We continue our acquaintance with the line Yoga from Lenovo, and today we have on review another executive-class device – a laptop-transformer Lenovo Yoga 9i 14…
As well as Yoga Slim 9i 14, which we talked about recently, it is built on a new platform Intel Evo, whose heart is mobile processors from Intel 11th generation with graphics core Iris Xe…
At the time of writing the review, prices for the device started at 150 thousand rubles for a version with a 512 GB SSD and a Full HD screen. The price for the tested configuration with 1 TB SSD and 4K screen starts at 177 thousand rubles.
PACKAGING, COMPLETE SET AND APPEARANCE
In terms of design, the packaging practically does not differ from the Yoga Slim 9i 14 box. The difference is that it is three times thinner and slightly wider. The lid meets with two gold logos – YOGA in the middle and Lenovo in the corner, and is also removed from the top.
Inside there is a laptop directly wrapped in a fabric envelope, and under it is a small secret compartment, inside which the documentation should lie, since it is unlikely that anything will fit there anymore. The charger will have to be bought separately, and this suggests that the manufacturer clearly follows the innovations of competitors from Cupertino, although they removed the adapter only from the phone bundles.
Externally, the laptop, except for its slightly larger size (326 x 221 mm), does not differ much from its thin brother. The same metal case, the lid is covered with black genuine leather, and on the front edge there is an embossed inscription “YOGA 9 SERIES”. The main difference is the hinge that connects the lid to the base of the laptop. It allows you to open the screen to almost 360 degrees. Also inside this hinge are two tweeters that will not overlap in any position when using the laptop. On the leather cover, the YOGA logo is still in the corner, and the Lenovo logo has moved to the edge of the pivot hinge.
Another distinctive feature of the Yoga 9i is the presence of a stylus, the compartment of which is located at the back next to the hinge. The stylus sits well enough in the nest, and is charged there, and to pull it out, you need to lightly grasp the small ledge on the back of the cap with your fingernail. The stylus is pressure sensitive and has two function buttons. The nib is made of elastomer, thanks to which, when using it, it seems that you are not holding a stylus in your hands, but a real pen. The tactile sensation when drawing or entering handwritten text – as if you were writing on paper, not on the screen.
On the bottom, the laptop has not only perforations for air intake and two long rubber legs, but also two more holes in the front of the case, behind which the woofers are hidden, which, thanks to the mentioned legs, do not completely overlap and leave a gap between the parts of the case when the laptop is used in tablet mode.
The power button, as usual, is located at the very edge of the right edge of the base, but all the connectors fit on the left. Since the case of this model is slightly thicker (13 mm), the manufacturer has placed one USB-A 3.2 Gen 2 connector and two USB Type-C Thunderbolt 4 ports in the widest part on the edge, through which you can charge the device and connect external screens. disks, hubs and the like. Also, the manufacturer has not forgotten about the combined microphone and headphone jack.
The transformer in question is slightly heavier than an ultrabook (1453 grams versus 1277 for the Yoga Slim 9i 14). It can be easily opened 90 degrees with one hand. Without the support of the base with the other hand, the hinge prevents the laptop from opening any longer. The base simply starts to lift up following the attempts to deflect the screen further.
The touchpad area and wrist rest are made of a single glass, which here has a monochromatic glossy texture. The surface is very easily soiled, so it is better to have a rag on hand to wipe it down periodically. The touchpad is the same size as the Slim 9i 14, that is, only 103 x 65 mm. Its borders are highlighted with a solid line, and it has tactile feedback instead of physical buttons and corners. In the upper right corner there is also a fingerprint scanner, which, like the touchpad, is highlighted by a line around the perimeter. Setting up a finger login takes less than a minute. The sensor works flawlessly, no matter what angle you put your finger on the scanning surface.
The laptop keyboard is recessed into the body. The travel is slightly stiffer than the Yoga Slim 9i 14’s keyboard, but the keystrokes are quiet enough.
The keys are made of soft-touch plastic, and under them there is a built-in LED backlight, which has two levels of brightness. You can adjust and turn off the backlight using the FN + SPACE combination. Shortcuts are available on the top row of the keyboard and are activated in combination with the FN button. The keyboard in this model is slightly larger, but there would hardly be enough space for a digital block.
SCREEN, CAMERA AND SOUND
As with the Yoga Slim 9i 14, the manufacturers did not skimp on the high-quality touchscreen in this model.
The screen sensor responds clearly and accurately. The display surface is covered with glossy glass. It glares a little when viewed from a large angle from the side, but when you sit directly in front of it, it is comfortable to work even at 50% brightness.
The bezels around the screen are quite compact – 5 mm on the sides, from 7 to 9 mm on top in the camera area and about 20 mm on the bottom. The screen here uses a 14-inch 10-bit IPS-matrix with a resolution of 4K (3840 by 2160 pixels) and a refresh rate of 60 Hz. Brightness – 500 nits, contrast – 1600: 1. DCI-P3 has a 90% color gamut. This display is VESA DisplayHDR 400 Certified and Dolby Vision Ready. No highlights on black. The brightness of the screen will be sufficient when working outdoors in sunny weather.
For conferences and video calls via ZOOM and Skype, a WEB-camera with 720p resolution and two microphones is provided. Since the manufacturer decided not to add other sensors to this model, you will not find support for the Windows Hello face recognition function here. To protect your privacy, as in most Lenovo laptops, there is a physical shutter that blocks the camera’s peephole. True, it does not turn off the camera, as does switching in the Yoga Slim 9i 14, so although you will not be seen if hacked, they may be overheard.
Four speakers with Dolby Atmos support are responsible for the sound. Two high-frequency drivers are located in the hinge, and two low-frequency drivers are located at the bottom of the front edge of the base. The speakers are loud enough and sound pretty decent for the sound that’s built into a laptop.
Dolby Atmos sound settings can be made through the specially installed Dolby Atmos Speaker System application, where many settings are available for different content. In general, they will be enough both for watching videos on YouTube and movies, and for listening to music in the background while working.
FILLING, BATTERY, OPERATION AND TESTS
The Yoga 9i 14 that came to our test is based on the new 10nm Intel Core i7-1185G7 processor, clocked at 3.0 GHz. The processor is 4-core and runs in 8 threads, with 12 MB of Intel smart cache, and the maximum frequency is 4800 MHz. Responsible for the graphics is the integrated graphics core of the new generation Intel Iris Xe Graphics with 1 gigabyte of memory allocated by default.
The motherboard has 16 gigabytes of LPDDR4x dual-channel RAM with a maximum frequency of 2133 MHz. There is no possibility of its expansion. The internal storage in the test sample was played by a 1TB NVMe SSD from Samsung. There are no additional slots for drives, but the installed one can be replaced if desired. To connect to the network, the laptop is equipped with a WI-FI 6 module – Intel AX201, as well as Bluetooth 5.1 for wireless connection of devices.
The laptop comes with a 60Wh non-removable lithium-ion polymer battery. A full charge will last for 9-10 hours in everyday use (surfing the Internet, working with documents, watching videos and listening to music) with 50% screen brightness. The laptop fully charges from a 65-watt charge in about 2 hours and 15 minutes.
NWiNFO displays the following average temperatures when not under load:
- CPU – 42 ° C
- GPU Core – 42 ° C
- SAMSUNG MZVLB1T0HBLR-000L2- 37 ° C
Under maximum load in tests, the processor warmed up to 98 ° C, and the graphics core – up to 90 ° C. NWiNFO also recorded thermal throttling of all CPU cores during tests. The body of the device in the area of the keyboard became quite hot, while the rest of the body remained cold. In standard operation, this laptop is practically silent, and under load, it was possible to fix the maximum noise level within 45 dB.
The disk speed in Crystal Disk Mark was 3512 MB / s for reading and 2992 MB / s for writing. The AS SDD test, as usual, shows much more modest results – 2735 MB / s for reading and 1217 MB / s for writing. Turning on the laptop takes about 9-10 seconds, which is within the standard values for a solution on an M.2 SSD.
Despite the fact that Intel advertises its Iris Xe graphics accelerator as capable of playing Full HD games, this device is still not suitable for gaming. Traditionally, we conducted tests in two benchmarks.
In the Superposition benchmark test on the Unigine 2 engine at 1080p at medium settings, the system showed from 17 to 26 frames.
In the Final Fantasy XV Windows Edition benchmark, the laptop at low configurations at the same resolution was able to score 2,973 points and a slightly lower performance score.
We also tried to launch a couple of games from Game Pass. DOOM Eternal does not support Intel GPUs, but it still runs at 1080p on low settings. True, in addition to stable 15-20 frames in closed locations, he also periodically displayed artifacts in the pause menu.
Forza Horizon 4 performed better in terms of performance. In the in-game test at low settings in Full HD, the system was able to reach 49 frames, but directly, just when traveling through the open world of the game, performance only occasionally went above 30 frames, issuing an average of 23-28 FPS. In addition, when rendering 3D scenes in Cinebench r20, this laptop managed to achieve 1884 points in the multi-core test and 491 points in the single-core test.
RESULTS
The Lenovo Yoga 9i 14 is slightly heavier and larger than its Slim 9i 14 Ultrabook, but it has a lot more interesting solutions. This is a handy transformer that allows you to interact with the device in different ways, turning it from a laptop into a tablet. Although it is still heavy for a tablet, you will not hold it in your hand for a long time. But the convenience is brought by the stylus, which is always at hand and will appeal to those who need a device for creativity. On the plus side, it also has a high-quality 4K display, decent enough sound for a portable device, and excellent battery life for working on the road. We also made sure once again that while the new integrated graphics solution from Intel is not suitable for games in Full HD, even at minimal ones, although it may be enough for some tanks.
To work with office programs and graphic editors, iron should be more than enough.
Author: Sergey Dyakonenko (Madnfs)
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