Photo by Sam Rutherford/Engadget
Photo by Sam Rutherford/Engadget
Photo by Sam Rutherford/Engadget
Photo by Sam Rutherford/Engadget
Every now and then, a device comes along and challenges you to consider the viability of an entirely new product category. That’s precisely what Lenovo is doing with the Yoga Book 9i. By replacing the traditional physical keyboard with a second display, the company is rethinking what a laptop can do. In tight confines, you can rely on a virtual keyboard or an included magnetic alternative.
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The dual 13.3-inch displays (2,880 x 1,800) look great too, boasting OLED panels with rich colors and a tested brightness just shy of 400 nits.
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Around the outside, the Yoga Book features a polished metal frame with three Thunderbolt 4 ports, which is nice to see on a system this size. Unfortunately for fans of wired audio, you don’t get a 3.5mm audio jack. Thankfully, Lenovo’s 5-megapixel IR webcam is sharper than what you get on most competing devices, and holding everything together is the company’s signature speaker bar hinge, which is impressively loud and punchy. All told, despite being slightly heavier than a typical 13-inch ultraportable due to that second layer of glass, it’s still very easy to carry around.
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The remaining pieces of the Yoga Book 9i’s kit are its accessories, which include a stylus, a detached magnetic physical keyboard, a folding kickstand cover and even a sleek travel mouse. The keyboard communicates via Bluetooth and has its own USB-C port for charging. Despite its size, it doesn’t feel cramped and offers more key travel than you might expect. During transport, the cover wraps around the keyboard to keep it protected, while Lenovo’s Digital Pen 3 can be stashed in the attached loop.
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you just tap eight fingers on the bottom panel and instantly you get virtual stand-ins. And for times when you only need to mouse around, you can use a three-finger tap instead, which summons a floating touchpad that leaves room for Lenovo’s widgets (weather, news, etc.) or anything else you’d like to put down there.
Surprisingly, typing on a touchscreen isn’t as bad as you might think. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still not nearly as fast or accurate as using a physical keyboard. But it’s serviceable, as long as you’re willing to make some adjustments.
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What’s most impressive about the Yoga Book 9i’s is its ability to transform into a portable all-in-one PC when it’s propped up on its kickstand cover. In this mode, there are two options for its displays: a stacked setup with one screen on top of the other and a side-by-side arrangement. Both configurations have their uses.
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Packing an Intel Core i7-155U chip, 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage, the Yoga Book 9i can handle most productivity needs. Even when multitasking across both displays, performance felt relatively snappy. However, if you’re planning on regularly doing more demanding things like video editing, you’ll probably want a beefier machine.
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Even with a relatively large 80Wh battery, for a system with two screens, the Yoga Book 9i fared better than expected on our standard video rundown test. It posted a time of eight hours and 12 minutes
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he Yoga Book 9i is a rather divisive machine. Starting at $2,000, not only is it really expensive, its performance is also slower than more traditional competitors in this price range. However, for people like me who constantly yearn for more screen real estate when I’m away from home, Lenovo has created something that is more than the sum of its parts. When space is limited, the Yoga Book 9i’s clamshell mode feels right at home on an airplane tray table. But when it’s not, it can expand into a portable dual-screen workstation–complete with all the fixings of your desktop at home. And when you need to pack up, everything collapses into a neat, semi-self-contained bundle that fits in the smallest of laptop bags.
The Yoga Book 9i is a nifty little transformer that’s more engaging than anything Michael Bay has directed in the last two decades. With how little laptops have changed recently, it feels like the Yoga Book has even more room to grow in the years to come. Sure, it’s still a bit awkward, but as the starting point for a new type of notebook, Lenovo’s debut dual-screen convertible has me convinced.
Source: Lenovo Yoga Book 9i review: The world isn’t ready for dual-screen laptops, but Lenovo is | Engadget
Robin Edgar
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