Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “I have a decision to make…”.
What is the perfect laptop? That’S a big question., And here at CES I am searching for the answer.. So the main thing I wan na talk about today is my experience going through the Lenovo booth here at CES. They’re, very gracious to sponsor this video and I’ve. Actually had a very good relationship with the Lenovo team over the last year. They’ve been able to sample me a bunch of really cool stuff, not only on the gaming side, but also on the Yoga side, including this..
This is the Yoga 9i 2-in-1.. Now this is something that they’ve just announced here at CES, but I’ve been fortunate enough to be using an early sample for the last couple of months.. That is something I want to give a special shout out to because trusting me with not only just an early sample, but a proper prototype is something really cool.. But it’s been helpful for me in learning a lot more about this device, not only as it’s been developed, but also now that it’s actually coming out on sale.. I have a much better sense for the evolution of the product and how close it gets to my ideal laptop.. So here at CES there are an enormous amount of brand new devices and I’ll tell you what look out of everything I’ve looked at so far and I’ll be continuing to look at this week, there’s very little.
That is bad right. The idea of a bad laptop doesn’t really exist., I mean sure, there’s some sort of no name sort of junky sort of things, but laptops are good across the board.. Even budget, affordable, devices. Same thing with phones, same thing with I mean so many things are so competent these days that it’s not really about like “. Oh, is this okay ?”, It’s more so of how well does this suit your personal needs? So for me personally, what I’m looking for in a laptop number one is portability.. I used to like 11 and 12 inch laptops.
That was my thing., So I want something that can be quite thin quite light, and on top of that I want good battery life.. I think everyone does, but for me I want be able to last through a full day of usage.. I also want a good high refresh rate display. I’ll, be honest. I am spoiled. 60. Hertz is no longer good enough on anything. For my phone for my laptop whatever., So I want at least 90 hertz and then I need solid input..
So I need a good keyboard and a good track pad.. That is a non-negotiable for me., And it’s surprising that here in 2024 there are still laptops that don’t have great keyboards, but especially that don’t have great track pads.. So when I put all of those together the things that I don’t need become very obvious., I don’t need a dedicated GPU., It’s nice to have, of course, but I’m not really gaming on my device, I’m getting work done.. I am in email, web browsing. Researching writing. – I’m using this as a tool not as something for fun.. If I’m wanting to do something for fun, I’m playing on a Steam, Deck or Legion Go or console or something I don’t need my daily device to be able to play. Games.. That’S my hunt. That’S what I’m looking at here.
And as I’ve been able to spend time in the Lenovo Yoga booth. There have been three laptops that have really jumped out to me.. First and foremost, is the Yoga Book.. So this is the 9i specifically the new version for 2024..
So you’ve got dual 13 inch displays and you’ve also got the brand new Intel Core Ultra.. Specifically it’s a Ultra 7 with the? U series chip, which means that you’re getting a very thin and light form factor, especially considering that you’ve got dual displays here.. So now that do you have this stand, which, if I want, I can just open it up and set it right on, so you can see that you’ve got it in sort of dual screen mode like this. Or if I want. I can actually take this down. Take the keyboard which is magnetic, and then it attaches right, here..
So with the keyboard attached, I actually have myself. The bottom display turns into a track pad.. If you don’t want it or you wan na, maybe just save just a little bit of extra weight in your bag. You can do eight fingers and pull up a virtual keyboard and touch pad as well.
You’re. Getting a dual screen device that is coming in an ultra thin lightweight form factor that still has a solid 8, 9 10 hours of battery life.. On top of that, there is the Yoga Pro 9i.. So if the Yoga Book is for being thin light and creative on the go, this is about getting real work. Done. Inside you can outfit this with up to an RTX 4070, as well as an Intel Core Ultra 9 185H, which means that you got serious performance.
Not only for AI tasks, but also to do 4K, video editing. And it has a terrific PureSight display, which means that you’ve got not only tons of brightness but also importantly, 165 hertz, refresh rate.. I will say I got a demo of this earlier.. This has some of the best speakers I have ever heard on a laptop full stop.. This is a creator laptop and I’ll be honest. It is the kind of device that is sort of made for me..
I took a look at an earlier version of this last year. The 14 inch version, and I liked it a lot, but I do not need a 16 inch laptop and even the 14 inch version of this laptop, while it’s incredibly competent a little too heavy. For me to wan na carry on a daily basis, which is where I come down to this: the Yoga 9i 2-in-1.. This checks a lot, and I mean a lot of the boxes of what I’m looking for.. Let me take you through why I’ve enjoyed my time with this laptop and why well I’ve got ta, give my prototype that I’ve been loving the last couple of months back..
This is a really strong contender for my next daily driver.. So, first and foremost, it gets a lot of those basics. Right.
You’ve got a terrific keyboard., I’ll be honest, probably the best laptop keyboard in the business which isn’t a surprise.. I think Lenovo have been pretty famous the last few years for just absolutely nailing the keyboards., But on top of that I have a very good touch. Pad.. I also have the touch screen and it has the magnetic stylus, which comes in the box. There’s also a sleeve that comes in the box as well., And I’ve also got the 120 hertz 2.8K PureSight OLED panel.. Now there are a lot of marketing terms that Lenovo have for these devices., So PureSight being their sort of top of line, display tech that again high refresh rate good brightness, very color, accurate and in this case it’s an OLED as well, which is incredibly nice..
On top of that, this is also outfitted with their Premium Suite.. What is their Premium Suite? It is basically the input., So you have a solid webcam, which also happens to support Windows. Hello in addition to a fingerprint sensor.. You’Ve got yourself very solid, microphones and really good speakers for a device like this., So it actually has a speaker bar that is built into the hinge, as well as two bottom firing speakers, which combined for a laptop. That’S this thin and light works out really quite well. And then there’s the performance..
So remember that whole thing about how I don’t need a gaming laptop. This is the sweet spot, at least in my opinion.. This is outfitted with the brand new Intel Core Ultra 7 processor.. So this is specifically an H series processor, which means that you have not only 16 CPU cores., So that’s split between six performance, eight efficiency and two high efficiency cores..
On top of that, you have the AI engine, so this is going to be your NPU, essentially giving you a ton of accessibility for AI related tasks, which I’ll be honest, are going to become ever more prevalent in 2024 and beyond.. There’S also Intel Arc graphics.. So this has enough horsepower to actually do some gaming., So I’ve been able to play like Fortnite at like 120 Hertz on this 120 Hertz panel on a device that is this thin and light..
There’S also a dedicated AI chip onboard all three of these Yoga devices.. So this actually handles a lot of things., So not only for the security side of things. All of your AI data is stored directly on this chip, but on top of that it actually has some real life benefits..
So one of them is for performance and specifically when it comes to battery life.. So what this chip is gon na help do is coordinate all the different components in your laptop., So say your CPU, your GPU.. Essentially, what it’ll do is help to throttle up and down based on the workload, and it’s always learning., There’s also Creator Zone which allows you to do some actual cool AI tasks on device.. So we’re talking about of course, text to image.. You probably tried that in the past, but also because these Yogas have the stylus you can do sketch to image.. So I was able to play around with this a little bit..
So I was able to draw a little fish and it was able to turn that little very crude, drawing into an actual proper AI piece of art. Now mind you you’re, probably gon na wan na tweak and tune it. But the idea that I can quickly come up with an idea sketch it down and turn that into something that I can actually use is a powerful thing.. So the Yoga ecosystem is an interesting point, because there’s a number of accessories that you can get with these devices. You’ve also got the Yoga Pro mouse, but on top of that, they’ve got brand new earbuds.. So these are gon na, be relatively affordable.. We’Re talking 50 to 60 bucks.. They not only feature quick pair, so you can easily just bring them near your laptop and immediately set it up, but also it has a lot of very cool, AI learnings and active noise cancellation at a really affordable price.. This is not going on sale until a little bit later this year, so I can’t listen to them just yet..
The idea of having these that you could easily pair between your devices move over to your phone with just a quick button, tap or so. Mention that these aren’t coming out for a while, and I can’t break the prototype. ( chuckles ) Yeah., I’m in the incredibly Fortunate position to be able to play with an enormous amount of cool tech and a ton of great laptops, and it’s a good year if you were interested in upgrading, especially on the laptop side, because there are so many new processor improvements..
The Yoga brand feels like it is very much designed for creatives.. You know I mean they give you two months for free of the full Adobe Creative Cloud.. That’S like $ 110. That is included even if you’ve already got it. You just activate it, and you just get two months added to your total., There’s a lot of stuff that they do between that between the stylus and whatnot, between the terrific displays, et cetera, et cetera.. That feels very much like it is a laptop designed for creatives.. You know I mean obviously Lenovo sell an enormous amount of PCs.. They have the Legion gaming brand, they have ThinkPad, which of course, is very much meant more so for getting real work done., But I like, where this sits, and I specifically like where this 9i sits for me personally.. So I wan na give a huge thank you to Lenovo for, of course, not only sponsoring this video and giving me the early tour, but also just trusting me with a very, very early prototype of your very, very fancy new laptop.. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. If you wan na, learn anything more about this or any of the other things I talked about in this article.
I will have links in the description and I will catch you after I’ve finished downing. This coffee at 1:00 AM and questioning my life decisions on finishing my videos on time.. It’S fine I’ll learn my lesson. One day, .