Lenovo Yoga 9i 2-in-1 Aura Edition review: a blue-chip convertible

For a laptop to stand out among the best ultrabooks, it usually needs a fun color, a wacky new feature, or a great price. With the Lenovo Yoga 9i 2-in-1 Aura Edition ($1,499.99 as tested), there's a fun color, but also something that's pretty rare: just being a really solid laptop in most respects.

Yes, it's blue, and it looks pretty cool. But once you get past that, you find strong build quality, an excellent OLED display, a high-end webcam, and pretty decent battery life. It even comes with a color-matched stylus.

If you're looking for a convertible 2-in-1, Lenovo's high-end option is well worth a look. There are improvements to be made, including streamlining the software offerings and making it easier to upgrade, but all in all, this system is strong.

Design of the Lenovo Yoga 9i 2-in-1

The Yoga 9i 2-in-1 is solidly built, but definitely a little funky looking. There are some ideas that clash, which might make this system a bit divisive.

The system comes in a very cool "cosmic" blue color, which doesn't quite look the same under any two lights. Think if Apple's "midnight" colorway was having a bit more fun.

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The lid is a matte navy with a shiny Lenovo logo and flat edges. The bottom of the chassis is the same shade of blue, but it's shiny and has rounded edges. When it's closed, it kind of looks like someone stacked two different tablets on top of each other. It makes more sense open, when the rounded corners sit comfortably against your wrists while you type.

Lenovo's laptop rotates around its hinge, which doubles as a soundbar. This allows you to use it as a standard clamshell, fold it back to a tablet, or place it on your desk like a tent and focus on just the screen.

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There are two Thunderbolt 4 USB Type-C ports and a single USB Type-A 3.2 Gen 2 port on the left side, while the laptop's right flank houses a headphone jack, a USB-C port, and the power button.

Lenovo's 2-in-1 measures 12.44 x 8.66 x 0.65 inches and weighs 2.91 pounds. That's slightly larger and heavier than Lenovo's clamshell, the Yoga Slim 9i, at 12.32 x 8.01 x 0.57 inches and 2.76 pounds. But it's lighter than the competing HP OmniBook Ultra Flip 14, which is 2.98 pounds, even though it's slightly smaller and slimmer. Apple's 14-inch MacBook Pro is heavier (3.4 pounds) but is slimmer than the Yoga as well.

Lenovo Yoga 9i 2-in-1 Aura Edition Specifications

Productivity Performance on the Lenovo Yoga 9i 2-in-1

Our Yoga 9i 2-in-1 review unit came packed with an Intel Core Ultra 7 258V, a generous 32GB of RAM, and a 1TB SSD. For most people, that's plenty for browsing the web, sending emails, writing up documents, and even doing some photo editing.

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On Geekbench 6, a synthetic benchmark that measures overall performance, the 9i 2-in-1 achieved a single-core score of 2,751 and a multi-core score of 11,059, putting it just ahead of — but largely on par with — the Yoga Slim 9i with the same CPU. It's also ahead of the HP OmniBook Ultra Flip 14w with the same processor.

But Apple's M4 in the MacBook Pro blew the Yoga 9i away, with a single-core score of 3,807 and a multi-core score of 15,114.

On our file transfer test, the Yoga 9i copied 25GB of files at a rate of 1,447.57 MBps, beating out the clamshell Yoga Slim and the MacBook Pro. Only the OmniBook Ultra Flip was faster at 1,702.45 MBps.

The convertible Yoga lost its advantage in Handbrake, converting a 4K video to 1080p in 6 minutes and 36 seconds, similar to the OmniBook. But the MacBook Pro was far speedier at 4:27.

To stress test laptops, we run Cinebench 2024 ten times, using the stressful rendering test to push the systems to their limits. The Yoga 9i achieved an average score of 599.63, starting slow but peaking at 601.51 and staying largely steady.

During the stress test, the CPU's performance cores ran at an average of 3.24 GHz while the efficiency cores ran at 3.65 GHz. The processor measured 69.65 degrees Celsius.

Display on the Lenovo Yoga 9i 2-in-1

Lenovo put a beautiful display on the Yoga 9i 2-in-1. The 14-inch, 2880 x 1800, OLED touch screen is bright and extremely colorful. It offers 120 Hz adaptive refresh, too, which makes writing with the stylus feel snappy in apps that support it.

The trailer for Marvel's Thunderbolts* looked great, with blue misty skies standing out behind the new Black Widow as she falls off a building, and red lasers popping in an otherwise dark scene.

The screen covers 210.6% of the sRGB color gamut by volume, and 149.2% of the more challenging DCI-P3 space. That's a significant margin over the MacBook Pro and the HP OmniBook Flip Ultra.

At 421 nits, the Yoga 9i 2-in-1's panel is also quite bright, but the MacBook Pro's Mini-LED screen was more luminous at an astounding 556.6 nits.

Keyboard, Touchpad, and Stylus on the Lenovo Yoga 9i 2-in-1

The keyboard on the Lenovo Yoga 9i 2-in-1 is surprisingly clicky. It's not a mechanical keyboard, but the feedback is satisfying if you like a little bit of spring in your typing.

What I don't like about the keyboard is the extra row on the right side of the layout, with dedicated keys for adjusting the power mode, switching between different audio presets, and toggling blue light protection on the display. The fourth key in that row is user-programmable, designed to open an application or file, a website, run a shortcut, or type a text macro. Below all of those is the fingerprint reader, which looks like a key, but is not.

My problem with these keys is that having them there shifted my expectation of where the keyboard ends, even though I'm a touch typist who doesn't look down much. It took me a surprisingly long time to get used to it, and I accidentally changed settings several times throughout my review process.

The touchpad is nice, large, and responsive. It still has a physical click, but I think a premium "Aura Edition" PC should move to haptic feedback for a more high-end feel.

I appreciate that the stylus, the Yoga Pen, is color-matched to the laptop. It charges over USB Type-C, so you can use the same adapter that came with the laptop to plug it in. With a flat magnetic side, you can stick it to the laptop's lid when you aren't using it. Lenovo claims up to 4,096 degrees of pressure sensitivity.

The stylus is comfortable enough and sized like a pen. There are two barrel buttons that you can customize in the Lenovo Pen Settings app. I'd like to see an eraser at the end similar to Microsoft's Surface Slim Pen.

Audio on the Lenovo Yoga 9i 2-in-1

The Yoga 9i 2-in-1 has four speakers: a pair of 2W tweeters and twin 2W woofers that fire through a rotating sound bar and the bottom of the notebook.

Linkin Park's "Up From the Bottom" sounded pretty good on the system, with the speakers pushing clear vocals and snappy drums. The guitars were a bit lost in the mix, but going into the Dolby Access software and switching the intelligent equalizer to "Detailed" helped a lot there. There's basically no bass, though.

I noticed a little bit of the wrist rest pulsing when I had music loud, but not enough to distract me from work. I've felt far worse.

Upgradeability of the Lenovo Yoga 9i 2-in-1

At first glance, it looks like there are four Torx T5 screws holding the bottom of the laptop in place. But if you try to remove those, you won't get very far. That's because an additional two tiny Phillips-head screws are beneath the laptop's rear rubber foot. Because you could break this foot by peeling it off, we consider this unrepairable for most people, though we were able to peel it up enough to get to the screws. You can buy a replacement rubber foot directly from Lenovo, but at $20.87, it’s a pretty expensive strip of rubber.

The battery and SSD are the main user-replaceable parts. The SSD is an M.2 2242 component. While they aren't as common as a standard M.2 2280, there are more options than there were just a few years ago.

Perhaps the biggest issue here is getting the laptop back together. It took a significant amount of time to get this computer's base back on with the screw holes aligned, and I've disassembled an awful lot of laptops. Avoid opening it if you can.

Battery Life on the Lenovo Yoga 9i 2-in-1

If you're looking for a long-lasting PC, the Yoga 9i 2-in-1 should last far more than a workday. On our battery test, which has the screen set to 150 nits, laptops browse the web, run light OpenGL tests, and stream video. The Yoga 9i 2-in-1 ran for 12 hours and 47 minutes.

That's an increase of an hour and 44 minutes over the clamshell Yoga Slim 9i (with the same size battery but a higher resolution display), and 45 minutes longer than the HP OmniBook Ultra Flip 14. The MacBook Pro blew the rest of the group out of the water at 18:31.

Heat on the Lenovo Yoga 9i 2-in-1

We took skin temperatures on the Yoga 9i 2-in-1 while running our Cinebench R24 stress test to get an idea of how hot to the touch the system could get under a heavy load.

The center of the keyboard reached 95 degrees Fahrenheit, while the touchpad was a cooler 84.5 F. The hottest point on the bottom of the system measured 100 F flat.

Webcam on the Lenovo Yoga 9i 2-in-1

Lenovo's 5MP webcam performed admirably in my testing. In a challenging situation at my desk with a bright foreground near an open window and a dark background behind me, the camera found balance, accurately capturing my green shirt, blue eyes, and details like a small scratch on my face and the seams in my shirt.

I'd have no problem using this webcam both for work meetings and chatting with family or friends.

There's a privacy shutter to cover the webcam. You can also use Windows Hello for facial recognition in addition to the fingerprint scanner on the keyboard. Using the camera makes more sense for this, in case you pick up the system in tablet mode.

Software and Warranty on the Lenovo Yoga 9i 2-in-1

Lenovo puts a fair amount of software on the Yoga 9i, some of which provides useful features and others that detract from its premium nature.

Vantage is still the most useful application here, serving as a single stop for serial numbers, warranty information, device and power settings, and the ability to contact customer service. There are some pushes in here for third-party services, like Norton Antivirus.

Intel Unison is still here, despite the fact that Intel is shutting it down. The app, which provides some of the "Aura Edition" features, like sharing photos from either an Android smartphone or iPhone, will "retain service" on Lenovo's Aura laptops while it stops working for others in June.

A new app, Smart Connect, requires installation, but it feels like a backup to Unison designed to "effortlessly pair all your devices within your ecosystem" and "connect Motorola and Lenovo phones, tablets, and PCs." Lenovo owns Motorola.

There's also an app to control stylus settings, and Lenovo Now, which pushes subscriptions and partner apps. There's also a link to a "subscription marketplace" in the Start menu.

Lenovo sells the Yoga 9i 2-in-1 with a 1-year warranty.

Lenovo Yoga 9i 2-in-1 Configurations

We tested a $1,499.99 version of the Yoga 9i 2-in-1 with an Intel Core Ultra 7 258V, 32GB of RAM, a 1TB SSD, and a 2880 x 1800 OLED touchscreen. At the moment, this configuration is only at Best Buy. When we started testing, this laptop was ($1,749.99), but Lenovo reps suggested the lower price should be the standard going forward.

Lenovo's website isn't yet selling the laptop, but its spec sheet options include a 4K display and a lesser Core Ultra 7 256V processor.

Bottom Line

The Lenovo Yoga 9i 2-in-1 is a well-built 2-in-1 with a gorgeous display, a great webcam, and (for a Windows ultrabook) pretty solid battery life. If you're looking for a convertible notebook that includes a pen, you should seriously consider it.

Lenovo's aesthetics here might be divisive, but I think most people will be able to see past the mishmash of design choices. (Those who can't should take a look at the HP OmniBook Flip 14). My other biggest complaint — how difficult this system is to open and close — won't apply to most people, but those who tinker and repair should be aware.

A $1,499 price tag puts the Yoga 9i firmly in premium territory, but I appreciate that it comes with 32GB of RAM, which should keep this system relevant for a while. The 14-inch MacBook Pro, a great laptop that is not convertible, starts at $1,599 with 16GB of RAM, so this is a bargain, assuming it stays at this price. The Yoga 9i 2-in-1 debuted at $1,749.99.

If you're looking for a premium 2-in-1 that's thin, light, and has a beautiful OLED screen, the Yoga 9i 2-in-1 checks those boxes and then some.