Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Lenovo Yoga Book 9i Review: Dual Desktops On The Go!”.
Sponsored by delete me good version of a bad idea, bad version of a good idea, good versions of many forgettable ideas, lenovo’s done it all over its 39 years in business. Honestly, I expected this crazy Contraption from CES 2023 to land firmly in bad bad territory. But what actually ended up happening is that this became the first new pc Concept in years. That really Enchanted me without them. Disappointing me, when I actually started using it, I’m Michael Fisher and it turns out the yoga book 9i – is a good execution of a surprisingly good idea. If you missed that CES Hands-On back in January. Let me refresh you when it’s closed, it’s easy to mistake.
The yoga book 9i for something more conventional, like it’s confusingly similarly named cousin, the yoga 9i on the outside. It’S a thin lightweight, aluminum clamshell. Even when you open it well sure it’s novel, but we’ve seen all touch notebooks before from Lenovo itself. Back in its Wilder days and more recently from Microsoft, with the sadly canceled surface, Neo, it’s through its bundled accessories that the yoga book Finds Its full expression.
The case that protects the Bluetooth keyboard unfolds, origami style into a pedestal, drop the laptop onto its little book. Groove and pull out the pen or plop down the mouse and you’ve got a mobile workstation with dual 13.3 inch oleds upon which to spread out it just no. Yes, I do understand how over the top. This looks, and many of you have also asked me just how sturdy the thing feels, but I’ve gone full workstation in cafes aboard ferry boats even on a Regional Jet, and the stand has always felt Rock Solid in both landscape and portrait mode. Of course, the whole idea of this machine is to give you that space when you need it, but also to give you options when you don’t so deploy it in the conventional laptop posture and tap the screen with eight fingers. You’Ll get a virtual keyboard and trackpad complete, but not bad haptic feedback that, because, let’s face it, no one likes typing on a big virtual keyboard, at least not on Windows.
You have another option: drop the Bluetooth keyboard. On top of it, magnets hold it Loosely in place to either the top or bottom half go high and you get a virtual track pad below go low and the space above fills with glanceable information approach to a detached keyboard is inspired. I think, but I have to admit I don’t love the slippery feel of using a display as a trackpad. It was a really good move to package this thing with the mouse and keyboard included. Additionally, while these widgets remind me of the dual screen, Asus laptops, I’ve Loved for years, Asus is far ahead when it comes to optimizing the software for this display space.
This is easily the most undercooked corner of the whole experience. The weather widget shows wind forecasts in Chinese. Despite the system language being set to English, I can’t get Outlook to display any calendars or any inbox, except the one I use for spam.
The so-called news tile seems to consist mostly of Rage, bait or fear-mongering bottom of the barrel bilge it’s essentially a Chum box being held up as news, even taking a few minutes to try to tailor it didn’t help at all. Is this what the majority of you are seeing as news on a computer? Is this why the world is as terrible as it is whatever I just wish? There were more options for widgets to place down here right now, it’s all kind of useless as you’d expect from a Lenovo. The hinge pulls double duty as it Bowers and Wilkins speaker bar. That’S not too shabby from a sound standpoint and thanks to its 360 degree range you get all the other options.
Convertibles have given us for years. You know make it a tent or a screen or a tablet when the flight attendants come around and tell you to put away your laptops sneaky, there’s even a special smart reader that lets you use it as a huge book. Its versatility, though this machine really just begs to be used in workstation mode, walk up to it and it’ll, detect your approach and automatically log you in with Windows, hello, walk away and it will lock itself automatically. I love this stuff, but if it creeps you out, you can disable the webcam with a switch on the side and log in manually in terms of getting work done mostly, I use the upper screen as a creation area, writing scripts or emails up top, while referencing Notes or research down below when watching Apple’s WWDC, I kept the broadcast on one screen, while tweeting my lukewarm takes on the other and when even two workspaces weren’t enough, I turned it 90 degrees and doubled it to four.
While preparing for an upcoming episode of living. In the Future featuring AI, I built an episode outline on the top screen, while using chat GPT on the bottom one. On that hundred mile bike ride, I took a couple weeks ago. I used one display to manage review notes while plotting my course on another.
What you didn’t see that video yeah yeah? No one did please go watch it. It’S a fun change of pace I promise now. Sometimes all you need is one screen, but even here I actually prefer to leave the machine stacked because having a monitor this high off the desktop is a lot easier on my neck. Now for the Penny, Pinchers or just pragmatic shoppers out there yeah, there are mobile monitors for standard laptops and they’re much cheaper, but those can be finicky with exposed cables and you need to set them up and break them down.
Every time you deploy or Stow your computer, even the yoga book doesn’t save you from all the awkwardness. You still need to carry the keyboard and mouse separately and remember to turn them on and off whenever you settle in or move along, but they always connect instantly when turned on. While I expected a lot of waiting for a Bluetooth connection or weird double keystrokes, when typing in three weeks of testing, the keyboard is only freaked out twice and all it took was a quick flip of the switch to set it right. If you’ve seen my earlier coverage on weirdo lenovo’s, you know that that’s a great track record and as for the typing itself, I think it’s quite comfortable not too far off from the feeling of my MacBook Air and my biggest pleasant. Surprise came from the 80 watt hour battery, which I expected dual 13-inch oleds to drain with a quickness, but even on dub dub day with lots of multitasking.
Alongside that constant video stream and both monitors deployed the whole time. Folks, it took me six hours to go from Full to empty and knock it down to a standard, laptop and dim out the bottom screen, and I could easily see this being a 9 or 10 hour machine, as notebook check managed to hit in its review. Even the keyboard battery is impressive in three weeks.
I’Ve only managed to knock it down to 80 percent. If you do manage to deplete the battery on the laptop, you can pair the keyboard and mouse to your folding phone and stick it up on the stand. You know just to be a real weirdo about things, that’s not to say It’s a grand slam, dunk for a stolen home run or whatever Sports analogy you would prefer.
There are a couple disadvantages here for one thing: the webcam, as you can see it’s still just okay, the auto exposure correction is a little slow and for another there are more serious disadvantages that you should know about before. Dropping a couple Grand on this thing, those after this, you probably already know that your personal information is being bought, sold and traded online. Then, if you didn’t well sorry to give you the bad news, in fact, this privacy problem is so huge that you might even think why bother trying to address it. It’S impossible, but it’s not.
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There’S no SD card slot, not even a headphone jack, which means you’re stuck using Bluetooth. The Bose qc45s, I’m borrowing from Qualcomm, got along fine with the yoga book, but my nothing ear: 2 review sample totally crashed and burned getting choppy and ultimately refusing to connect. Speaking of crashes. The machine is hung twice, seemingly for no reason requiring a reboot each time and damn it yet again. Lenovo has shipped a laptop with no backlight on its keyboard. I don’t care if you’re only typing in the dark once a month.
This is a big, thick rechargeable accessory folks. There is no reason I should have to use it in the dark without a backlight. Also, those bad widgets aren’t the only undercooked corners of the software. Lenovo has some of the most intrusive pop-ups I’ve ever seen, and it makes it harder to find useful features than it should be, dividing them between the Vantage and user Center apps both are littered with poor translations typos and there’s even a whole section of the user Center still in Chinese, these may be unfinished corners of the software that’ll be finalized over time.
But you know what I say about review devices. They should be ready to be reviewed. Other minor issues, the displays are fairly dim, they top out at 60 hertz and there are no discrete graphics for video, editing or high-end gaming. In fact, even viewing a folder full of 4K content was an exercise in patience on my core i7 review unit, and my last major complaint is one you’ll find as well.
If you switch postures a lot check it out, if you start out in workstation mode with an app on the bottom window, then you convert to laptop mode. When you try to call that app back into Focus, the computer still tries to open it on the lower display, which of course means it’s obscured by the keyboard. You need to drag it back up onto the main screen to use it also, if you run any program that changes the display resolution or throws up a full screen, dialog box well say goodbye to your trackpad for a while and switching between orientations and postures is About as elegant as Microsoft ever manages to make it same time, some products are worth putting up with the rough edges for because they deliver an experience, you just can’t get with any other kind of machine, and for me this is one such machine.
I’Ve never truly recovered from the day I unboxed this device took four photos of it in four different postures and just giggled at the reality that they were all the same PC. Yes for those of us nerdy enough to know what it was. This is indeed the surface Neo we never got, but for normal folks who got used to multiple monitors in their homes during the pandemic and don’t want to give up that convenience as they pick work back up on the go.
This is great for them too. It’S certainly not perfect, and it’s certainly not cheap, but there’s still nothing quite like the yoga book 9i and I’m certainly not the first to say that it’s far better than many of us expected it to be. This isn’t the only Lenovo I’ve been waiting for for a while folks that long delayed foldable PC the second generation ThinkPad X1 fold.
Well, the company says it’s still coming someday to make sure that you don’t miss the review when and if it arrives subscribe to the Mr Mobile on YouTube and while you wait, my review of the Asus Zenbook fold is a pretty good time too. This review was made possible by a yoga book 9i review sample provided by Lenovo, but, as always, I gave Lenovo no editorial input, no copy approval rights, not even an early preview they’re, seeing it for the first time right alongside you until next time from Michael Fisher. Thanks for watching and stay mobile, my friends .