As a fan of light, snappy keyboards with just enough travel, I like the Yoga 9i’s offering well enough. The full-width setup uses all the space on the keyboard deck, with large, sculpted keycaps that have plenty of spacing and attractive three-level backlighting. The switches are precise, with lots of bounce, and I hit full typing speed without an adjustment. It was comfortable throughout while writing this review, with zero fatigue.
I’m not as fond of the touchpad. It’s large enough and flush with the top and bottom edges, but it’s mechanical. Many premium laptops have moved to haptic versions, which provide more customization and allow clicking anywhere on their surfaces (since they don’t rely on physical click buttons underneath but rather respond to pressure). Haptics also avoid the loud button clicks you’ll get with the Yoga 9i’s touchpad.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
The touch-enabled display works well, and the Yoga 9i comes with Lenovo’s Linear Pen for writing and drawing on the screen. The pen—probably the leading reason to get a convertible laptop—charges via USB-C and magnetically attaches to the top cover.
The high-resolution 5MP (2.5K) webcam includes an infrared camera for Windows 11 Hello facial recognition to go with a fingerprint reader on the keyboard. Lenovo’s Zero Touch features also utilize that IR sensor, which can turn off the display when you walk away and then turn it back on—and log you back in—when you return. I find the webcam produces clear pictures with decent low-light performance, and of course, it supports the Studio Effects features in the Copilot+ AI suite.
