What if you took Lenovo’s latest 2-in-1 Yoga 9i convertible laptop and ditched the “convertible” part? What you get is the Lenovo Yoga Slim 9i, the latest clamshell ultrabook aimed at successful business users.
If the Yoga Slim 7i Pro X that I recently reviewed is a true “multi-function” laptop, the Yoga Slim 9i is even better than that, and this is Lenovo’s strategic card to compete fair with names like Dell XPS 13 or MacBook Pro M2 for the title of the “top” ultrabook in 2022.
The Yoga Slim 9i version I experienced has an Intel Evo standard configuration with Intel Core i7-1280P CPU, 16GB of DDR5 RAM, 1TB of NVMe SSD and a PureSight 4K + screen (3840 x 2400 pixels) touch support. Included with this premium laptop is a 3-year Lenovo Premium Care premium warranty service.
A fresh design that needs to be replicated
I never thought I would experience a laptop using glass material, but Lenovo has made it a reality with the Yoga Slim 9i. The A side of the laptop is covered with a layer of 3D curved tempered glass, this finish is like the back of high-end smartphones.
With a standard hardness of 9H, Lenovo says this glass can withstand 500gf hard scratches, drop 133g iron balls or drop many angles at a height of 50cm. This glass layer also hides sweat stains and fingerprints very well, which is always a plus point for people with sweaty hands like me.
The design philosophy that focuses on ergonomics and user comfort, which Lenovo calls “Comfort Edge”, also appears on the Yoga Slim 9i. The soft curved aluminum edges create absolute comfort when holding as well as in daily use, I have experienced many laptops but it can be said that in this aspect, no product has overcome Yoga Slim 9i.
This comparison seems lame, but in fact, Yoga Slim 9i reminds me of Apple’s iPhone 11 Pro Max, a smartphone with a very good grip, until Apple switched to a square design from iPhone 12.
The version I experienced has the color “Oatmeal”, or oat, but in reality, it is significantly brighter. The Yoga Slim 9i, according to Lenovo, is also the first laptop to be certified carbon neutral by TÜV Rheinland.
In addition to using recycled aluminum, the Yoga Slim 9i is also wrapped with Korrvu suspension film, using up to 70% less plastic than conventional plastic wrap, packaged in FSC paper packaging, and supplied with batteries. Power for the machine is also made from recycled plastic. I think these are practical environmental protection actions, not removing the charger like some phone companies.
With a weight of only 1.37kg and a thickness of 14.9mm, carrying the Yoga Slim 9i to work, school, or to a cafe is very light. Inside the box, Lenovo also includes a cloth laptop bag, adding a layer of protection needed for people who specialize in throwing keys and cramming a bunch of other tech items into a backpack like me.
To keep the machine thin and light, the Yoga Slim 9i accepts to cut many connection ports, on the machine, there are only 3 Thunderbolt 4 ports (USB 4.0, Power Delivery 3.0, DisplayPort 1.4), combo audio jack and quick webcam on / off switch. In return, inside the product box comes a 3-in-1 hub that includes a USB-A Gen 3.0 port, an HDMI port, and a VGA port. Of course, we have an extra accessory to remember to bring every time we go out, but in exchange for thinness, it is also completely acceptable.
Ultimate audiovisual with PureSight OLED display and Bower & Wilkins speakers
Everyone will have a different idea of a perfect screen, but for me, it will be very similar to what the Yoga Slim 9i brings. We have a 14-inch PureSight display with 4K+ resolution (3840 x 2400 pixels), Samsung E4 OLED panel, 600 nit peak brightness, 10 billion colors, 100% coverage of the DCI-P3 color space, and 125% zero sRGB color space with DeltaE < 1 color deviation, touch support. These are the best numbers you can find on any laptop.
The viewing experience of Yoga Slim 9i is encapsulated in two words “top-notch”. If you already own a smartphone with an OLED screen, you will know that it offers superior display quality compared to IPS LCD thanks to its absolute deep blacks and ultra-wide contrast, combined with 4K+ resolution, all content Your viewing will be very sharp and realistic. The thin screen border gives an airy viewing feeling when the display area of the Yoga Slim 9i is up to 93%. This OLED screen also meets the VESA DisplayHDR 500 True Black standard, with the ability to display a dark image of only 0.0005 nits.
The 400 nit brightness allows the Yoga Slim 9i to work well in bright environments, but it should be noted that the mirror screen of this laptop is reflective quite a lot, maybe Lenovo decided not to cover it with sand to preserve the quality. the display is at its best. In addition, the touch feature is not very useful for a sweaty person like me, and Lenovo also did not mention whether this screen supports a stylus or not.
In terms of sound, equipped on the Yoga Slim 9i is a quad-speaker speaker system tuned by Bower & Wilkins (B&W), two 2W up-firing tweeters, and two 3W down-firing woofers. The mid-range is clear, the bass has a clear presence, and the Yoga Slim 9i will be one of the rare laptops that I don’t need to recommend buying more headphones or detachable speakers for entertainment or daily use.
The Yoga Slim 9i’s audiovisual experience is also complemented by the Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision software suite, as the audio and display content will be optimized for the tasks you’re using.
TrueStrike keyboard and infrared webcam meet a variety of needs
Yoga Slim 9i is equipped with a TrueStrike keyboard like the Yoga Slim 7i Pro X I recently experienced, but there are a few minor changes to the keycap, it is thinner and shallower to synchronize with the general design of the machine. A mechanical keyboard addict who always chooses to lean switches like me when I first switched to typing on the Yoga Slim 9i was a bit overwhelmed because the bottom-out was too early. However, the large keycap cross-section, the appropriate distance between the keys, and the good bounce are the plus points of the keyboard on the Yoga Slim 9i.
The Yoga Slim 9i’s touchpad is described as “up to 50% larger than before”, I don’t know which model Lenovo compares to, but the spacious touchpad helps a lot in web browsing and manipulation because the hand can move larger distances. The touchpad feels soft, and of course, this touchpad fully supports Windows 11 gestures such as zoom, back/forward, etc.
The Covid-19 pandemic has shown us the importance of a webcam. On Yoga Slim 9i, the webcam resolution is raised to Full HD, with the good display quality. In addition, Lenovo is also equipped with an infrared sensor and a light sensor, serving the Windows Hello facial recognition utility and Lenovo Presence Detection, the machine recognizes when you leave your sitting position and locks the device after that automatically reopens when you return without having to manipulate the machine, which is very convenient if you work in a sensitive environment with data security.
Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 9i 14 Business Laptop 14″ UHD 4K Touchscreen (500nits, DisplayHDR 400) 11th Gen Intel Quad-core i7-1165G7 16GB RAM 512GB SSD Fingerprint Backlit Thunderbolt Win10Pro + HDMI Cable: Buy it now
Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 9i 14″ 4K UHD Touchscreen Ultra Business Laptop, Intel Core i7-1165G7 EVO, 16GB LPDDR4x, 1TB PCIe SSD, Backlit KB, FP Reader, Thunderbolt 4, Windows 10 Pro, Shadow Black: Buy it now
Performance benchmarks with Intel Core i7 12th Gen
Core i7-1280P is the most powerful CPU of Intel’s brand-new P-Series. According to the announcement, this chip has multi-threaded performance up to 70% faster than the i7-1195G7 launched in 2021. Even the multi-threaded performance of Core i7-1280P is better than Core i9-11980HK – among Intel’s fastest processors in 2021) while the TDP is only 28W.
Like other 12th Gen Intel processors, the Core i7-1280P also has this kind of hybrid setup that mixes performance cores (P-core) and energy-efficient cores (E-core), so you end up with 14 total cores (6 P cores and 8 E cores) for a max clock rate up to 4.8 GHz . On the Yoga Slim 9i, the power draw of this chip can be pushed as high as 35 watts (PL1) and even 52 watts (PL2) for roughly 40 seconds, before it settles down a bit. You can switch between Battery Saving, Intelligent Cooling, and Performance modes via the Fn+Q shortcut, and during performance evaluation, I always choose Performance mode.
With no discrete graphics card, the Yoga Slim 9i won’t be for professional video editing needs, but the Core i7-1280P chip will still be fast enough to occasionally render 4K video when you’re using BiaReview’s camera-man whenever needed 16GB of 5200 MHz LPDDR5 RAM is more than enough for almost everyone, but if you need more multitasking, you can consider the 32GB RAM option.
Performance of Yoga Slim 9i before familiar performance benchmark software:
Cinebench R23 is kind of a benchmark, that measures CPU power while a render job is running. The Core i7-1280P ended up around 1,812 for single-core, and 12,355 for multi-core points. If you line it up against the Core i7-12700H you get in the Yoga Slim 7i Pro X, which managed 1,760 single-core and 14,712 multi-core points, then the i7-1280P feels a bit stronger in single-core, while on multi-core it’s still really close… roughly 19% behind. Another thing that really matters is the power setup, because the Core i7-12700H can sort of hang out on a default TDP, of up to 45W while the Core i7-1280P is rated at 28W , so there’s a different thermal budget rolling in the background… like all the time.
Then there’s PCMark 10, which tries to mimic everyday multitasking type of work. In that test, the Yoga Slim 9i landed an average score of 5,281.
For the graphics workload in the Yoga Slim 9i, you’re looking at the Intel Iris XE graphics engine. In two 3DMark runs, Fire Strike and Night Raid, the laptop scored 5,532 and 19,609 points respectively. You can almost imagine it like this: the Yoga Slim 7i Pro X’s RTX 3050 hit 10,832 points in Fire Strike.
The gap between the Core i7-1280P and Core i7-12700H keeps popping up in GeekBench 5 as well. The i7-1280P scored 1,766 single-core, and 10,805 multi-core points, while the Core i7 -12700H pulled 1,768 single-core and 12,496 multi-core points.
The fact that Yoga Slim 9i is equipped with a 4K + resolution screen makes almost any game a challenge for Iris XE. Lowering the resolution to Full HD and reducing the graphics settings are possible options if you want to entertain by playing games, but of course, it will have a trade-off in display quality. Consider other options with discrete GPUs like the Slim 7i Pro X or the Lenovo Legion gaming laptops, because gaming isn’t the primary purpose of the Yoga Slim 9i after all.
For storage, the Yoga Slim 9i comes with a 1TB Samsung PM9B1 SSD , which is sort of like a PCIe Gen 4 drive but also in a smaller physical size 2242 instead of the common 2280. So before you go and swap anything out, you kinda need to confirm the replacement SSD lines up with that same spec, because otherwise it might not seat right or just not behave properly. I checked mine real quick with Crystal Disk Mark and the results show sequential read speeds around 3582.64 MB/s and sequential writes at about 2699.48 MB/s, respectively. Tasks such as starting Windows, opening heavy applications, copying data, etc. are performed quickly by this SSD.
With a thin and light body, the heat dissipation performance of every Ultrabook is always an aspect of interest to users. With Yoga Slim 9i, Lenovo is equipped with dual fans up to 50% larger and ultra-thin blades of only 0.1mm. Shin-Etsu 8117 pro-grade thermal paste combined with 36% thicker heat pipes, 62% longer lasting for a “17W improvement in TDP”.
In actual use, unless you turn on Performance mode and run heavy tasks, you will almost not hear the cooling fan of the Yoga Slim 9i spinning. Tested with HWMonitor, after 10 minutes of running Cinebench R23, the maximum temperature that Core i7-1280P recorded was only 91 degrees Celsius.
Battery is enough for 4K+, 65W fast charging
Yoga Slim 9i is equipped with a 75 Whr battery, but due to having to “load” the 4K + resolution screen, the usage time is only sufficient, about 5-6 hours with light to medium tasks, the level of use is limited 70% light.
If you have an unexpected job or for some reason you can’t charge the laptop right away, lowering the screen resolution to Full HD will significantly extend the usage time. When you’re at Full HD resolution, with the Intelligent Cooling performance mode on, and brightness set to 60%, the Yoga Slim 9i can last as long as 9 hours, and 38 minutes… which is enough, since it meets the 9 hours the Intel Evo standard asks for.
The charger included with the device is on the compact side, with a maximum power capacity of 65W . And if you switch on the Rapid Charge Boost feature inside Lenovo Vantage, the Yoga Slim 9i is said to deliver about 2 hours of offline video playback after just 15 minutes on charge. You can charge using all three Thunderbolt 4 ports, and since they all support Power Delivery 3.0, you can use many other third-party chargers on the market without issue.
Summary
Yoga Slim 9i not only creates a highlight with its high-end 3D aluminum and glass design but also impresses with its top-notch audio-visual experience and top processing performance in the market. The slightly shallow keyboard is a small minus point in the Yoga Slim 9i’s experience, but when other aspects are so perfect, that small limitation is not worth your change of view about this laptop.
Related Posts
Tech Reviewer & Product Analyst
Định Bia has spent over 10 years testing consumer electronics with a focus on smart technology. He work as a product advisor at Biareview where he helped customers find the right devices for their needs. He personally tests every product featured on this site using a consistent evaluation framework covering quality, durability, and value. All reviews are based on experience, not influenced by the manufacturer.