
Expert’s Rating
Pros
- Stunning display
- Beautiful, shiny design
- Great Lunar Lake performance
Cons
- Low battery life thanks to the display
- Webcam is annoying while using it
- No headphone jack
- Fingerprint reader is in an odd spot
- Very glossy and reflective
Our Verdict
The Lenovo Yoga Slim 9i 14 is a sleek laptop with a unique aesthetic and an incredible display. But it makes some sacrifices to get there.
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The Lenovo Yoga Slim 9i 14 is a visually stunning laptop. That goes for both the both the stunning OLED display as well as the shiny glass lid that produces lots of interesting reflections. Itâs also just a great productivity laptop thanks to the excellent use of an Intel Core Ultra (Series 2) processor, also known as Intel Lunar Lake.
But everything in life is a compromise. That beautiful display seems to drain this laptopâs battery life faster than normal, and the beautiful design is just so glossy and reflective. And there are some other strange decisions here, like the lack of a headphone jack and an oddly placed fingerprint reader, which will bug some folks.
Still, itâs a great machine â and it may be a dream machine for some people, especially if youâre looking for a beautiful and lightweight machine with a design that stands out.
Lenovo Yoga Slim 9i 14: Specs
The Lenovo Yoga Slim 9i 14 (Gen 10) is a lightweight ultraportable laptop with an Intel Core Ultra (Series 2) CPU. Intelâs Lunar Lake hardware offers long battery life with solid performance for normal desktop productivity application â so web browsers, office apps, workplace chat tools, and all that good stuff. It doesnât have high multithreaded performance, but thatâs not what a lightweight ultraportable is all about, anyway.
Lenovo combines that Intel Core Ultra 7 CPU with 32 GB of RAM and a 1 TB of solid-state storage, so theyâre not cutting corners. The machine we reviewed retails for $1,899, but Lenovo also offers a version with 16GB of RAM and a slightly slower Intel Core Ultra 7 256V CPU for $1,759.
- CPU: Intel Core Ultra 7 258V
- Memory: 32GB LPDDR5x RAM
- Graphics/GPU: Intel Arc 140V (16GB)
- NPU: Intel AI Boost (47 TOPS)
- Display: 3840Ă2400 OLED with touchscreen, 120Hz refresh rate, and HDR
- Storage: 1 TB PCIe Gen 4 SSD
- Webcam: 32MP camera
- Connectivity: 2x Thunderbolt 4 (USB Type-C)
- Networking: Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.3
- Biometrics: Fingerprint reader for Windows Hello
- Battery capacity: 75 Watt-hours
- Dimensions: 12.32 x 8.01 x 0.57 inches
- Weight: 2.76 pounds
- MSRP: $1,899 as tested
If youâre looking for an ultraportable with a beautiful display, one that also has a beautiful design, this is a compelling machine!
Lenovo Yoga Slim 9i 14: Design and build quality

IDG / Chris Hoffman
This machine is all about good looks. Itâs available in a âTidal Tealâ colorway, which looks beautiful. Itâs all about the reflections: The lid is covered in impact-resistant glass, and it has a very cool looking effect that looks great when it reflects light. Lenovo describes it as a â3D swirling at-eye effectâ that âmakes your style pop from every angle, reflecting light beautifully.â Itâs shiny.
It looks great if reflections are what youâre looking for! If you donât want your laptop to draw eyes with its impressive looking reflections, then itâs perhaps not the right machine for you. The larger issue with the reflections is just how glossy the display is, which is an issue in direct sunlight. This isnât just an issue with this machine though, itâs an issue with laptops with glossy screens, especially machines with OLED displays. Also, that glass lid smudges easily. Youâll be wiping it to keep its crisp good looks intact.
The build quality is good! Aside from the glass on the cover, this machine is made of aluminum. At 2.76 pounds, itâs a nice light weight, but not the absolute lightest PC. The hinge is easy to open with one hand and feels good.
While this is branded a Yoga machine, this is not a 2-in-1 that can open to 360 degrees. Lenovo has decided to use the Yoga name, once meant for laptops that could bend into interesting shapes, for laptops in general. I continue to be absolutely baffled by this change in the Yoga branding. Itâs not a problem, but be aware: This is a traditional laptop and not a 2-in-1. In fact, it can only open to about 135 degrees, it canât even lie flat like many other laptops can. For a laptop that bears the Yoga name, this is pretty silly.
Thereâs also more bloatware than Iâd like to see â preinstalled McAfee antivirus and notification ads through Lenovo Vantage for services like Amazon Music. Itâs fine and you can get rid of it easily enough. Itâs common and more understandable on budget focused laptops, but it feels a little obnoxious on an almost $2,000 premium machine focused on beautiful design.
Lenovo Yoga Slim 9i 14: Keyboard and trackpad

IDG / Chris Hoffman
The Lenovo Yoga Slim 9i has a fine keyboard. Itâs responsive enough, not as snappy and crisp as a ThinkPad keyboard or a good mechanical keyboard, but not mushy. Itâs the kind of keyboard you find on a good lightweight laptop. You wonder if it feels a little shallow, but then you realize of course it does, theyâre trying to make the laptop as thin as possible, so thereâs less room for key travel.
I do have a major bone to pick with the keyboard. The fingerprint reader is placed smack dab at the bottom right corner of the keyboard, and then the arrow keys are to the left of it. I found myself pressing the wrong arrow key when I moved my finger down there. Iâd prefer to have the right arrow key at the left edge of the keyboard.
The trackpad feels fine, tooâitâs nice and smooth, and the click action is crisp and not mushy. That said, itâs a little on the small side, which makes clicking a little annoying at times since thereâs less room to click down. This problem wouldâve been remedied had Lenovo used a haptic trackpad. PC manufacturers should choose haptic trackpads more frequently, at least on lightweight ultraportables!
The odd fingerprint reader location and slightly small trackpad are artifacts of the same problem: Lenovo has aimed to streamline this machine, cutting down the bezels, shrinking it, and focusing on beauty. Thereâs not a lot of room for a larger trackpad or to put the buttons elsewhere. For many people, a larger laptop thatâs a little less streamlined and a little bulkier will just be more ergonomic, as it gives the keyboard and trackpad some room to breathe.
Lenovo Yoga Slim 9i 14: Display and speakers

IDG / Chris Hoffman
The Lenovo Yoga Slim 9iâs display is just beautiful. This is a 3840Ă2400 OLED display. Itâs incredibly bright and vivid with a high resolution. It also has a good refresh rate at 120Hz â some OLED displays deliver only 60Hz. With 750 nits of peak brightness, it can also deliver a great HDR experience.
If youâre looking for an ultraportable with a beautiful display, one that also has a beautiful design, this is a compelling machine! Itâs a touch screen, too.
The quad speakers with Dolby Atmos are reasonable. They have a lot of volume, way more than I need! Thatâs not always true on a laptop. The audio feels crisp and clear. However, as always on a laptop like this one, the built in speakers donât produce a lot of bass.
Lenovo Yoga Slim 9i 14: Webcam, microphone, biometrics

IDG / Chris Hoffman
The Lenovo Yoga Slim 9i has an under display webcam, which helps Lenovo shrink the bezel as much as possible. The screen looks normal while youâre not using the webcam. Activate the webcam and a black circle will appear in the middle of the top area of the screen â annoyingly enough, right where you web browserâs tab bar would be. If you want a small bezel and donât use your laptopâs webcam much, itâll be a nice upgrade. If you frequently use your laptopâs webcam, this may be rather annoying compared to a traditional webcam thatâs not located on your display.
The webcam itself is a 32MP camera. While Iâve seen some complaints online, Iâd say the webcam is usable, as Iâve seen much worse. It seems like the under display approach is making the image quality worse, though. To be frank, I would avoid this laptop if you frequently participate in video meetings. Itâs really annoying having a black circle obstruct part of your screen while the webcam is in use.
Thereâs also a physical camera shutter switch on the right side of the laptop, which is always nice to see.
The microphone sounds fine â not unusually good and not unusually bad. Itâll be serviceable for online meetings, but Iâve heard better microphone quality on business laptops designed for this sort of thing.
As far as biometrics, this machine has a fingerprint reader on the bottom-right corner of the keyboard for Windows Hello. It worked well, although I wish the right arrow key was down in that corner.
This machine doesnât have an IR camera for facial recognition with Windows Hello. Thatâs no surprise given the under display webcam situation. It is a shame, though â facial recognition is a convenient way to unlock your PC.
Lenovo Yoga Slim 9i 14: Connectivity

IDG / Chris Hoffman
The Lenovo Yoga Slim 9i follows the âWhat are the fewest ports we can include?â school of design. Thereâs one Thunderbolt 4 port on the left side and one Thunderbolt 4 port on the right side â a total of two places to plug in a USB Type-C cable. Thatâs it! And youâll use one of them to charge the laptop.
The lack of a headphone jack will be an immediate blocker to many people, although you can of course use wireless Bluetooth headphones or connect USB Type-C headphones.
Thereâs also no microSD slot or anything else. Given that, only having two USB Type-C ports feels really skimpy. Itâs another way this laptop is more design focused â it feels like Lenovo has set out to streamline the laptop as much as possible and made the compromises necessary to do so. Some people will like it, but many people will want something a little bulkier thatâs more flexible.
Thanks to Intel Lunar Lake, this machine does have Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.3 support. Itâs good to see Wi-Fi 7 becoming standard.
Lenovo Yoga Slim 9i 14: Performance
Weâve talked a lot about design, but letâs talk about the Lenovo Yoga Slim 9iâs performance. The laptop performed well in the day-to-day desktop productivity tasks youâd use a lightweight portable machine like this one for. It runs nice and quiet in daily use, too. Of course, we ran the Lenovo Yoga Slim 9i 14 through our standard benchmarks to measure its performance.

IDG / Chris Hoffman
First, we run PCMark 10 to get an idea of overall system performance. With an overall PCMark 10 score of 7,588, the Lenovo Yoga Slim 9i delivered excellent performance despite its thin-and-light nature. This machine feels like itâs squeezing every bit of performance out of Lunar Lake between its cooling system, RAM, and speedy storage.

IDG / Chris Hoffman
Next, we run Cinebench R20. This is a heavily multithreaded benchmark that focuses on overall CPU performance. Itâs a quick benchmark, so cooling under extended workloads isnât a factor. But, since itâs heavily multithreaded, CPUs with more cores have a huge advantage.
The Lenovo Yoga Slim 9i delivered a multithreaded score of 4,350 in Cinebench R20. Intelâs Lunar Lake canât deliver high multi-core performance and we see that here. That doesnât matter for most peopleâs basic desktop usage, but itâs an issue if you have workloads that need serious multithreaded CPU performance.

IDG / Chris Hoffman
We also run an encode with Handbrake. This is another heavily multithreaded benchmark but it runs over an extended period. This demands the laptopâs cooling kick in and many laptops will throttle and slow down under load.
The Lenovo Yoga Slim 9i completed the encode process in 1,249 seconds â thatâs nearly 21 minutes. Itâs a good score for a Lunar Lake system, but it shows how weak Lunar Lake is on multithreaded performance once again.

IDG / Chris Hoffman
Next we run a graphical benchmark. This isnât a gaming laptop, but itâs still good to check how the GPU performs. We run 3Dmark Time Spy, a graphical benchmark that focuses on GPU performance.
The Lenovo Yoga Slim 9i achieved a 3DMark Time Spy score of 4,476. Thatâs decent for integrated graphics, but itâs certainly much slower than what youâd see on a gaming laptop with a discrete GPU.
Overall, the Lenovo Yoga Slim 9i delivers exceptionally good performance for an Intel Lunar Lake system. But this is still Intel Lunar Lake, so itâs weak when it comes to multithreaded performance. Itâs more than fine for most peopleâs desktop productivity workloads, though.
Lenovo Yoga Slim 9i 14: Battery life
The Lenovo Yoga Slim 9i 14 has a 75 Watt-hour battery, which is on the large side for an ultraportable laptop. Combined with an Intel Lunar Lake processor, weâd expect long battery life. But the display gets in the way. This laptop doesnât exactly have bad battery life, but it has the lowest battery life Iâve seen from a Lunar Lake machine.

IDG / Chris Hoffman
To benchmark the battery life, we play a 4K copy of Tears of Steel on repeat in the Movies & TV app on Windows 11 with airplane mode enabled until the laptop suspends itself. This is a best-case scenario for any laptop since local video playback is so efficient, and real battery life in day-to-day use is always going to be less than this.
We set the screen to 250 nits of brightness for our battery benchmarks, and itâs worth noting that this machineâs OLED display has a bit of an advantage, as OLED screens use less power to display the black bars around the video.
The Lenovo Yoga Slim 9i ran for 859 minutes before it suspended itself. Thatâs a bit over 14 hours. It sounds like a long time, but the Samsung Galaxy Book5 Pro 360 with its also-beautiful AMOLED display ran for 1,401 minutes â thatâs another nine hours! (The Galaxy Book5 Pro 360âs display isnât quite as stunning, though.)
14 hours may sound like a long time, but youâre going to get less battery life in real-world use while you use the machine in the real world. This just isnât great battery life â youâre giving up a lot of battery life to power this over-the-top display.
Lenovo Yoga Slim 9i 14: Conclusion
The Lenovo Yoga Slim 9i is a great machine if you want a unique design with an incredible display. It really is a nice piece of hardware. It even delivers very good performance for Lunar Lake.
But Iâd say that this machine isnât for most people. Between the almost $2,000 price, low battery life, lack of a headphone jack, skimpy port selection, Lunar Lakeâs low multithreaded performance, odd fingerprint sensor position, and so many other issues Iâve mentioned above, this wonât be the right machine for most laptop users.
Still, some people are going to love this machine. When I open the beautiful laptop and see that stunning OLED display, for a moment, I can almost feel like all those other problems donât matter.