Lenovo Yoga Book 9i Gen 10 Review

The Lenovo Yoga Book 9i is a controversial dual-screen convertible laptop that might be exactly what you’re looking for. But you’ll pay a high price, and you have to put up with some complexities.

Design

I have recently run into two people who both told me the same thing: As soon as they saw the Yoga Book 9i, they knew they wanted one.

This fascinates me, but it won’t be the case for most. Indeed, I’m reminded of 15 or so years ago, when I would make fun of business travelers who would try to make an iPad work more like a laptop on the road, laughing to myself as they pulled multiple peripherals out of their bag and laboriously assembled this mess into a semi-workable configuration. Today, Lenovo will sell you a real computer with this same set of issues. It’s called the Yoga Book 9i, and it makes a compelling argument for my Right Tool for the Job theory. Unless, of course, you see this thing and instantly realize you need one for yourself.

This is at least the second dual-screen Yoga Book–I reviewed the previous generation version one year ago–and this new model is mostly a processor/internals upgrade with no notable external changes to speak of. And that’s too bad, because it carries forward the design mistakes and compromises of its predecessor, the most obvious being its complexity and all the extraneous parts you need to carry around.

So let’s start there.

All the things

The laptop itself comes in a single color, Tidal Teal, which is quickly becoming iconic to Yoga fans. Of course, calling this thing a laptop is a bit of a stretch. It’s really two multitouch screens with two batteries, the usual laptop-type internal components, three USB-C ports, a webcam with dual-array microphones, speakers, and a rotating hinge that lets you orient the PC into various form factors.

As with other Lenovo portable PCs, the webcam, microphones, and other sensors are in a raised communication bar on the slightly thinner of the two sides of the PC. The other, thicker, half houses the processor, RAM, storage, and other internal components. The aluminum body is rigid and premium looking all around.

Beyond that, there’s a Lenovo Yoga Pen, an origami Folio Case, a magnetic Bluetooth keyboard, and a color-matched Yoga Mouse, plus a USB-C power adapter and a laptop sleeve, the latter of which I left in the packaging. In transit, the keyboard needs to be turned off and it’s wrapped inside the origami Folio Case with the smart pen, which attaches via a stretchy loop. The mouse likewise needs to be turned off, but it’s on its own. So you have three things to carry.

All the ways you can use it

In use, the Yoga Book can be oriented in various ways, depending on your needs, preferences, or the requirements of your surroundings.

The most familiar is in some ways the weirdest: You can open the Yoga Book 9i into an L-shaped clamshell-type form factor that resembles a traditional laptop. When it powers on, only the top display appears, and you can sign-in using Windows Hello facial recognition or a PIN, the latter using an on-screen numpad that appears on the top (and only enabled) display.

When you sign-in, the second display comes on, though it’s not really optimal t see or use in this orientation. So you can tap 8 fingers on the bottom screen to display an on-screen keyboard with an on-screen touchpad in that bottom screen.

You can also optionally toggle on a small smart pen-compatible area to the right of the on-screen touchpad for sketching or writing notes.

I can’t imagine too many people will find that useful for long-form writing, but it works in a pinch. You can also (turn on and then) place the magnetic Bluetooth keyboard directly on the bottom screen in this orientation.

The magnets in the keyboard keep it reasonably secure, and you can place it towards the front of the display, in which case the screen below it remains on normally, or you can place it towards the back of the display to display the on-screen touchpad (and, optionally, that smart pen-based area).

This is slightly less awkward than using the on-screen keyboard. But it’s still awkward, in part because the physical keyboard is now higher than usual and at a different height than the touchpad, which is on-screen and less seamless than a hardware touchpad. But, again, usable.

In any of these configurations, the origami Folio Case goes unused, and so you have that, the mouse, and the smart pen to remember and try not to lose. But these configurations also render one of the Yoga’s two displays unavailable (as a display) or mostly so. And that’s presumably not why you bought this thing in the first place. So some of the other form factors might be of more interest.

The origami Folio Case can be folded into a reasonably stable triangular tent that can hold the Yoga Book 9i in portrait or landscape orientation, providing you with access to both displays.

Either way, you can then magnetically attach the Bluetooth keyboard to the bottom of this tent-like base—or not, as it works wirelessly and can be positioned anywhere—and then use that and the bundled mouse as you would any other PC. The Folio Case’s stretchy pen loop is available in this mode, giving you a place to store the smart pen when that’s not in use.

This all works, but the problems are manyfold.

In portrait orientation, the Yoga Book 9i is quite tall, much taller than any traditional laptop, and most who use two displays place them side-by-side in landscape mode, not stacked one on the other. In this mode, each screen displays its own Taskbar, further bifurcating the two (beyond the hinge and its rotating soundbar). The top screen can be angled however you like, but the bottom screen is angled back a bit because of the shape of the Folio Case it’s resting on, and there’s no way to change that. And you pretty much have to use the mouse, which is small, light, and non-ergonomic.

In landscape orientation, the Yoga Book 9i is a bit wide and still quite tall, but its two displays, now side-by-side, are both in a portrait mode that will be unusual for most people. Worse, now both screens are angled back because of the Folio Case, and the angle isn’t ideal. I wish there was a way to stand them up straight, but besides stuffing a towel or whatever back there, I couldn’t figure out a solution. At the Taskbars no longer add to the visual gap between the two displays.

Beyond that, you can use some other form factors that will be familiar to anyone who’s used or seen a convertible laptop before, like tablet (which is thick and heavy and, in this case, has a screen on the bottom outside), tent, and presentation modes. So it’s more of a 5- or 6-in-1 than a 2-in-1, depending on the math.

Displays

The Yoga Book 9i’s main selling point is its twin 14-inch 2.8K (2880 x 1800) multi-touch PureSight OLED panels., a nice step up from the 13.3-inch panels in the previous version. Each is identical, with a 16:10 aspect ratio, 100 percent DCI-P3 color gamut coverage, Dolby Vision HDR, a variable (48 to 120 Hz) refresh rate, and Low Blue Light Eyesafe protection. And each outputs 500 nits of brightness for SDR content and 750 nits of peak brightness for HDR content.

As is always the case with OLED, these panels are gorgeous, with deep blacks, contrast-heavy colors, and reflections from any light source in the area. They’re more optimized for entertainment than productivity, but having two of them is unique, and aside from some Call of Duty, I mostly used this PC for work.

The display bezels are thin all around, but especially on the sides. The problem is what sits between them, a large hinge that’s covered by an even larger (and rotating) speaker bar. That’s functional, at least, but it also creates a one inch gap between the two displays, which can be visually jarring.

Internal components

Here, at least, there’s been a major upgrade. Where the previous version of this laptop came with a garden variety U-series Intel Core processor, this rendition delivers a far more powerful Intel Core Ultra 7 255H processor of the “Arrow Lake” (not “Lunar Lake”) variety. This is the only processor choice, but it’s a bit of a beast for a mobile processor.

This is a 28-watt part with 16 total cores—6 Performance, 8 Efficient, and 2 Low Power Efficient—and powerful Intel Arc 140T integrated graphics. The only downside is that the Intel AI Boost NPU tops out (ahem) at 13 TOPS, so this isn’t a Copilot+ PC.

You can configure the Yoga Book 9i with 16 or 32 GB of soldered (non-upgradeable) LPDDR5X RAM and 512 GB or 1 TB of PCIe Gen 4 TLC M.2-based SSD storage.

Performance is notably good. The Yoga Book 9i can even play modern video games like Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 at native resolution and decent graphics quality levels at 45 to 50 FPS, though the unusual form factor once again gets in the way, so you’re pretty much stuck using it like a laptop with a single 14-inch display. But it does work.

The general performance and versatility of having dual displays does make the Yoga uniquely interesting as a developer PC. Keeping the Visual Studio IDE in one display and the app I am working on in the other worked well. I often find laptops to be less than ideal for this work, but this was an interesting exception.

Noise and heat were only problematic when really working the internals, in my case, when gaming. Venting occurs only through the end of what would normally be the keyboard base, and there is no other ventilation as with most x86-based laptops.

Connectivity

The Yoga provides modern and future-proof Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4 connectivity. There’s no cellular data option, but that’s typical.

Ports and expansion

Given the lack of changes to the exterior, it’s not surprising that this year’s Yoga Book 9i delivers the same usability compromises as its predecessor. And that extends to the expansion ports. There are three, and I like that all of them are identical, and high-end 40 Gbps Thunderbolt 4/USB4 Type-C ports. The issue is where they’re found. And how that changes as you switch between usage modes.

If you use the Yoga in a laptop-like clamshell mode, the ports are sensibly placed, with one on the left of the PC and two on the right, each towards the rear. That’s good, and it’s clear this was a conscious design decision.

If you use it so that the displays are stacked on top of each other, those ports move up over six inches in space, making access somewhat awkward. And if you use it so that the displays are side-by-side, one or two of those ports will be inaccessible, depending on which way you orient it. The other(s) are at the top, pointing straight up, and incredibly awkward to use as a result. Yuck.

Audio and video

As before, the Yoga Book 9i provides four 2-watt speakers with Dolby Atmos inside the rotating speaker bar that covers the hinge. The idea here is that you should get decent sound no matter which orientation you use, but in practice, it sounds best to my ears when used in clamshell/laptop mode.

The speakers don’t distort at full volume, and they get plenty loud: I lost myself for longer than expected after firing up Jurassic Park and reliving the Tyrannosaurus Rex car attack for what’s probably the thousandth time. Sound quality is excellent, but it’s more stereo than positional.

The Dolby Vision helps, too, of course: Movies I sampled, like Mad Max: Fury Road and Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol look as good as they sound thanks to the OLED displays. Of course, you can only use one at a time for videos. But unlike, say, with videogames, you might have a video going on one screen while you do work on another. Or you could get really silly, I guess.

Hybrid work

The Yoga Book 9i provides a 5 MP RGB/IR webcam with Windows Hello facial recognition capabilities and dual-array microphones that can be toggled on/off with a dedicated hardware keyboard key.

There is one notable upgrade in this department: Lenovo added a manual e-privacy shutter to the right side of the PC (when used in laptop/clamshell mode), which I prefer to one built right into the webcam.

The problem with the webcam is that it’s rarely in an ideal place. It’s too high when you configure the Yoga in portrait orientation, and it’s almost unusable when you configure it in landscape orientation, as the webcam will be way off to the side of a display. It does support basic Windows Studio Effects at least, with automatic framing, eye contact, and background effects available. And the video quality is excellent, even in low light conditions.

There’s no combo headphone/microphone jack, which may or may not be an issue depending on which peripherals you use.

Keyboard, mouse, and pen

The magnetic full-sized Bluetooth keyboard that Lenovo bundles with the Yoga Book 9i is mostly great, with a good key feel, 1.5 mm key throw, and familiar Lenovo scalloped keys. But it lacks an integrated touchpad, and I’m not a big fan of the column of special keys on the right. This year, Lenovo added backlighting to the keyboard, which is a solid upgrade. It even has an auto mode.

The bundled mouse is color matched to the PC this year, a nice touch. But it feels cheap and is overly light, so you can send it flying across the desk with an errant swipe if you’re not being careful. I would much rather have a touchpad, even a small one, built into the keyboard.

The bundled Lenovo Yoga Pen is also color matched to the PC, not gray as it was last year. It’s magnetic, full-sized, and barrel-shaped with one flat edge to prevent it from rolling away, and it has two buttons and an open USB-C port for charging. You can store it in the stretchy loop on the origami Folio Case in transit, but there’s no place on the PC itself to just magnetically attach it temporarily. Oddly, it latches right onto the keyboard if they get close.

Security

The Yoga isn’t a Copilot+ PC, so you don’t get all the modern protections provided by that platform. But it does include Windows Hello facial recognition, at least, and it was fast and reliable in use.

Sustainability

Like all of Lenovo’s premium PCs, the Yoga Book 9i ships in plastic-free, recyclable packaging. Finding a full list of sustainable components proved elusive, but the power adapter is built with 90 percent post-consumer recycled plastic.

The device’s unique design means that user serviceability is minimal. To get into the bottom half of the PC that contains the internal components, you need to first orient it as a tablet so that the two screens are facing outward. And then you use a pry tool to remove small plastic covers on either side of the hinge so you can carefully pry it open. It’s not the type of thing I would ever try, but once the display is separated, you can access the battery (which is really in two pieces), the wireless module, and the SSD module. This is best left to a professional.

Efficiency and portability

The Yoga Book 9i isn’t an ideal companion for anyone who needs to work on the go. There are too many pieces to manage, remember, and carry, setting it all up and breaking it all down gets tedious, and none of its available usage modes are particularly ideal.

The PC itself is thin and light enough at 12.4 x 8.25 x 0.63 inches and 2.69 pounds, but that’s before the keyboard, mouse, and origami Folio Case (and power supply). All told, you’re looking at over 3.5 pounds, which is reasonable given the dual displays.

As good, the battery life is surprisingly decent, given the two OLED displays and the powerful processor: I saw just over 6 hours of battery life in real-world usage, more than I expected. Granted, I didn’t travel with the Yoga Book 9i, and wouldn’t. Instead, I used it around the house, moving it as little as possible. But I did use it on battery life quite a bit, plugging it in to charge, of course, but also to play games.

The Yoga comes with a large 88-watt-hour battery that you can fast charge with the bundled 65-watt power adapter. I didn’t measure the charge speed, given the way I used it.

Generally speaking, x86-based laptops suffer from routine reliability issues related to instant-on and power management, but the Yoga was a notable exception. It never lost more than a 2 or 3 percent charge overnight, and it would of course spend a bit of time powering on. But I didn’t record any serious regressions.

Software

The Yoga can be configured with Windows 11 Home or Pro, and it ships with several Lenovo utilities, Dolby Access, Intel Unison, and a bit of crapware, the lowlights being an Adobe Creative Cloud trial, Lenovo Now, and McAfee LiveSafe.

The unique form factor required Lenovo to augment Windows 11’s window management capabilities, introducing some additional complexity. For example, when you drag a window to reposition it, a Lenovo-made overlay specific to the two displays appears in addition to the normal Snap-based overlay. So you can use Snap, as always, or mouse over the Lenovo alternative to span the window across both displays or choose one of its unique two display snapping layouts.

Lenovo also added other interaction methods for those who prefer to use the Yoga Book as a tablet: You can “flick” windows between screens, tap the icon for an open window on the Taskbar of the other display to move the window to that display, and tap within a window using five finger tips to toggle it between displaying across both displays.

The goofiest customization, perhaps, is something called zero-touch controls. When enabled, you can use camera-based hand gestures–in the air in front of the PC, not on the screen—to move windows between the displays, scroll through a web page or document, and even take a screenshot. I never got this to work, but I can’t imagine I would use it normally.

Lenovo also provides a Smart Note app that’s optimized for smart pen-based notetaking and the dual displays, dual-screen live and static wallpapers, and a customized virtual keyboard (with optional virtual touchpad). You can bring up the keyboard by tapping on-screen with eight fingertips. Or you can just bring up the touchpad with three fingertips.

There’s a lot to learn and remember. As with this PC in general, you either love this or find it to be too much.

Pricing and configurations

With its two 14-inch OLED displays and premium build quality, the Yoga Book 9i is predictably expensive. A 16 GB/512 GB configuration starts at about $2100, but RAM are storage upgrades are incredibly inexpensive: You can move up to 32 GB of RAM for just $60 and to 1 TB of storage for just $40. So a maxed-out Yoga is about $2200, or a bit more than that if you opt for Windows 11 Pro.

Recommendations and conclusions

The Lenovo Yoga Book 9i is an oddity of sorts, but it’s also one of those things you know you want—or don’t—immediately. Despite its mobile heritage, it’s best used on a desk rather than on-the-go. Not so much for battery life, but because assembling and disassembling all the pieces can get tedious. But it delivers strong performance, two gorgeous OLED displays, and a unique versatility that some will find irresistible. This isn’t my thing, but I get it.

If you do buy a Yoga Book 9i, I strongly recommend the RAM and storage upgrades.

At-a-glance

Pros

✔️ Surprisingly strong performance

✔️ Two terrific 14-inch OLED display panels

✔️ Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos

Cons

❌ Complex to use, too many pieces, not optimized for traditional clamshell usage

❌ Awkward USB-C port positioning

❌ No headphone/microphone combo jack

❌ Not a Copilot+ PC

❌ Expensive, but understandably so