Test Lenovo Yoga 9i 2-in-1 Gen 9 : un PC portable convertible design et performant

Convertible PCs are not as trendy as a few years ago, but Lenovo still maintains its Yoga 2-in-1 range with decidedly high-end products. The new Yoga 9i 2-in-1 passed through the laboratory Digital do not deviate from this rule. It is a beautiful machine convertible into a tablet, equipped with a large 14-inch Oled screen with spectacular definition (3840 x 2400 pixels). It also houses an Intel Core Ultra 7 155H processor, 32 GB of RAM and an SSD with a capacity of 1 TB.

These characteristics necessarily have an impact on the price of this PC, offered at around €2,150 at the time of writing these lines. Lenovo, however, offers other (slightly) less expensive configurations. The cheapest version, around €1800, benefits from the same processor, but only 16 GB of RAM and above all an Oled screen less generous in pixels (2880 x 1800 pixels), fortunately better refreshed (120 Hz compared to 60 Hz for the one we had in our hands).

Good news for creative people, this computer comes with a stylus that can be magnetized on the back.

Construction

One thing is certain: Lenovo has taken care of its chassis! The Yoga 9i 2-in-1 is indeed an elegant machine with its silver border and hinge which give it a real premium appearance. The case is very rigid and the hinge, which offers excellent resistance regardless of the degree of inclination of the screen, seems solid.

Open, the Yoga 91 2-in-1 is just as welcoming with its large 14-inch screen, a large, efficient touchpad and a keyboard that really appealed to us for its typing quality. The keys are perfectly spaced and have almost ideal activation travel.

Everything would have been perfect if Lenovo had not made the questionable choice of oddly positioning a few shortcuts on the far right of the keyboard. There we find in particular a button modifying the audio parameters, another to activate the power profiles, or even a button triggering the “night lighting” mode which limits blue light. However, placed behind a somewhat narrow Enter key, we often tend to activate them by mistake. Damage ! The keyboard also has a fingerprint reader, also strangely placed, but which works very well. You can also unlock the machine via facial recognition, just as effective.

Without being flawless, the connectivity is quite respectable, with two Thunderbolt 4 ports and a USB-A 3.2 port on the left side. On the right, however, the single USB-C port is not Thunderbolt compatible, only USB 3.2. It comes with a jack socket and the power button, strangely placed here. We regret the absence of a memory card reader, very practical on a machine particularly intended for creative people who appreciate using the stylus.

On the wireless side, the computer is Bluetooth 5.3 compatible, but you have to make do with WiFi 6E. Lenovo did not see fit to integrate a wifi 7 module on this machine, too bad!

The 5 Mpx webcam is convincing, even in complicated light conditions or relative darkness. The colors are well respected, excess light is controlled, and there is little grain effect in darker environments. Very nice for video conferences, especially since as a good “AI PC” equipped with an NPU, this Yoga 9i benefits from the few video effects offered by Windows 11 on all of your applications, such as the eye contact function and background blurring.

If we rely on our sound level meter, the noise pollution of the Yoga 9i 2-in-1 is quite low with a peak measured at 40.90 dB. Nothing too bad, then. That said, we often hear its fans, including when the machine is just performing trivial tasks like displaying a YouTube video in Chrome.

While working, the PC also heats up quite a bit, without being unpleasant to use. We measured up to 43.7°C at the hot air outlet and up to 41.8°C in the center of the keyboard. This is felt when typing, but without really bothering you.

Performances

We are starting to get to know the Core Ultra 7 155H very well, a 14th generation processor (Meteor Lake) which has equipped many of the ultraportables that have passed through our laboratory since the start of the year. It is indeed a chip which achieves a good compromise between performance and energy efficiency, strong enough to assist you in office and creative tasks, while ensuring generally good battery life.

This versatile chip has 16 cores in total: six high-performance (up to 4.8 GHz), eight low-power (up to 2.5 GHz) and, new to the Meteor Lake architecture, two very low consumption. These are similar to low-power cores, but run at a much lower frequency (700 to 2.5 GHz) to conserve battery power when performing tasks that don’t require a lot of power.

Unsurprisingly, the Core Ultra 7 155H produced results that were very close to some of the competitors with the same chip. With a performance index of 140, it performed slightly worse than a Dell XPS 14 or an Acer Swift Go Oled, but much better than other convertible PCs we’ve tested recently, such as the HP Spectre X360 2-in-1 or the Surface Laptop Studio 2, the latter of which is inevitably penalized by its previous-generation processor.

On a daily basis, it is therefore a perfect machine for office automation and quite capable of occasionally carrying out creative tasks, knowing that it benefits from an integrated Intel Arc graphics chip which, without achieving the performance of a card dedicated, will allow you to speed up your renderings and even play a little titles that are not too demanding in terms of 3D calculation.

Let’s end this part with the SSD’s performance, excellent with a measured reading speed of more than 6 GB/s and no less than 4.7 GB/s in writing.

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Screen

Be careful, unusual slab! The version in our hands benefits from a 14-inch Oled screen in 16:10 format, which is distinguished by the impressive definition of 3840 x 2400 pixels, a number of pixels slightly higher than that of a 4K TV! Without scaling the Windows interface, you get a lot of space on the Desktop, but you better have very good eyes.

Unfortunately, despite its almost infinite contrast and atypical definition, this screen is not perfect. Its maximum brightness (without HDR) is correct without being exceptional (393 cd/m²) and, due to the touch screen, very bright, therefore subject to significant reflections. We thus measured an average reflectance rate of 48.5%, which can be annoying when using the computer in brightly lit rooms or outdoors. On the other hand, it is labeled DisplayHDR True Black 500 and can therefore gain brightness when it detects an HDR source.

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Delta E by color Color temperature curve Gamma curve

This is visible at first sight, the panel is not perfectly calibrated. We measured an average delta E at 4.5, which is just okay, and some colors are a little too explosive, especially the reds. Too bad… However, note that Lenovo offers another Oled screen for this machine, certainly less well defined (2880 x 1800 pixels), but which has the advantage of reaching a refresh rate of 120 Hz (compared to 60 Hz for this one). ) while certainly being less energy consuming.

How does the rating work?

Convertibles are not legion, and this Lenovo Yoga 9i 2-in-1 is undoubtedly one of the best. A very good choice if you are looking for a PC convertible into a tablet. The device is beautiful, efficient, has excellent speakers, while its Oled screen has its little effect. Too bad that it is not perfectly calibrated and that its definition, although appreciable, has a notable impact on autonomy. It’s also a shame that Lenovo neglected certain details that matter on a machine at this price, such as the presence of WiFi 7 or a memory card reader.