Lenovo is celebrating a number of significant laptop birthdays this year. The ThinkPad business line is 30 years old, and the Yoga two-in-one line is 10 years old. I’m not surprised the line has survived this long: it was the finest two-in-one design to come out since Windows 8’s release. It functioned so well as a full-time laptop and part-time tablet that other PC manufacturers adopted the idea for their convertible laptops. While the design, functionality, and performance have improved over time, the gadget remains fundamentally the same. This includes the new flagship 14-inch Yoga 9i, which was unveiled on Wednesday at CES 2022.
Lenovo rounded off all of the edges and corners of the new Yoga 9i’s metal shell. Lenovo refers to it as a Comfort Edge design since it is easier to handle and rest your wrists on when typing. The inclusion of a row of shortcut keys along the right side of the keyboard is another significant modification.
Lenovo – Yoga 9i (14-inch, Mica)
The one-click Function keys provide immediate access to four capabilities meant to make using the 9i for hybrid work or study easier. There’s a key that regulates your fans for quiet or enhanced performance, another that adds a background blur while you’re using a video conferencing app, and the clumsily called Vibe Check key, which allows you to quickly select audio profiles for music, games, or movies. All of those modes, along with Dolby Atmos compatibility and the Yoga 9i’s 360-degree soundbar hinge and quad Bowers & Wilkins speakers with two woofers and two tweeters, should result in remarkable sound quality from the 9i.
Lenovo – Yoga 9i (14-inch, 4k HDR, Shadow Black)
In Windows 11, there’s now a Color Mode key that allows you to easily switch between bright and dark hues. This may appear stupid, but if you acquire the Yoga 9i with an OLED display, dark mode is a smart method to save battery life. There will be three 16:10 touchscreen options: a full-HD LCD with a color gamut of 100 percent sRGB, a 2.8K OLED, and a 4K OLED with a color gamut of 100 percent P3.
A fingerprint reader for Windows Hello sign-ins is located at the bottom of the one-click Function key row. The full-HD IR webcam can also be used for facial recognition, and there’s a sensor that detects when you walk away from the laptop and instantly locks it. When you return, it will wake up and unlock the laptop using face recognition.
The Yoga 9i will be available with an Intel Core i5-1240P or i7-1260P 12th-generation processor, up to a 1TB PCIe Gen4 NVMe SSD, 8GB or 16GB of RAM, and integrated graphics. Connectors feature two Thunderbolt 4 USB-C ports, as well as Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2.
Lenovo – Yoga 9i Shadow Black Leather (14-inch, Mica)
The 14-inch Yoga 9i convertible laptop will be available in the second quarter of 2022, with a starting price of $1,399 (about £1,040, AU$1,940). Because the Yoga 9i is at the top of the range, it receives more unique features that not everyone wants or requires. Because they have the same luxury look, but the 7i has fewer bells and whistles, I prefer to suggest the Yoga 7i.
The new Yoga 7i, for example, features the Comfort Edge chassis design but not the 360-degree soundbar hinge. It is available with a 2.8K OLED display but not a 4K OLED. The row of one-click Function keys has been removed, but there is still a fingerprint reader beneath the keyboard and a full-HD IR webcam.
Lenovo did, however, unveil 14- and 16-inch Yoga 7i variants. The bigger variant has an HDMI output, an SD card port, and 12th-generation Intel i5-12500H or Core i7-12700H CPUs, as well as Intel’s new discrete Arc graphics. The 16-inch Yoga 7i will be available in Q2 and will cost $899. The price of the 14-inch model will begin at $949.
Lenovo has upgraded its Yoga 6 range, which is a smaller, less costly choice. It boasts a 13-inch full-HD 16:10 touchscreen, and an AMD Ryzen 7 5700U CPU, and is partially constructed and packed using recyclable plastics and aluminum. You can even purchase it with a lid made of recycled aluminum or a fabric-wrapped cover composed of 50% recycled plastics.
The 13-inch Yoga 6 two-in-one will cost $749 and will be available in the second quarter of 2022, alongside the rest of the Yoga portfolio.