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Every now and then, a laptop comes around that sets a new standard for the industry in one way or another.
Microsoft Surface, Apple MacBook, and Dell XPS have all been there, either through innovative form factors, evolutionary silicon, or futuristic designs. Lenovo has introduced a new contender to the ring with the revived Yoga Slim 9i 14.
It’s a hero device in every sense of the word, the kind of laptop Lenovo will use to usher customers in the door to sell them one of its countless, far more reasonable machines. It’s a luxury product from a mainstream brand, and “subtlety” is not a part of its specs sheet.
The Lenovo Yoga Slim 9i 14 (Gen 10) refines Lenovo’s current design language to a razor-sharp edge, caps it off with a mesmerizing glass lid, and then seals the deal with a true industry-leading display.
A laptop with so much flash is bound to get a little fuzzy at the edges, though, and the Yoga Slim 9i 14 does often value form over function. The question is, is the Yoga Slim 9i 14 just a statement piece that happens to be a laptop, or is it a truly great laptop that happens to make a statement?
I’ve used countless laptops across form factors, price ranges, and specialties, and take care to meticulously evaluate each one across all the categories that matter to you, including build quality, performance, battery life, and more. Just like Windows Central as a whole, I maintain a standard for detailed, informative reviews.
This review was made possible thanks to a review sample provided by Lenovo. The company had no input nor saw the contents of this review prior to publication.
Yoga Slim 9i review: Pricing and specifications
- The Yoga Slim 9i 14 starts at $1,759.99 and goes up to $1,900.
- This obviously makes it a very premium laptop, but it’s not unfairly priced.
- You’re paying extra for the design and display, but it’s reasonable.
- Value rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Sometimes, you can immediately tell just how expensive a product is, and the Lenovo Yoga Slim 9i is one such product.
Reviewed configuration
• Price: $1,899.99 at Lenovo
• Display: 14-inch PureSight Pro OLED, 16:10 aspect ratio, 4K (3,840 x 2,400) resolution, 120Hz refresh rate, 750nits peak brightness, Dolby Vision & VESA DisplayHDR True Black 600 support, 100% of sRGB, Adobe RGB, & DCI-P3 color gamuts, multi-touch support
• CPU: Intel Core Ultra 7 258V (8 cores, 8 threads, 12MB cache, up to 3.7GHz)
• GPU: Intel Arc Graphics 140V (8 Xe cores, 16GB)
• NPU: Intel AI Boost (Up to 47 TOPS)
• RAM: 32GB LPDDR5X @ 8,533MHz
• Storage: 1TB M.2 NVMe PCIe Gen 4.0 SSD
• Battery: 75Whr, 65W USB Type-C charger
• Dimensions: 313 x 204 x ~14.6mm (12.32 x 8.01 x ~0.57in)
• Weight: 1.25kg (2.76lbs)
That eye-catching glass lid and prominent OLED display immediately mark this laptop as being from the world of extravagance, but the actual price of the Yoga Slim 9i isn’t entirely unreasonable.
The Lenovo Yoga Slim 9i 14 (Gen 10) starts from $1,759.99 at Lenovo, which gets you an Intel Core Ultra 256V, 16GB of RAM, and a 1TB SSD. For an additional $140, you can upgrade to 32GB of RAM and Windows 11 Pro — in other words, $1,899.99 at Lenovo.
There are unfortunately few configuration options for the Yoga Slim 9i, and by that I mean you can only change the RAM and the preinstalled operating system. There are no options for more than 1TB of SSD storage, for example, and there’s certainly no option to add a haptic touchpad (which makes me sad).
That does mean that everyone gets the same 4K, 120Hz OLED display, though, so no need to worry about paying an additional premium just for that option.
Pricing-wise, this laptop is right in line with other ultra-premium options from Dell and HP. To be honest, I expected this laptop to break the $2,000 barrier like an equivalently specced Dell XPS 14 does, but it does not.
In the box, you’ll find the Lenovo Yoga Slim 9i 14 (Gen 10) laptop and a compact, 65W USB Type-C fast charger. This laptop is covered by Lenovo’s standard 1-year warranty.
Yoga Slim 9i review: Design and build quality
- The Yoga Slim 9i may be the best-looking laptop Lenovo has ever released.
- The unique glass lid, blend of glossy curves and matte planes, it’s all great.
- There are only two ports, though, which is a real shame.
- Design rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐½
Do you really need me to tell you how beautiful this laptop is? Lenovo’s design language has become familiar over the last few years, but I find more beauty than stagnation in the consistency.
Lenovo knows how to build a durable, reliable, and attractive laptop, with a firm grasp on how to use asymmetry, texture, and lines. The more expensive the laptop, the more Lenovo makes use of those elements — and the Yoga Slim 9i 14 is expensive.
I love how the smooth, glossy, curved edges seamlessly transition into the matte panels of the keyboard and bottom. The shrunken lid and protruding “Communication Bar” are oddly satisfying and give the Yoga Slim 9i a unique profile.
I even love the glass lid. Yes, it’s functionally pointless to use glass anywhere but the screen and touchpad, but the metallic blue color combined with the way the glass panel refracts light in a variety of patterns and hues is striking.
In case you’re wondering, the Yoga Slim 9i 14 still passes MIL-STD-810H durability standards.
Image 1 of 2
If there’s one area this laptop falls short in the design category, it’s the port selection. You do get a USB Type-C Thunderbolt 4 port on each side, which is great, but that’s all you get.
You heard me. There’s no USB Type-A, no HDMI, not even a 3.5mm audio jack. You get two Thunderbolt ports, a side-mounted power button (which makes less sense on a clamshell than a 2-in-1 laptop), an electronic camera privacy switch, and your various LED indicators.
Thunderbolt ports are versatile enough that I’m not as upset about their exclusive appearance as I am about how many there are. Lenovo could’ve given us a third.
Visually imposing and physically robust, the Lenovo Yoga Slim 9i 14 (Gen 10) certainly embraces its price tag. It’s also a very compact machine, though, and that’s partially due to the display.
At less than 15mm thick and lighter than many of its competitors at 2.76lbs, the Yoga Slim 9i already more than qualifies for “ultrabook” status. However, the thinnest display bezels in the business means the Yoga Slim 9i fits a 16:10 aspect ratio panel into the footprint of a 16:9 laptop, making it much shorter in that dimension.
This laptop feels wonderful in the hand, and you’ll find that almost any laptop bag will happily accommodate it.
Yoga Slim 9i review: Display quality
- Its headlining feature, it’s no surprise that this display impresses.
- An accurate, high resolution, and fast OLED display is all you need.
- It’s an uninterrupted canvas that offers an incredible viewing experience.
- Display rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Honestly, what is there to say about the Lenovo Yoga Slim 9i 14’s display? To put it simply, it’s the best screen on a 14-inch laptop (with one exception, but more on that later).
You’re looking at a 4K OLED panel, packing an absurd number of pixels within these slim bezels. Despite the resolution, though, Lenovo still gave us a 120Hz refresh rate, so this display is smooth as well as sharp.
A 98% screen-to-body ratio (made possible through record-breaking thin bezels, curved top corners, and an under-display camera) means zero interruptions when feasting your eyes on this display, and you will.
As beautiful as the physical laptop is, it’s the screen that has most consistently amazed me during my time with the Lenovo Yoga Slim 9i 14. For such a screen to be possible on a 14-inch laptop this compact is unbelievable, and you won’t find many other laptops right now that can compete.
|
Setting |
Brightness |
Black |
Contrast |
White point |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
0% |
10.4 |
0 |
Infinite |
6,500 (0.313, 0.327) |
|
25% |
39.6 |
0 |
Infinite |
6,500 (0.313, 0.328) |
|
50% |
102.5 |
0 |
Infinite |
6,500 (0.313, 0.328) |
|
75% |
218.1 |
0 |
Infinite |
6,500 (0.313, 0.328) |
|
100% |
395.6 |
0 |
Infinite |
6,500 (0.313, 0.329) |
Put the Yoga Slim 9i 14’s display to the test, and it’ll still outperform most other laptops in many metrics.
Lenovo claims an astounding 100% adherence to all three major color gamuts (sRGB, Adobe RGB, and DCI-P3), and even on the “Default” color profile it gets very close. There are separate color profiles for each of those gamuts, too, so the Yoga Slim 9i is well equipped to handle creative workflows.
I can’t recall if I’ve ever tested another display with such a consistent white balance across all brightness levels, either, especially one that so closely adheres to the 6,500K “ideal” that balances warm and cool hues.
A max brightness of 400nits isn’t blisteringly high, but the Yoga Slim 9i is competing with the best OLED laptop screens. Lenovo quotes 750nits of peak brightness, which mostly applies to HDR content. However, there is an ambient light sensor that, while occasionally erratic, does help the Yoga Slim 9i battle bright environments and sunlight without your input.
There’s Dolby Vision and VESA DisplayHDR True Black 600 support on board, and the Yoga Slim 9i is one of the best laptops I’ve used for consuming HDR content — punchy, vibrant colors, deep and silky blacks, responsive and fluid motion, and a great contrast between bright and dark.
I may have given this display a perfect 5/5, but that doesn’t mean it’s actually perfect. There are two areas I want to see Lenovo improve: dynamic refresh rate support and PWM flickering.
On the former, the Yoga Slim 9i is locked to either 60Hz or 120Hz, with no way to automatically adjust the refresh rate to match the content on-screen and preserve battery life when there’s little motion. Lenovo told me this panel simply doesn’t support it like the 48-120Hz 2.8K OLED panel we’ve seen in other 14-inch laptops, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to see it.
Finally, Lenovo’s OLED displays sadly both seem to use pulse-width modulation (PWM) for maintaining consistent brightness levels when dimming and flickers the display at a low rate.
I’ll let my colleagues at Android Central explain what PWM is and why it matters, but suffice to say that PWM can cause eye strain and even headaches in sensitive users, and a lower flicker rate can dramatically worsen the issue. Lenovo can and should do better, especially when OLED is the default on most of its premium devices
Yoga Slim 9i review: Performance and thermals
- The Yoga Slim 9i is finely tuned, offering reliable and cool performance.
- The fans are often dead silent, although they can get loud under load.
- GPU performance is excellent, even if the CPU falls behind AMD a little.
- Performance rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐½
Like many current-gen thin-and-light ultrabooks, the Lenovo Yoga Slim 9i is powered by Intel Core Ultra (Series 2). This 8-core platform sacrifices raw power in exchange for significantly improved battery life and greater AI smarts, which has greatly benefited Intel-powered laptops.
The Yoga Slim 9i is one of the best examples I’ve seen so far of how capable Intel Core Ultra (Series 2) can really be, powered by the Core Ultra 7 258V (or 256V, if you have 16GB of RAM).
This is an Intel Evo laptop, so you get rapid boot and wake times, as well as excellent standby endurance. Day-to-day, the Yoga Slim 9i absolutely flies through Windows 11 without any issues.
This laptop often stays entirely silent during casual computing sessions, and while the fan can become quite loud when you push this system it’s never accompanied by an obnoxious whine or rattle.
Thermally, the Yoga Slim 9i does a fantastic job keeping itself cool to the touch, and I never noticed concerning performance throttling on or off the charger. In Geekbench 6’s CPU test, the Yoga Slim 9i performed less than 1% worse off the charger, and less than 2% worse in 3DMark Time Spy’s GPU test.
Image 1 of 6
In benchmarks, the Lenovo Yoga Slim 9i 14 (Gen 10) easily keeps up with the best Windows laptops powered by Intel’s latest and greatest, and even surpasses those that Windows Central has tested in GPU performance. Yes, you can game on this device, even on battery power.
The best AMD Ryzen AI chipsets still outperform Intel’s equivalent offerings in a lot of areas, including multi-core performance and video encoding, but the cooler Intel chips make more sense for the sleeker Yoga Slim 9i.
Performance is still more than good enough for what 99% of people do with their laptop, and the Yoga Slim 9i is future-proofed to survive years of software updates and feature creep.
Yoga Slim 9i review: Software and AI experience
- The Yoga Slim 9i flies on Windows 11, and is a full Copilot+ PC.
- Lenovo Vantage continues to be a great app for device management.
- There’s little bloat, but the Yoga Slim 9i lacks Lenovo’s best AI features.
- Software rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
As I already mentioned, Windows 11 feels right at Home on the Yoga Slim 9i. Or right at Pro, but that doesn’t quite sound right.
It’s also a relatively clean build of Windows 11, preloaded with Lenovo and Intel’s various apps, Dolby Access for the audio and visual features, and… McAfee Antivirus. Sigh. Uninstalled.
Still, an embedded promotional link for Adobe Creative Cloud and two Lenovo apps dedicated to offering you software and subscription trials is a minor annoyance at best, an active hindrance at worst.
Thanks to the Intel AI Boost Neural Processing Unit (NPU) inside the Lenovo Yoga Slim 9i, and especially thanks to its 47 TOPS of computational power, this laptop is a Copilot+ PC.
That means access to all of Microsoft’s latest and most powerful AI features in Windows now and into the foreseeable future. While not a killer selling point now (those features are still lacking), the Yoga Slim 9i will only get better and smarter from here.
However, while the Yoga Slim 9i does boast Lenovo’s AI Core for improved device security and adaptive power management, as well as compatibility with Lenovo’s AI applications, it strangely lacks the “Aura Edition” branding and all the subsequent features that come with it.
As bizarre as the branding is, “Aura Edition” has been attached to Lenovo’s best AI PCs, including the ultra-premium Yoga Book 9i and Yoga 9i 2-in-1 that sits on either side of this laptop. It seems odd that the Smart Share, Care, and Modes features, currently a part of Aura Edition, are missing here, even if those features hardly warrant an entire brand on their own.
Yoga Slim 9i review: Battery experience
- That bright, fast 4K OLED display absolutely pummels battery life.
- It’s not nearly as severe as I thought it’d be, though.
- The Yoga Slim 9i still boasts solid endurance with its massive battery.
- Battery rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Despite the Yoga Slim 9i’s diminutive stature, there’s a beefy 75Whr battery stashed inside. It’s definitely the “brute force” approach to solving the battery-sucking whims of this ridiculously power-hungry display, but the end results speak for themselves.
This laptop flat out lacks the endurance of the longest-lasting Windows ultrabooks we’ve tested, especially those powered by Intel Core Ultra (Series 2) and Qualcomm Snapdragon X series. I’ve still yet to experience battery anxiety with this laptop, though.
Setting the Yoga Slim 9i to its “Balanced” performance profile, setting the display to approximately 200nits at 120Hz (because I don’t believe in disabling features in standard battery tests), and leaving keyboard backlighting on, I ran this device through one-hour loops of general Microsoft Office productivity and an HD video at 50% volume with the Procyon benchmark suite.
In the former, the Yoga Slim 9i 14 drained 9% of its battery cycling through the Office suite and emulating a standard workflow. When looping the HD video, the active speakers helped contribute to an 11% drain over the course of an hour.
The latest generation of premium Windows laptops with similar internals can be expected to drain around 6-8% in this test, so the Yoga Slim 9i isn’t that far off despite its far more demanding screen. That’s reflected in real-world usage, too.
I ran a Windows Battery Report at the end of my review period to aggregate my usage data, and was returned an average of 6 hours of actual, screen-on usage. That’s 2-3 hours lower than the best in the category, but it’s still enough to get me through the day — and lowering the refresh rate, disabling the keyboard backlighting, lowering performance, and enabling automatic brightness can all help squeeze more life out of this laptop.
Charging the Lenovo Yoga Slim 9i 14 (Gen 10) is a simple affair with the compact 65W USB Type-C fast charger included in the box, which can be used with either of the side-mounted Thunderbolt 4 ports. It’s fast, easy, and standardized.
As I mentioned previously, the Yoga Slim 9i is getting some extra props here because its performance off the charger can be nearly indistinguishable from when plugged in, even compared to the most consistent performers from Intel and Qualcomm, and that could be an active selling point for mobile power users.
Yoga Slim 9i review: Keyboard and touchpad
- The redesigned Yoga keyboard is among the best I’ve used.
- It’s intuitive, comfortable, and responsive in all the best ways.
- It’d be perfect, but the touchpad is tiny (and it’s not even haptic).
- Keyboard rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐½
I can usually rely on Lenovo to design a great keyboard for its laptops, and the Yoga Slim 9i 14 may be a new best for its consumer-facing family. Lenovo redesigned the keyboard for the Yoga Slim 9i 14, and while the changes are subtle, they do lead to improvements.
You get 1.5mm of key travel, with each keycap featuring a 0.3mm dish and a water-and-oil resistant coating. You’re looking at traditional scissor switches, but with a firm, bouncy action.
I use these words to describe most great keyboards, but the Yoga Slim 9i 14’s is tactile and comfortable, with a spacious and intuitive layout that takes up as much real estate as possible on this compact deck.
You still get a dedicated fingerprint sensor for Windows Hello biometric authentication, though, and above that you get dedicated hotkeys for changing performance profiles, audio profiles, enabling the blue light filter, and a customizable shortcut that you can configure to do any number of actions — for me, that means immediately opening all of the apps and programs I use for my job with a single button press.
Those are in addition to the standard Fn row shortcuts, so it’s added utility with no compromise and I want to see it on more devices. Unfortunately, the Yoga Slim 9i’s touchpad can’t keep up that standard of quality.
Look, it’s a glass, capacitive touchpad that uses Microsoft Precision drivers, readily and accurately supports gestures, and is both precise and reliable. It’s just tiny compared to other modern Windows laptops, so it feels cramped.
It’d help if this was a haptic touchpad with 100% of the area being useable for tactile clicks, but it’s not. Lenovo hasn’t brought haptic touchpads to its consumer devices yet. That makes me sad. Do that, Lenovo.
Yoga Slim 9i review: Other hardware
- The Yoga Slim 9i boasts the latest wireless connectivity standards.
- You also get a surprisingly great quad-speaker system and mic array.
- It’s the webcam that lets this laptop down, but it’s understandable why.
- Other hardware rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Intel Core Ultra (Series 2) has been incredibly solid for wireless connectivity, with the Lenovo Yoga Slim 9i 14 supporting both Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4. I’ve had zero issues with staying connected, and the Yoga Slim 9i has also played very nice with my Virtual Private Network (VPN).
Audio recording is handled by an impressive quad microphone array with AI-powered noise cancelation, and the Yoga Slim 9i performs well here.
When you want to listen, dual, bottom-firing 2W woofers are supported by dual 2W tweeters hidden under the keyboard. With Lenovo’s Smart Amp and Dolby Atmos integration, the ingredients are there for a great audio experience.
And the Yoga Slim 9i delivers. This isn’t the best sounding Windows laptop (that honor still goes to the ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14) but the Yoga Slim 9i sounds cleaner, deeper, and louder than a laptop this compact has any right to.
Higher volumes do begin to introduce hollow distortion, but it’s slight and even music is still more than enjoyable to listen to.
There’s no facial recognition through Windows Hello, but that’s because of this laptop’s singular greatest weak point: the webcam. The Lenovo Yoga Slim 9i 14 can lay claim to an industry first with a true under-display camera hidden behind the OLED panel, but that comes with compromises.
If you’re not familiar, OLED panels are able to individually disable pixels (hence how infinite contrast is possible). With a lot of very complicated, advanced engineering, you can allow a camera sensor to see through the OLED display when the pixels above it are turned off; you get an uninterrupted viewing experience when the camera is disabled, and you can clearly see it when it’s enabled.
This isn’t my first experience with UDCs, but the Yoga Slim 9i by far has the best implementation I’ve seen so far. The incredibly dense 4K display means the camera is completely invisible at higher brightness (although you can see it at lower brightnesses), and that helps contribute to this laptop’s unbeatable display experience.
Unfortunately, even a 32MP smartphone sensor can’t disobey the laws of physics, and absorbing light information through layers of screen and filters doesn’t make for a great picture. Yeah, this camera is awful.
Colors are muted and washed out, detail is practically nonexistent, performance in anything less than perfect lighting conditions introduces more noise than a heavy metal concert, it’s just not good.
That’s the price you pay for this display, though, so I’m not going to lambast the Yoga Slim 9i too severely. If you’re considering this laptop, the webcam likely isn’t high on your list of priorities.
Yoga Slim 9i review: Also consider
Yoga Slim 9i review: Score card
|
Attribute |
Rating & notes |
|---|---|
|
Value |
4/5 — There’s no arguing that this laptop is incredibly expensive, but it’s a unique device with luxury features. |
|
Design |
4.5/5 — The best of Lenovo’s design comes together to create a gorgeous, sleek, and exotic laptop… With only two ports. |
|
Display |
5/5 — The lack of VRR and the use of PWM flickering aside, this makes a great case for being the best display ever put into a 14-inch laptop. |
|
Performance |
4.5/5 — Excellent performance on and off the charger and finely tuned thermals is exactly what you want to see from a premium device. |
|
Software |
4/5 — Clean software and AI futureproofing mostly offset some oddly missing Lenovo AI features and a little bit of unwanted bloatware. |
|
Battery |
4/5 — A display that absolutely tears through battery doesn’t stop the Yoga Slim 9i from being decently reliable and consistent, thanks to a large cell and good optimization. |
|
Keyboard |
4.5/5 — Lenovo’s best Yoga keyboard yet clashes with a tiny touchpad that’d be more acceptable if it was haptic… But it’s not. |
|
Other hardware |
4/5 — Impeccable wireless performance, loud and clear speakers, dependable microphones, and a garbage webcam (because the display comes first). |
|
Overall |
4.5/5 — Not for those always on a video call, the Yoga Slim 9i is in every other way a genuine flagship, putting the best Lenovo can offer into one beautiful, luxury product that makes you want to pay extra. |
Yoga Slim 9i review: Final thoughts
You should buy this if …
✅You want the best laptop display you can buy
As long as you’re not sensitive to PWM flickering with OLED displays, the Lenovo Yoga Slim 9i simply can’t be beaten. It’s bright, it’s sharp, it’s fast, it’s vibrant, it’s accurate — when it comes to eye candy, this laptop is the complete and total package.
✅You’re willing to pay extra for something unique
You can find laptops as if not more capable than the Yoga Slim 9i, like the HP OmniBook Ultra Flip 14, but those willing to pay a premium for a luxury product a cut above the rest in looks and feels will want something like this.
You should not buy this if …
❌You constantly use your laptop webcam and need it to look good
The Yoga Slim 9i’s under-display camera is more impressive technically than it is visually. It’s usable, but those who are frequently tuning into video conferences and care about looking decent should consider a laptop that doesn’t hide the webcam under the display.
The moment the Lenovo Yoga Slim 9i 14 (Gen 10) was announced, I knew I wanted to be the Windows Central expert to review it. Going hands-on with the laptop while in Las Vegas only furthered my determination to get this device into my clutches at home.
The Yoga Slim 9i won a lauded “Best of CES 2025” award from us, and we’ve described it as one of the most exciting and hottest laptops announced so far this year. I was concerned a critical flaw would dash my dreams for this laptop, but it’s exactly as good as I wanted it to be.
There were no surprises here, and I mean that in the best way possible. The design is just as premium as it needed to be, the display is every bit as stunning and magnificent as Lenovo claimed it would be, the performance and core experience is exactly what a high-end Windows laptop should deliver.
Even the Yoga Slim 9i’s weaknesses were in line with my expectations. The battery life takes a hit because of that display, but within reason. The webcam is terrible, but it’s hidden under the screen, so did anyone really think it’d turn out differently?
This is an incredible laptop and one of the best you can buy, although it’s not quite deserving of an Editor’s Choice award, the highest honor we can afford a device we review. You have to make just a few too many compromises to enjoy this luxury, and most people (even those willing to pay big money for a premium machine) would be better served by something like the HP OmniBook Ultra Flip 14 (2024) I reviewed.
If you need this display or that sleek design, though, the Lenovo Yoga Slim 9i 14 (Gen 10) is now available from $1,759.99 at Lenovo.
Lenovo Yoga Slim 9i 14 (Gen 10)
Lenovo has delivered a truly stunning laptop that offers a fantastic, reliable core laptop experience — but with the added bonus of one of the best displays and most attractive designs you can buy. The touchpad is small, the battery life is shortened, and the webcam is poo, but those are small prices to pay for so much luxury, right? Well, then there’s also the huge actual price you have to pay.
