Slim (Yoga) Pro 9i 16 Review

I have the Yoga Pro 9i 16 - Core i9, RTX2070 and 64GB RAM and couldn't be happier with it. Best laptop I've ever owned (and I've owned Macs). It's really fast, loads everything really fast due to the quick ram and SSD. The screen is pure joy, it honestly compares to the screen you can find on a Mac but this one is brighter. I never go above 50% of brightness. The 165Hz refresh rate gives a really nice premium touch and colours are really vivid and accurate (it's one of the most accurate screens on the market if I'm not wrong). The speakers are also really good, comparable to the ones on the Mac. The ones ones on the Mac have a bit more of definition on the low end and slightly louder but not a huge difference (depending on the song I like the Lenovo's more as an audio engineer). I was reluctant about buying a laptop with a different keyboard as I was used to the one on the Mac but once you adapt to the one on the Lenovo, it's even better. The feel is premium and key travel is perfect. Every time I switch back to the Mac I notice the difference and I don't like the Mac anymore (as a programmer/software engineer as well). I barely use the trackpad but I have to say it's quite good too, really big and accurate but not as good as the one you can find on a Mac. The click feels a bit cheap and unlike the mac, you can't click anywhere on the trackpad's surface, just on the bottom. Fans are incredibly quiet, again, this laptop outstands as the quietest laptop I've ever owned, even over the Mac (on big workloads). Battery is decent if you use battery saving mode and low screen brightness but if you use it on a big work load it's not very good. Mac is the king in that aspect. Look and feel wise, I tried to look for an alternative to the Mac (again), and this Lenovo laptop is clean, simple and feels premium. Surface doesn't attract fingerprints (unlike the Mac). The build quality is really close to the Macbooks' but obviously Apple makes the most premium products and nothing from a different company has reached that level yet. What I don't like a lot is the branding on this Lenovo. There's a "Lenovo" logo on the right side of the laptop, under the right speaker and then, a "Yoga" logo behind the screen, that takes 1/4 of the space. I would remove these to make it look even more premium and cleaner but I understand the branding is something important for the company. i9-13905H/RTX2070 processing is just outstanding for any kind of work. Webcam is as good as the Mac's or even better.

I've had had 0 problems with this Laptop so far (bought it like 8 months ago), but like all products, it has some cons:

Battery life as mentioned before, it's not really good compared to 2024 laptops. Charger is Lenovo's proprietary if you want to charge at max speed but you can always use the type-c port. Charger is quite big and sturdy. Lenovo's branding (as mentioned before) on the front and back of the laptop.

The Mac I owned previously was the MacBook Pro 16 (2019).

If you can't repair anything on the mac how did it get a score of 2 and not 1? How would a company even get 1 then?

Hope to see an upgrade to this review with the 2024 models.

I think Lenovo is really doing great. Constantly producing great laptops

I've been a fan of Lenovo's Slim line but was recently checking out the P1 Gen 6 which seemed surprisingly good on most fronts. Would be curious to hear your thoughts on the 16" P1 and how it compares to the Slim Pro featured in this video.

Just bought the Slim Pro 9i.. hoping for the best 🤞🏽🤞🏽. Thanks for the info

I have the M2 Max. IMO when you factor in price, a 32/1TB MBP is double the cost when you include sales tax in my state, the Levovo is by far a superior purchase.

Josh, you kinda talk funny but I like it. Keep it up.

Biased review =P
Not helpful!

Do you think you should maybe weight the different categories on a scale (say 0-10) for how important they are? They multiply each category by its weight before summing to give the final score? Just an idea but great video regardless.

Thank you!

I wanna order the lenovo (Amazon) certified refurbished 4050 variant for 1045$ , good deal?

I don't like Mac being closed compared to Windows being somehow semi open source and Linux fully open source, half the price almost. The battery life is a bummer and Mac is greatly superior in this but it's a Mac.... Will probably go with the Yoga or wait for more efficient Yoga probably new gen if it's even coming in 2024, only Ideapads were announced.

How is a mac more portable when you need to carry around an additional bag of dongles around.

lenovo has one of the worst if not the worst sales support ever. I don't even imagine what a technical support would be. Especially in France

I hoped this was between the m3 max mac

anybody know why the 16" yoga only comes with Intel and not AMD?

Could you do comparison between Yoga 9i Gen 8 vs Slim Pro 9i?

I have bought a slim pro 9i 16. Its a great laptop but the fan noise and the battery life are the two major issues with the laptop. If you look for manufacturer refurbished one which will cost you $1099. And at this price I can give up those two issues.

Can you please review the 14”?
Compare to m3 mcbook pro 14

Please review the Huawei matebook 16s 2023 with i9 and 32gb against the macbook pro 16

Crazy that they manage to keep intel relatively cool and quiet in this lenovo laptop. Too bad the memory on this one is soldered too. Would be a very good laptop with an efficient AMD chip and upgradeable RAM

Excellent review! (I arrived here via your "Legion Slim 7i Review: My Favorite Laptop in 2023?" review). I question if the Lenovo Slim Pro 9i 16 (or Yoga Pro 9i 16 in Europe) deserves an extra star when one looks at the "Brightness, Contrast and White Point At Different Brightness Settings" tables you display for a few milliseconds around the 1 minute 45 second mark. Here one sees that the MacBook Pro 16 contrast diminishes with brighness from 9230:1 at 100% to 940:1 at 25% whereas the Lenovo contrast remains constant from 2710:1 at 100% to 2720:1 at 25%. Wow! A factor 10 drop in the MacBook compared to no drop in the Lenovo. As most users would never work at 100% brightness levels this may mean that the contrast of both panels is roughly equivalent at some reduced brightness setting. But I'm curious if there is an explanation why or how the Lenovo manages to maintain constant contrast over the whole brightness range.

The cooling stand for the laptop looks "COOL"... May I know what is the brand... thanks in advance.

WTF was Lenovo thinking, putting an hdmi 2.1 port on the 14", but the 16" is only 2.0?

Josh...I have to say you are my favourite reviewer. Jarod is close behind you but he focuses to much on benchmaks and not enugh on real life user experience. Your mother should be proud!

The display on the Lenovo is WAY better... imo. BEAUTIFUL. Dpi is a software fix. I mean, I'm no expert but just simply looking at it 😍

Is there a significant difference between the Mini LED and IPS display panel?

16in model is inferior than 14in, aside from lacking of MUX switch, The MiniLED panel local dimming functions doesn't work in SDR mode which the 14" doesn't suffer from this limitation.

thousand-dollar price difference with just 2 stars difference? don't how the rating goes. By the way, yoga display is touch one while mac is not and mac rated higher, cannot understand. so this channel is basically a mac channel.

Consider adding "Quiet" mode (or whatever it's called on different laptops...) to the battery test for Windows laptops.

Lenovo 9i 16inches battery life is the worst ever. 3-4hours not 6hours. I bought one couple of weeks ago, CLICKED RETURN the next day with Lenovo taking 20% off my purchase price as handling/postage fee.
“JUST JOSH” please 3 out of 5stars for Lenovo for me is like romancing the truth. The battery life is absurd.

I'm in Europe and despite this laptop being released several months ago, it's nowhere to be found. Neither the 14" version :/

hello im confused is this the slim pro model or just the pro (do does it have touch input and 360 fold ?)

Hahahah why i feels like Razer Blade prize tags just simply make MacBook Pro looks not too bad this year XD

There’s one on Costco ? I’m assuming is that one

good video. as a developer, i find the numpad very annoying on laptops. so for the 16 inch, i went for the Dell Inspiron 16 Plus with RTX 4060. great for productivity and gaming on the side. my only gripes are slightly annoying fan sounds that you don't have any manual control over.

please taste dell xps specially speakers and display

If only one could natively install Windows 11 on a Macbook Air 2023 to combine the macbook's silence and efficiency with Windows versatility and software compatibility...

Josh, your videos are awsome, and it is for that reason I have a recommendation (and a respectful request) that you checkout Linux laptops. I am 99% sure you already have done this before, but I feel like you only did one or two videos (and brands), so I would like to respectfully request that Linux laptops always be in your eyes from now on, as I feel there are some great ones out there that more people need to know about. I think your channel is perfect for this as you don't just focus on the mainstream well known laptops, rather you review more. Also, if you choose to review Linux laptop, maybe make a full comparison with great Windows laptops. Most importantly, I would like to recommend Tuxedo laptops, specifically their InfinityBook Pro lineup. Thank you and have a great day :)

What's a good Macbook Pro 16 alternative under 2000 dollars? This Lenovo laptop in Europe costs 2700euros minimum(2 845,92 dollars)!!

For vacations in the provinces where brownouts are common (sometimes would last 4-5hrs), it will be greater to have a laptop with better batteries. This is why I changed to MBP. My gaming laptop can hardly last 3hrs specially when running multiple servers locally (software development). Downside, I cannot run my favorite windows games on my MBP. If it runs, its a lot slower than it runs on windows.

For pricing... The Lenovo should get a 5 and Mac 1... Why? Cause the Lenovo speced out doesn't meet Mac starting price..
But still gives the Mac a run for the money.

IDK. I have had 2 Lenovo's and both crashed within 1.5 years of standard usage. I don't trust their overall longevity.

In case anyone is wondering, while the 16 inch Slim Pro 9i has no MUX switch, the 14.5 inch does as far as I know, which makes it hugely effective.

Bad battery life kills everything

Hey Josh, are you planning on reviewing the Legion 9i any time soon?

Good job.