Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 review: Greatness at every turn

At a glance

Expert's Rating

Pros

Absolutely stunning display
Ripping CPU performance
RTX 5050 has huge advantage over iGPU
Potent, six-speaker audio system
Largely silent operation

Cons

Mics need noise cancelling
Front edge of laptop can dig into wrists

Our Verdict

If you want a laptop that exudes greatness everywhere you look, the Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition is it. From brilliant performance in its class and respectable battery life to a brilliant display and solid design, this machine makes the price tag seem reasonable.

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Usually, when I think of a high-end laptop, I think of one that has pulled out all of the stops, going far too exotic on build materials, cramming too much hardware in too thin a machine, and winding up with an exorbitant price tag that perfectly illustrates the concept of diminishing returns. At first glance, the Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition looks like it might just be that kind of machine.

With a high-power CPU, a discrete GPU, and two display options that both are geared up to dazzle, the Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition certainly has the hardware, but it’s packed into a modest aluminum frame that’s not overly ambitious in its thinness. And with a $1,949 price tag for the potent configuration tested here, it feels like Lenovo struck the right balance, delivering solid quality everywhere it counts to make for a very respectable machine for folks who need a machine that can do a bit of everything and do it well.

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

Model number: 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 capacity: 84 watt-hours
Dimensions: 14.28 x 9.99 x 0.75 inches
Weight: 4.52 pounds
MSRP: $1,949 as-tested ($1,869 base)

At the time of testing, the Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition was available in just a few configurations. All of them shared the same Intel Core Ultra 9 285H CPU, 32GB of memory, and 1TB of storage. The type of display and GPU were the only different points.

Lenovo provides the option between a 2880×1800 OLED display paired with an RTX 5050 for $1,999 and a 3200×2000 Tandem OLED paired with an RTX 5060 for $2,299, though at the time of writing, those prices were discounted to $1,899 and $1,949 respectively. Best Buy also had the former configuration available for $1,949.

In addition to its preconfigured models, Lenovo offers a custom configuration tool. This starts at $1,869 for the same configuration as the base model above. But you can upgrade to 64GB of memory, an RTX 5070, and the 3.2K Tandem OLED display for $560 more. Or you can stick with the base specs and just upgrade to the Tandem OLED for $150 extra.

Lenovo’s full technical specifications for the product suggest quite a few more configurations to come, including touch and non-touch display options and an Intel Core Ultra 7 255H.

The Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition is a great machine. It comes at a price, but the premium isn’t so unreasonable when factoring in all that it brings to the table.

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

IDG / Mark Knapp

The Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition is simple and elegant, but a little bland as a result. Lenovo has done a nice job rounding corners all over the place for a smoother look and feel, though the edges of the keyboard deck could still be a little more rounded for comfort. That said, it’s still a big gray slab, and nothing about it being an “Aura Edition” gives it anything more than an aura of plainness.

The construction is good. Just about everywhere you look — aside from the keycaps — is smooth aluminum or glass, including the display and its bezels. There’s some flex here and there, but it’s very slight. The display hinge moves smoothly, and is easy to open with one hand thanks to the weight of the base and a little lip at the top of the screen for this purpose and to give more space to the webcam and IR sensor. The hinge does wiggle for a second or two after moving the display or shifting the laptop around, but it holds firm while I’m typing.

The base sits on three rubber feet, a long one at the back and two small ones at the front. These are taller than is typical on productivity laptops, and this helps create an extra large channel underneath the laptop for airflow into the large grille underneath. Most of this grille is filled in, with sections at either side actually serving as intakes for the two fans.

Lenovo has squeezed in six speakers in total with two tweeters and four woofers. You’ll find speakers on either side of the keyboard and on the edges underneath the laptop.

Ports are all packed reasonably close together on either side of the laptop, including a dedicated power plug. The right edge also includes a privacy shutter switch that deactivates the camera — nice to see and easier to avoid accidentally swiping every time I open the laptop, though a little less reassuring than a shutter that actually covers up the camera sensor.

The Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition’s power button is also on the right edge of the laptop, where it’s a little too easy to accidentally press any time I shift the laptop around on a desk or table.

With all the Lenovo has jammed into this 16-inch laptop, it’s little surprise that it’s over four pounds, but at just 4.52 pounds, it’s not unreasonably heavy. The laptop has a tapered design, seeing it sit at about 0.7 inches thick near the front and 0.75 inches thick near the back, though the rubber feet add almost 0.2 inches to that. At 14.28 inches wide and 9.99 inches long, it’s still fairly modest in size for a 16-inch laptop.

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 pretty good keyboard on it. It’s a little bland to look at with its drab gray keycaps, but that doesn’t hurt its usability. Thanks to the slight dish to each keycap, good stabilization, and a short, poppy travel, I was able to quickly get up to a 118-word-per-minute typing speed with 98 percent accuracy in Monkeytype.

Comfort while typing is an issue though. The laptop’s depth makes the keyboard quite a reach up the keyboard deck even for me (I’m 6’3”), and this leaves my wrists pressing into the front lip of the laptop, which isn’t very comfortable. It also can take some adjusting, as the keyboard is off-center to make room for a full number pad, albeit with keys slightly narrower than standard.

The keyboard has bright backlighting that can even be seen in the daytime with ambient lighting. It effectively illuminates the keycap legends. It has two levels, and a third option lets it turn on automatically. It’s a bit too aggressive, though, turning on even in a room plenty bright for seeing the keys.

The trackpad here is substantial. It’s both wide and tall, providing a huge surface to mouse around on and perform multi-finger gestures. Its glass surface is also wonderfully smooth. It has a shallow travel to perform physical clicks with a nice soft feel.

Like the keyboard, it’s off-center, shifted to the left slightly to be centered under the keyboard alphanumerics. For left-handed users, this may be ideal. But for righties, it might not be. I often find this alignment has me largely using the right side of the trackpad, so when I go for a physical click, it ends up being a right click instead of the left click. If you tap to click, it won’t be a problem though.

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 an absolutely excellent display, and this configuration of the system has the lower-end display option. The upper-tier’s tandem OLED display should only improve on its quality. The only quality to knock is that the screen is glossy, which leaves it subject to glare when set to low brightness levels. Beyond that, it’s brilliant.

It’s perfectly sharp for a display its size, and its variable refresh rate keeps visuals smooth at up to 120Hz while also providing energy savings by dropping as low as 30Hz. The display offers 100 percent coverage of the DCI-P3 color space and provides a reasonable degree of accuracy, hitting an average dE1976 of 0.95 and a max of 2.4 — a bit of calibration would likely have it ready for professional color work. In SDR, the display was able to reach a peak brightness of 486.1 nits for a full white screen, and with its OLED panel, it can achieve perfect blacks for infinite contrast.

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

With its set of two tweeters and four woofers, the Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition puts out impressive sound for a laptop. Most impressive is the clean, low-end it provides, giving musical bass lines a nice heft. Meanwhile, the upper registers get a clean presentation, albeit a little bit lacking in brilliance. There’s even some surprising stereo imaging.

When listening to music with the laptop at a comfortable distance for typing, I was caught off guard by how sounds actually seemed to be coming from my sides and not just from the laptop right in front of me. At full volume, the speakers can distort a little, but they sound reasonably loud even at 50 percent volume.