This Lenovo laptop made me rethink what a productivity machine can do

Price When Reviewed

$1,949

Best Prices Today: Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition

$1949.99

Usually, once I consider a high-end laptop computer, I consider one which has pulled out all the stops, going far too unique on construct supplies, cramming an excessive amount of {hardware} in too skinny a machine, and winding up with an exorbitant price ticket that completely illustrates the idea of diminishing returns. At first look, the Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition appears prefer it may simply be that form of machine.

With a high-power CPU, a discrete GPU, and two show choices that each are geared as much as dazzle, the Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition definitely has the {hardware}, however it’s packed right into a modest aluminum body that’s not overly bold in its thinness. And with a $1,949 price ticket for the potent configuration examined right here, it looks like Lenovo struck the correct stability, delivering strong high quality all over the place it counts to make for a really respectable machine for folk who want a machine that may do a little bit of all the things and do it effectively. 

Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition: Specs and options

• Model quantity: 83L00009US
• CPU: Intel Core Ultra 9 285H
• Memory: 32GB LPDDR5x-8400
• Graphics/GPU: Nvidia RTX 5050 8GB (100-watt TGP)
• Display: 16-inch 2.8K OLED, 120Hz, DisplayHDR True Black 1000, Touch
• Storage: 1TB PCIe Gen4 SSD
• Webcam: 5MP + IR
• Connectivity: 2x Thunderbolt 4 / USB4 with 65-100W Power Delivery and DisplayPort 2.1, 2x USB-A 5Gbps, 1x HDMI 2.1, 1x SDcard reader, 1x 3.5mm combo audio
• Networking: Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4
• Biometrics: Windows Hello fingerprint, facial recognition
• Battery capability: 84 watt-hours
• Dimensions: 14.28 x 9.99 x 0.75 inches
• Weight: 4.52 kilos
• MSRP: $1,949 as-tested ($1,869 base)

At the time of testing, the Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition was accessible in only a few configurations. All of them shared the identical Intel Core Ultra 9 285H CPU, 32GB of reminiscence, and 1TB of storage. The sort of show and GPU had been the one completely different factors.

Lenovo gives the choice between a 2880×1800 OLED show paired with an RTX 5050 for $1,999 and a 3200×2000 Tandem OLED paired with an RTX 5060 for $2,299, although on the time of writing, these costs had been discounted to $1,899 and $1,949 respectively. Best Buy additionally had the previous configuration accessible for $1,949. 

In addition to its preconfigured fashions, Lenovo affords a customized configuration device. This begins at $1,869 for a similar configuration as the bottom mannequin above. But you may improve to 64GB of reminiscence, an RTX 5070, and the 3.2K Tandem OLED show for $560 extra. Or you may stick to the bottom specs and simply improve to the Tandem OLED for $150 further. 

Lenovo’s full technical specs for the product recommend fairly just a few extra configurations to return, together with contact and non-touch show choices and an Intel Core Ultra 7 255H.

Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition: Design and construct high quality

IDG / Mark Knapp

The Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition is easy and chic, however just a little bland in consequence. Lenovo has completed a pleasant job rounding corners far and wide for a smoother appear and feel, although the perimeters of the keyboard deck might nonetheless be just a little extra rounded for consolation. That mentioned, it’s nonetheless a giant grey slab, and nothing about it being an “Aura Edition” provides it something greater than an aura of plainness. 

The development is nice. Just about all over the place you look — apart from the keycaps — is easy aluminum or glass, together with the show and its bezels. There’s some flex right here and there, however it’s very slight. The show hinge strikes easily, and is straightforward to open with one hand due to the load of the bottom and just a little lip on the prime of the display for this goal and to provide extra space to the webcam and IR sensor. The hinge does wiggle for a second or two after transferring the show or shifting the laptop computer round, however it holds agency whereas I’m typing. 

The base sits on three rubber toes, an extended one on the again and two small ones on the entrance. These are taller than is typical on productiveness laptops, and this helps create an additional massive channel beneath the laptop computer for airflow into the massive grille beneath. Most of this grille is stuffed in, with sections at both facet really serving as intakes for the 2 followers. 

Lenovo has squeezed in six audio system in whole with two tweeters and 4 woofers. You’ll discover audio system on both facet of the keyboard and on the perimeters beneath the laptop computer. 

Ports are all packed moderately shut collectively on both facet of the laptop computer, together with a devoted energy plug. The proper edge additionally features a privateness shutter swap that deactivates the digital camera — good to see and simpler to keep away from by accident swiping each time I open the laptop computer, although rather less reassuring than a shutter that really covers up the digital camera sensor.

The Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition’s energy button can also be on the correct fringe of the laptop computer, the place it’s just a little too simple to by accident press any time I shift the laptop computer round on a desk or desk. 

With all of the Lenovo has jammed into this 16-inch laptop computer, it’s little shock that it’s over 4 kilos, however at simply 4.52 kilos, it’s not unreasonably heavy. The laptop computer has a tapered design, seeing it sit at about 0.7 inches thick close to the entrance and 0.75 inches thick close to the again, although the rubber toes add nearly 0.2 inches to that. At 14.28 inches huge and 9.99 inches lengthy, it’s nonetheless pretty modest in dimension for a 16-inch laptop computer.

Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition: Keyboard, trackpad

IDG / Mark Knapp

The Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition has a fairly good keyboard on it. It’s just a little bland to take a look at with its drab grey keycaps, however that doesn’t harm its usability. Thanks to the slight dish to every keycap, good stabilization, and a brief, poppy journey, I used to be capable of shortly stand up to a 118-word-per-minute typing pace with 98 % accuracy in Monkeytype.

Comfort whereas typing is a matter although. The laptop computer’s depth makes the keyboard fairly a attain up the keyboard deck even for me (I’m 6’3”), and this leaves my wrists urgent into the entrance lip of the laptop computer, which isn’t very snug. It can also take some adjusting, because the keyboard is off-center to make room for a full quantity pad, albeit with keys barely narrower than normal. 

The keyboard has shiny backlighting that may even be seen within the daytime with ambient lighting. It successfully illuminates the keycap legends. It has two ranges, and a 3rd choice lets it activate robotically. It’s a bit too aggressive, although, turning on even in a room loads shiny for seeing the keys. 

The trackpad right here is substantial. It’s each huge and tall, offering an enormous floor to mouse round on and carry out multi-finger gestures. Its glass floor can also be splendidly easy. It has a shallow journey to carry out bodily clicks with a pleasant gentle really feel.

Like the keyboard, it’s off-center, shifted to the left barely to be centered beneath the keyboard alphanumerics. For left-handed customers, this can be very best. But for righties, it may not be. I typically discover this alignment has me largely utilizing the correct facet of the trackpad, so once I go for a bodily click on, it finally ends up being a proper click on as an alternative of the left click on. If you faucet to click on, it received’t be an issue although.

Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition: Display, audio

IDG / Mark Knapp

The Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition has a fully glorious show, and this configuration of the system has the lower-end show choice. The upper-tier’s tandem OLED show ought to solely enhance on its high quality. The solely high quality to knock is that the display is shiny, which leaves it topic to glare when set to low brightness ranges. Beyond that, it’s sensible.

It’s completely sharp for a show its dimension, and its variable refresh fee retains visuals easy at as much as 120Hz whereas additionally offering vitality financial savings by dropping as little as 30Hz. The show affords 100 % protection of the DCI-P3 shade house and gives an inexpensive diploma of accuracy, hitting a median dE1976 of 0.95 and a max of two.4 — a little bit of calibration would possible have it prepared for skilled shade work. In SDR, the show was capable of attain a peak brightness of 486.1 nits for a full white display, and with its OLED panel, it may possibly obtain excellent blacks for infinite distinction.

Turning on HDR, the show’s capabilities leap up even larger. I measured the fullscreen white peak brightness at 606 nits, and when displaying a 10 % window of white, it achieved 1040 nits. The show is even a responsive touchscreen. 

With its set of two tweeters and 4 woofers, the Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition places out spectacular sound for a laptop computer. Most spectacular is the clear, low-end it gives, giving musical bass traces a pleasant heft. Meanwhile, the higher registers get a clear presentation, albeit just a little bit missing in brilliance. There’s even some shocking stereo imaging.

When listening to music with the laptop computer at a cushty distance for typing, I used to be caught off guard by how sounds really gave the impression to be coming from my sides and never simply from the laptop computer proper in entrance of me. At full quantity, the audio system can distort just a little, however they sound moderately loud even at 50 % quantity. 

Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition: Webcam, microphone, biometrics

IDG / Mark Knapp

The webcam on the Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition is superb. It can exhibit just a little noise within the video, however in any other case has a really sharp picture with pure lighting that appears nice. Though Lenovo doesn’t have a bodily shutter to cowl the lens, it does present a {hardware} swap on the facet of the laptop computer to disable the digital camera. The webcam additionally gives Windows Hello facial recognition, which has labored shortly all through my testing. You received’t discover fingerprint scanning although.

The mics aren’t fairly as spectacular. On one hand, they decide up my voice clearly with none bizarre compression artifacts. But then again, they’re not doing a lot to remove background noise, choosing up issues like a close-by fan and my fingers clapping — noises I’ve seen some laptops fully remove whereas nonetheless choosing up my voice effectively. 

Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition: Connectivity

IDG / Mark Knapp

The Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition gives respectable connectivity, each wired and wi-fi. You’ll discover two USB-C ports on the left edge providing Thunderbolt 4/USB4 capabilities and as much as 100W energy supply to cost the laptop computer in case you neglect the usual charger (a 170W unit with Lenovo’s charging plug). The ports additionally help DisplayPort 2.1, however you may depend on the HDMI 2.1 port for video output as effectively. The left facet is rounded out by a 3.5mm audio jack.

On the correct facet, you’ll discover a pair of 5Gbps USB-A ports and a full-size SD card reader. It would have been good to see 10Gbps ports or at the least to get the USB-C ports break up between the 2 sides. 

For wi-fi connections, the Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition affords Wi-Fi 7, and it’s confirmed each quick and dependable in my testing, by no means exhibiting indicators of lag or being sluggish to re-establish a connection when booting up the machine. Bluetooth 5.4 can also be supported, and it has labored constantly whereas listening to audio on Bluetooth headphones.

Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition: Performance

The Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition is constructed like many different productiveness laptops within the 16-inch class. This sees it face off towards fashions just like the Acer Swift 16 AI, the HP OmniBook X Flip 16, the Dell Inspiron 16 Plus, and the Dell 16 Plus, which all supplied as-tested costs lots of of {dollars} under the Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition.

But, even because the Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition competes on dimension and weight with these different techniques (save for the significantly skinny and light-weight Acer Swift 16 AI), it goes just a little heavier in efficiency with a extra strong CPU choice and a discrete GPU, an inclusion solely the Dell Inspiron 16 Plus made at its as-tested value.

The Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition affords glorious efficiency due to its mixture of a high-end CPU within the Core Ultra 9 285H — a 16-core beast — with loads of reminiscence, quick storage, and its discrete GPU. The RTX 5050 inside provides it a powerful edge in content material creation, the place it outpaced all of those different techniques, together with the RTX 4060-powered Dell Inspiron 16 Plus. 

Cinebench helps us see simply how a lot of an edge Lenovo’s alternative of CPU provides the Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition. In Cinebench R23, the Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition merely obliterates the efficiency supplied by the Intel Core Ultra 7 256V and Intel Core Ultra 7 258V, greater than doubling their outcomes. It even cruises forward of the Dell Inspiron 16 Plus.

This is a stage of efficiency that may put the Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition in league with heavy-duty gaming laptops, just like the Lenovo Legion 5i 15IRX10 working on an Intel Core i7-14700HX. The CPU’s single-core efficiency can also be distinctive, giving it all of the efficiency it must really feel responsive and energy by means of heavy workloads. 

That efficiency is showcased effectively in our Handbrake encoding take a look at. This is successfully an extension of our CPU take a look at, because it duties the system with an extended multi-core workload encoding a big video file. This not solely requires a strong CPU to carry out effectively but additionally strong cooling to stop warmth from increase and slowing the system down because the take a look at stretches on.

Here, we see the Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition do an excellent job, holding its encoding time at beneath 11 minutes. That’s not solely effectively beneath the encoding occasions of those different machines, a few of which just about ran for 30 minutes, however it even slips beneath the encoding time of the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370-powered Razer Blade 16 (2025). 

Though the Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition might need already efficiently set itself other than its competitors on CPU efficiency alone, its discrete GPU helps take it to a different stage nonetheless. Intel Arc graphics work wonders for light-weight productiveness machines, however even lower-tier discrete GPUs present a world of distinction. That’s true of the RTX 4060 within the Dell Inspiron 16 Plus and much more so for the RTX 5050 within the Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition.

That discrete GPU soared forward of the competitors in 3DMark’s Time Spy benchmark, a relatively demanding graphical take a look at. Despite its thinner design and largely quiet operation, the Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition really managed to supply efficiency that traces up with many RTX 4060-powered gaming laptops.  

Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition: Battery life

With as a lot efficiency because the Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition was joyful to place down, it’s unsurprising that it falls a bit behind its rivals the place battery life is worried. The Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition nonetheless managed a commendable runtime of just about 14 hours, however many of the different machines pushed nearer to 17 or 18 hours, besides the Dell 16 Plus, which additionally had a small 63Wh battery. 

While that’s not as spectacular as these different machines, it’s not a foul exhibiting, significantly for a machine with a discrete GPU and higher-power CPU. It’s placing a pleasant stability with efficiency that borders on gaming laptop computer whereas sustaining battery life extra in keeping with productiveness machines. Its offline video playback efficiency additionally carried over effectively into real-world use, the place I used to be simply capable of get by means of a full workday on battery energy (albeit with out tapping into the dGPU). 

Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition: Conclusion

The Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition is a good machine. It comes at a value, however the premium isn’t so unreasonable when factoring in all that it brings to the desk. Not solely do you get distinctive efficiency from the internals, however you get them in a well-built package deal with loads of extras to get enthusiastic about. The audio system and show mix for an excellent leisure expertise. The chassis is elegant and feels strong. And even with such high-power {hardware}, the Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition is joyful to run on battery energy for a complete workday. If you want a machine that largely excels in each respect, you’ve simply discovered it.