Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 9 review: A near-perfect champ for creators

A creator laptop is perfect for anyone needing that extra bit of power for video-editing, photo-editing, or similarly graphics-intensive software. And I love a premium laptop with a bit of oomph for gaming — that’s where the new Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i comes in.

For $1,784, the Yoga Pro 9i flaunts its gorgeous 16-inch display powered by a strong Intel Core Ultra 9 185H processor and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4050 GPU. Its bouncy keyboard will send you into a productive spiral while nearly 10 hours of battery life will keep you there until you’re satisfied with all you’ve accomplished.

Unfortunately, awkward configurations can make it tough to fit a balance of specs in your budget. And the touchpad and speakers are bad enough to warrant discrete solutions.

However, the Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i is a valid contender for our best video editing laptops page. It does an excellent job in every area that counts for creators.

Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 9: Specs

Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 9: Price and configurations

I got my hands on the Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i with an Intel Core Ultra 9 185H processor, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4050 6GB GPU, 32GB of RAM, a 1TB SSD, and a 16-inch, 3200 x 2000, 165Hz touch display. This configuration costs $1,784, which isn’t bad for the overall specs, but it would’ve been nice if that included an RTX 4060 GPU.

You can shoot for the base model, which comes in at $1,482, but drops you down to an Intel Core Ultra 7 155H, 16GB of RAM, 512GB SSD, and the same 16-inch panel except non-touch. However, a moon shot gets you the $2,043 version — that bumps our unit to an RTX 4060 GPU and a 16-inch, 3.2K, Mini-LED display. Unfortunately, while the jump from an RTX 4050 to RTX 4060 is only $100 when configuring, you cannot get the RTX 4060 without the Core Ultra 9 CPU.

If all of these prices are outside of your budget, check out our best laptops under $1,000 page.

Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 9: Design

This is as premium as a gray laptop could look. It’s still gray (ugh), but the Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i’s glossy Yoga logo and lip give it some intrigue. The protruding lip creates space for the webcam on the inside, while on the outside it’s an elongated oval with a glass-like finish. It’s a unique touch that gives what would otherwise be a bland laptop a chic look. The pill-shaped protrusion on the lip reads “5MP f/2.0 Quad Mic Array.” Uncommon, but I like it.

The interior features a similar dark gray color scheme accompanied by a compact keyboard walled in by a pair of vents, and a large touchpad. Display bezels are usually quite thin in most modern laptops, but I notice thicker bottoms (great movie) than anything else. However, the Pro 9i keeps it tight down there.

At 4.7 pounds and 14.3 x 10 x 0.7 inches, the Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i is thinner than its 16-inch competitor but heavier than the lot. The HP Spectre x360 16 (2024) (4.3 pounds, 14.1 x 9.7 x 0.8 inches), Dell XPS 14 OLED (3.8 pounds, 12.6 x 8.5 x 0.7 inches), and MacBook Air 15-inch (M3) (3.3 pounds, 13.4 x 9.35 x 0.45 inches) weighed less than the Yoga.

Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 9: Ports

There are a decent number of ports around the Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i.

On the left, there’s the power jack, an HDMI port, two Thunderbolt 4 ports, and a headphone jack, while the right side sports the power button, two USB Type-A ports, an SD card slot, and a webcam kill switch.

Need more ports? Check out our best USB Type-C hubs and best laptop docking stations pages.

Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 9: Display

Yum — I love a display with a little kick. The Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i’s 16-inch, 3200 x 2000, 165Hz panel is gorgeous. It’s reasonably bright and offers a vivid wave of color. Not to mention that the 165Hz refresh rate smooths out the desktop experience and the occasional video game.

I watched the Borderlands trailer and the interior shot of the vault looked straight-up mystical on this display. The cubes jutting out of the ground looked sharp, and the ominous blue glow underneath bursted with color. Bones and dust details jumped out in the dark as Claptrap posed heroically by a campfire. The panel even separated the dark blue sky from the dark mountains in the distance — the contrast on my monitor didn’t do as well.

According to our colorimeter, the Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i covered 105.7% of the DCI-P3 color gamut, painting a deeper picture than the average premium laptop (91.2%). It even dominated the Spectre x360 (87.1%), XPS 14 (79.9%), and MacBook Air (77.5%).

At 373 nits of brightness, the Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i didn’t get quite as bright as the average premium laptop (460 nits), but that average gets a little inflated by laptops with Mini-LED displays (up to 1000 nits). As stated above, the Pro 9i comes with an option for a Mini-LED display, so you can opt for that if you want enough screen brightness to work outdoors. However, the current display is still dimmer than the Spectre x360 (376 nits), XPS 14 (378 nits), and MacBook Air (482 nits).

Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 9: Keyboard, touchpad and touchscreen

Packed with a 1.5-millimeter travel keyboard, the Yogi Pro 9i catapulted my fingers to the next key with each stroke. It’s on par with the famous ThinkPad keyboards which Lenovo prides itself on.

I typed 82 words per minute on the 10fastfingers.com typing test, which is slightly over my 81-wpm average. It took a bit to get used to the placement of the keys, since it’s tightly packed but also includes a full-sized numpad.

I love how large the touchpad is, measuring 3.8 x 6.1 inches, and how soft but bassy the clicks feel. However, the texture of the touchpad creates a lot of drag. I exert too much effort attempting to glide my finger across it.

The display also felt too resistant, and the natural 100% display scale isn’t conducive to how large your fingers might be. The windows are miniscule and hard to move around, so you’ll need to up the scale (150% worked for me).

Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 9: Audio

The bottom-firing speakers outfitted in the Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i offer a loud sound, but it’s so sharp and shallow that it creates an uncomfortable distortion.

I listened to the explosive and haunting track “No One Left To Love” by ROOS+BERG, and the opening electric guitar and percussion sounded like a muddled cacophony. Clear vocals followed but were accompanied by a harsh bass. And I do mean harsh — the speakers distorted and created such an uncomfortable sound that I stopped the song.

To be clear, the Yoga Pro 9i is outfitted with Dolby Access, an app where you can configure the audio settings with presets like Dynamic, Movie, Game, and Music. I tested all of these and the resulting distortion remained. Do yourself a favor and get some wireless headphones.

Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 9: Performance

Revving an Intel Core Ultra 9 185H processor, the Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i sped through a couple of dozen Google Chrome tabs, a handful of YouTube videos, and Spotify blasting in the background without stopping for gas.

On the Geekbench 6.3 overall performance test, the Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i scored 12,141, Hulk-leaping over the average premium laptop. It also landed within a 649-point margin along with its competitors (that means the performance is so similar it’s practically imperceptible). The Intel Core Ultra 7 155H in the Spectre x360 (12,592) and Dell XPS 14 (12,701) did slightly better, which is odd, while the MacBook Air’s M3 scored 12,052.

However, things start to make a little more sense when we move to our HandBrake benchmark. The Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i transcoded a 4K video to 1080p in just 3 minutes and 53 seconds. Meanwhile, the average premium laptop (7:58), Spectre x360 (8:56), XPS 14 (5:52), and MacBook Air (6:30) completed it several minutes too late.

Lenovo’s 1TB SSD is similarly impressive, scoring a transfer rate of 2,100 megabytes per second. That crushes the SSDs in the Spectre x360 (1,805 MBps), XPS 14 (1,844 MBps), and the average premium laptop (1,459 MBps).

Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 9: Graphics

While the Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i isn’t a gaming laptop, it sports an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4050 GPU with 6GB of VRAM. That means it’s ready for some light gaming and video-editing and photo-editing if you are so inclined.

On the 3DMark FireStrike synthetic graphics benchmark, the Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i scored 19,016, which toppled the average premium laptop (8,804) and XPS 14’s RTX 4050 GPU (12,202).

The Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i averaged 128 frames per second on the Sid Meier’s Civilization VI: Gathering Storm benchmark (Medium, 1080p), which again crushes the category average (48 fps), the XPS 14 (87 fps), and the Spectre x360’s RTX 4050 GPU (61 fps).

Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 9: Battery life

For a 3.2K laptop with a discrete GPU, the Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i lasted longer than most similarly equipped laptops. On the Laptop Mag battery test, the Yoga Pro 9i lasted 9 hours and 51 minutes. Now, that’s not enough to match the average premium laptop (10:39), but you are getting more premium, power-hungry specs. With similar specs, the XPS 14 lasted a shorter 9:35. Meanwhile, the Spectre x360 (11:07) and MacBook Air (15:03) get gold stars for getting into the double digits.

Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 9: Webcam

Despite sporting a 1440p shooter, the Yoga Pro 9i suffers from what a majority of laptops do — a poor webcam.

The image captured the pink and white florals on my shirt rather well. However, the contrast underperformed. A completely white visage took over my window and ceiling. And while the camera is sharper than most, the details in my hair and face looked fuzzy. I expected more from a webcam that boasted its specs on the chassis of a laptop. I’d recommend checking out our best webcams page for alternatives.

Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 9: Heat

Cooler than most in more ways than one. After streaming a 15-minute video, the Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i’s underside reached 82.7 degrees Fahrenheit, which is a solid distance away from our 95-degree comfort threshold. The center of the keyboard and touchpad reached 77.8 degrees and 74.8 degrees, respectively. And the hottest we saw the laptop get is only 84.6 degrees, which is located above the F5 key.

Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 9: Software and warranty

I’ve praised Lenovo many times for reducing all of its potential bloatware to a single app, but I’ll do it again. The Lenovo Vantage app is all you need. Use it to customize your computer’s settings, check your warranty, and update your system. You can perform hardware scans and configure your Wi-Fi security.

The Yoga Pro 9i comes with a one-year limited warranty. See how Lenovo performed on our Tech Support Showdown ranking.

Bottom line

If you’re shopping for a laptop that can do a bit of everything, the Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i is a great choice. It’s not cheap, but that’s because you’re getting premium features, like a 3.2K display, decent battery life, and strong performance. I’m not too happy about the lower-end GPU, but that’s what you get when you’re looking for a laptop to bring premium features in aspects outside of gaming.

If you want better performance, configure the Yoga Pro 9i with an RTX 4060. Want more battery life? Go with the Spectre x360. Want more portability? Then the XPS 14 should be your choice. Obviously, if you need access to critical macOS creative tools, go with the MacBook Air.

Overall, the Yoga Pro 9i is a solid entry in Lenovo’s portfolio of creator laptops, with just some improvements to the touchpad and speakers it would be a 5-star laptop.