Lenovo Yoga Book 9i review: A dual-screen laptop before its time, and I’m here for it

pros and cons

Pros

• Futuristic design
• Plenty of performance
• Accessories are included

Cons

• Battery life
• Almost too many ways for input

At CES 2023, Lenovo announced the Yoga Book 9i, a first-of-its-kind laptop that boasts not one but two 13.3-inch OLED screens. It’s unlike any laptop I’ve used before, primarily because it doesn’t have any sort of physical input attached to it. It’s all screens, no keyboard.

If that sounds like something you’d like to use, you can preorder it from Best Buy for $1,999 right now, but there isn’t a published release date yet. There’s a lot to like about the Yoga Book 9i and its completely unconventional approach. But, there are also a few aspects of the experience that would be better with some refinement. 

Before you rush out and buy one today, let’s take a closer look at my experience using the Yoga Book 9i over the last few weeks. 

What’s new with this model 

The Yoga Book 9i has a lot of good things going for it, starting with its design and overall performance. Oh, and I forgot to mention that it comes bundled with accessories you’ll surely want to use while you get used to a completely touchscreen laptop.

1. It’s all screen, baby

When the Yoga Book 9i is closed, it looks like a traditional laptop. One where you expect to open the lid and see a screen along with a keyboard and trackpad on the deck. But, that’s not the case. 

Instead, when you open the Yoga Book 9i, you’re greeted with two displays. There isn’t a keyboard. There isn’t a trackpad. Just two big, bright, 13.3-inch 2.8K OLED displays. 

Beyond the fact that there are two screens, the fact that they’re OLED panels is a big deal. That’s the same type of display tech that’s used in flagship smartphones like Pro model iPhones, and the latest high-end Galaxy S-series phones. 

Also: This Lenovo laptop makes a case for using gaming hardware at work

The displays look great, by the way. They’re bright, have plenty of color saturation, and with a resolution of 2800×1800, everything is crisp and clear. 

Depending on how comfortable you are or become when using the Yoga Book 9i’s touchscreen controls, you may never have to connect a keyboard or mouse to this laptop. 

Interacting with the screens is done via various taps and gestures that trigger different features. For example, if you want to use the digital keyboard and trackpad, you tap on the bottom display with eight fingers and almost immediately you’re greeted by a full-sized keyboard and trackpad, complete with a function row of media controls. 

If you just need a trackpad, you can tap with three fingers on the screen, and boom, a virtual trackpad shows up just below your fingers. 

Want to expand an app you’re using to span across both displays? Tap inside the app’s window with five fingers. Just be ready to deal with the very obvious hinge that’s in the middle of the screen (it’s not an ideal way for watching videos).

The Yoga Book 9i comes with a Bluetooth keyboard that you can use as a standalone device, or you can place it on the bottom display to trigger yet even more interaction methods. If you place it near the top of the screen, you’ll see a digital trackpad below it, leaving ample space to rest your palms directly on the screen for typing. 

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I thoroughly enjoy the design of the Yoga Book 9i. Its looks and feels like a laptop from the future that somehow managed to teleport to 2023. It’s heavier than I’m accustomed to for a 13-inch laptop, weighing nearly three pounds, but that’s to be expected with the extra display. 

For comparison, the Dell XPS 13 weighs 2.59 pounds, and the 13-inch MacBook Air weighs in at 2.7 pounds. So it’s not terribly far off, but it does feel bulkier. Perhaps the fact that you need to carry around the Folio Stand which bundles in the keyboard and stylus, along with a mouse, has left me feeling like it’s a lot to manage. Because it is. 

2. The folio stand is fantastic

Tucked inside the box are a folio stand, a Bluetooth keyboard, a stylus and a Bluetooth mouse. I had to dig around in the box to find all of the accessories, as Lenovo got creative with its packaging and it wasn’t entirely clear to me that there was a bunch of accessories inside the box, let alone where they were. 

The folio stand that comes in the box with the Yoga Book 9i looks awkward and is somewhat confusing the first time you open it, but the truth is — it’s exactly what the Yoga Book 9i needs. The stand folds and contorts, making it possible to orient the Yoga Book 9i in some interesting ways. 

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For example, you can place the bottom screen on the stand, with the displays stacked atop one another, to use the Yoga Book 9i in a towering crane-like configuration. The Bluetooth keyboard then connects to the bottom of the stand via magnets to hold it in place. Or, if you’d prefer, you can rotate the Yoga Book 9i so that the displays are side-by-side like a book (see image above). 

When you’re ready to pack up, the folio stand folds down into itself, giving you a place to store the keyboard and the stylus. 

3. It’s got plenty of power

Forget the flashy two screens; at its core, the Yoga Book 9i is a very capable laptop that has plenty of high-end components. Powering the review sample I tested was an Intel Core i7–1355u processor, 16GB of memory, and 512GB of storage, running Windows 11 Home. 

Granted, it’s using all of that to ensure performance doesn’t suffer due to the second display.

But, still, all of that hardware equates to a laptop that was capable of handling all of the tasks I threw at it, including playing games like Asphalt 9 when testing the onscreen touch controls while showing the map of the race track on the bottom display. Not all games take full advantage of both displays, but you can use the Yoga Book User Center app to view the current list of supported games (there are only three). 

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I spent most of my time on the Yoga Book 9i doing typical computing tasks; browsing the web, streaming videos and music, writing, and a couple of quick photo edits. Even when doing all of that, moving windows between the displays, and relying on a digital trackpad for the full-sized keyboard, I never noticed the Yoga Book 9i slowing down. 

With a price tag of $2,000 for the base configuration, you’re paying a premium when compared to other laptops from the likes of Dell or Acer, but you’re also getting a second screen and all of the accessories in the box.

What I’d like to see in the next model 

1. More confidence in select use cases

Lenovo does a good job of surfacing all of the gestures, taps and swipes you need to know to unlock different features on the Yoga Book 9i through random alerts and the User Center app. But even after using it for several weeks now, I feel like I still don’t know them all or that there are more efficient ways of doing things. 

I think that feeling’s just a byproduct of using a device that’s so fundamentally different than any laptop I’ve ever used. When I’m using a physical keyboard and mouse, I don’t feel the same way. And maybe that’s the point — with a device like the Yoga Book 9i and its myriad of options for using it, you can find a workflow that makes the most sense to you and take full advantage of it. 

Also: My favorite keyboard shortcut of all time (and it works on every browser)

For me, typing on the full-sized digital keyboard with a virtual trackpad below feels like a ton of work. The keyboard isn’t as precise, and there’s a huge learning curve I still haven’t reached the top of. However, putting the Bluetooth keyboard on top of the bottom display and using the virtual trackpad beneath it has been a workflow that I’ve grown fond of. The trackpad is good enough for basic tasks, and for more advanced stuff I can always use the included Bluetooth mouse.

Hopefully, Lenovo is able to collect enough data about how people are actually using the Yoga Book 9i in the real world and refine all of the different input and interaction methods either via a future software update or in future iterations of this design. 

2. Battery life that lasts

Lenovo estimates 7.3 hours of battery life for the Yoga Book 9i with daily use, or up to 14 hours of single-display video playback. When I ran my standard battery benchmark test that played a 4K video on loop with the top display set to 50% brightness, the Yoga Book 9i lasted 9 hours and 34 minutes. That’s a lot lower than Lenovo’s estimate. 

When using the Yoga Book 9i on a daily basis, I would occasionally get nearly 7 hours of use, but typically the battery would give out before then. 

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Perhaps the most frustrating aspect of the Yoga Book 9i’s battery life is the lack of standby battery with the laptop closed and sitting idle on a desk. If I unplugged it at 100% charge and set the laptop aside on my desk, the battery would be completely drained within a couple of days. I double-checked my settings to ensure the laptop is going to sleep, and I don’t see anything off. 

3. Less bloatware wouldn’t hurt anyone

There’s a lot to like about the Yoga Book 9i, but here’s one thing I’m certain most people won’t like: Spending $2,000 or more on a laptop that has all sorts of fancy features and capabilities, only to find McAfee LiveSafe preinstalled. Anti-virus software is a must-have, sure, but preinstalling it is nothing more than adding bloatware to a device that users have spent a lot of money on. 

What’s more is that as you near the end of the trial — that you never even opted into or started, mind you — you start to receive very passive-aggressive prompts telling you your computer is at risk. The people deserve better, Lenovo.

Bottom line 

The $2,000 Yoga Book 9i is available to preorder right now. Overall, it’s a solid laptop, but one that you’ll likely find yourself having to do a lot of mental gymnastics in order to use it without any of the traditional input methods.

Lenovo took a chance with the Yoga Book 9i by not only building something that goes against what everyone thinks a laptop should be due to complacency but by actually selling it to customers. As I said earlier, it sure feels like something from the future. But that also means it feels very much like a first-generation product with some drawbacks. 

Should I buy one?

If you’re someone who loves using new tech that’s not fully baked, and you’re in the market for a new laptop, then the Yoga Book 9i is worth considering. Otherwise, I’d wait a few generations for Lenovo, or another company for that matter, to work out the kinks of a dual-screen — and only-screen — laptop.

Alternatives to consider 

BEST MACBOOK ALTERNATIVE

Apple 13-inch MacBook Air (M2)

Apple’s 13-inch MacBook Air isn’t touch screen, and it only has one display — but it’s one of the best laptops you can buy. 

BEST WINDOWS ALTERNATIVE

Dell XPS 13

Dell’s XPS 13 has a single OLED display that looks great and offers similar performance and specs as the Yoga Book 9i.