processor and more RAM and storage, but the review unit costs $2999, which is about as inexpensive as an RTX Spark computer gets.

Lenovo and the other PC makers have had to create unique thermal solutions to rein in the heat and fan noise that the powerful chipset inside would otherwise overwhelm. In this case, it created a vent and thermal bump on the bottom rear center of the laptop to accommodate its cooling needs, and it’s vaguely reminiscent of the Engine Hub on the ThinkPad X9 series, though it doesn’t extend to the sides of the laptop. It provides for large rear vents and reasonably quiet operation under load.

The display is a gorgeous 15.3-inch PureSight Pro multitouch OLED panel with a 2.5K (2560 x 1600) resolution, a 48 to 165 Hz variable refresh rate (VRR), a 16:10 aspect ratio, Dolby Vision and DisplayHDR True Black 1000 capabilities, and 100 percent DCI-P3 color gamut coverage, and it emits 1100 nits of brightness with HDR content.

As with all RTX Spark computers, connectivity is modern, with Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4, and there’s a 9.2 MP webcam that hopefully ups the image quality for work calls, along with three 3D noise cancelling microphones. Sound comes via four speakers–two top-firing tweeters and two downward-firing woofers–and it’s optimized with Dolby Atmos immersive capabilities.

The keyboard is full-sized and backlit, and in addition to two levels of backlighting, it offers an auto lighting mode I prefer. It’s visually offset from the laptop body with its dark gray keys, and it floats between speaker grills, which I very much prefer over an error-inducing numeric keypad. And it feels solid in early use with ideal key travel and solid feedback with and a nice key feel.

The haptic glass touchpad–Lenovo calls it a Force Pad–is enormous, but for once that’s for a good reason. It can also be used as a dedicated writing and drawing surface using the bundled Yoga Pen Gen 2 smart pen, and its haptics help it emulate the feel of pen on paper, Lenovo says. That pen comes in a nice Luna Grey color and it supports 8192 levels of pressure, double the usual amount.

Expansion is solid, and Lenovo at least put one USB-C port on each side of the laptop, which is always preferable.

On the left, you will find an HDMI 2.1 video-out port, a 10 Gbps USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A port with Always On, a 40 Gbps Thunderbolt/USB4 port with USB Power Delivery 3.0 at 65 to 100 watts and DisplayPort 2.1 capabilities, and a combination headphone/microphone jack.

On the right, Lenovo provides a 10 Gbps USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A port, a second Thunderbolt 4/USB4 port with the same capabilities, and a full-sized SD card reader, plus the power button and a physical webcam privacy shutter switch.

The batteries on RTX Spark computers are always pretty large, but this is the smallest of the three laptops I’m testing, at 92.5 watt-hours. It supports Rapid Charge with three additional hours of runtime after just 15 minutes, but the big benefit here is the charger itself. Like other RTX Spark laptops, the charger is a big 140-watt unit, but the brick is inline between two detachable cables–the USB cable that connects to the PC and the power cord that goes to the receptacle. So the giant power brick doesn’t need space at the receptacle and its weight won’t cause it to unplug too easily, which is a problem with the HP laptop.

The Lenovo Pro 9n is a consumer/prosumer laptop, so there’s some crapware in there, including McAfee, a Dropbox promotion, and Lenovo’s Subscription Marketplace app. But it’s not too horrible, and each can be removed easily enough.

More soon.