Lenovo Slim Pro 9i 14″ (2023) Review

Lenovo Slim Pro 9i 14-inch features a stunning 3K display (3072×1920) with a 16:10 aspect ratio and a 165Hz refresh rate. It also offers an impressive 1200 nits of peak brightness, making it stand out in terms of display quality.

Design and Display

Lenovo Slim Pro 9i appears to be from the 8th generation and comes in Storm Gray, though it’s also available in a Title Teal color outside North America. The Storm Gray finish is sleek and resists fingerprints. The laptop alone weighs 1.694 kg, and with the power cord, the total weight for travel is 2.108 kg not bad considering the power it offers.

Ports On the left side

• 1x HDMI 2.1 port
• 1x USB Type-C 3.2 Gen 1 port (supports data, charging, and display output, but not Thunderbolt)
• 1x Thunderbolt 4 port (fully functional)
• 1x full-size SD card reader with UHS2 support (sticks out halfway when inserted)

On the right side:

• Webcam kill switch
• 1x 3.5mm headphone/microphone combo jack
• 2x USB Type-A ports (legacy ports)
• Power button with an LED indicator light

Overall, it’s a solid port selection.

You can open the lid with one finger and the screen tilts back about 170 to 180 degrees. It’s not completely flat but it provides a great viewing angle every time. The hinges are sturdy, so there’s minimal screen wobble when typing which is a plus.

Keyboard offers good key travel of around 1.5 millimeters. It provides solid feedback making it suitable for typing long documents and emails. The multi-stage backlight helps in low-light environments with white keys contrasting well against the dark gray background. The touchpad is a Precision model and is very responsive. It handles two-finger scrolling and gestures effectively. While it’s not a haptic touchpad, it’s well-implemented and performs reliably.

All	Read (MB/s)	Write (MB/s)
SEQ1M Q1T1	6917.58	6404.33
SEQ1M Q1T1	4885.35	3659.90
RND4K Q32T1	426.66	536.00
RND4K Q1T1	70.77	148.50

SSD in Lenovo Slim Pro 9i device is user-upgradable and as seen in the table, its read and write speeds are incredibly fast, reaching Gen 4 levels exactly what you’d expect in 2023. It comes with 32GB of LPDDR5x RAM running at 6400 MHz in Quad Channel, which offers excellent performance. However, the RAM is soldered, so it can’t be upgraded by the user. Still, the 32GB memory option is a great feature that I wish more manufacturers offered.

This also includes a Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.1 combo card which is not soldered, allowing for future upgrades if needed. In terms of performance both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth work flawlessly and I haven’t experienced any issues with either.

Lenovo Slim Pro 9i features a 14.5-inch 3K mini LED display with a resolution of 3072×1920 and a 16:10 aspect ratio. It offers a peak brightness of 1200 nits, but in standard definition, it’s typically around 680 nits. When watching HDR content, the display reaches the full 1200 nits brightness, and with a 165Hz refresh rate, the experience is smooth and fluid.

Display itself is impressive, with deep blacks, vibrant colors, and high contrast thanks to the mini LED technology. It also has excellent color accuracy, making it ideal for content creators working with Lightroom, Photoshop, video editing, or color grading.

Touch layer is responsive, making pinch-to-zoom and navigation easy. The display supports HDR, so watching content on Netflix, Amazon, or YouTube is a great experience. While mini LED can sometimes cause a blooming effect (a slight halo around bright objects on dark backgrounds), this isn’t a major issue on the Slim Pro 9i.

A standout feature is the 32GB of RAM, a rare but excellent option for this laptop. It also comes with a Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.1 combo card that can be replaced if needed in the future. In terms of performance, both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth work flawlessly.

This features a 1440p IR camera for face recognition login, and a convenient kill switch on the side for added security and privacy. And comes with four Dolby Atmos speakers, delivering impressive sound quality. While the 16-inch model has six speakers, the four in this version still provide excellent audio, making it one of the best among Windows laptops.

Performance and Gaming

PCMARK 10	7,398
GEEKEBENCH 6 (Single-Core)	2,678
GEEKEBENCH 6 (Multi-Core)	14,051
CINEBENCH R20	6,241
CINEBENCH R15	2,733 CB, 200.83 FPS
CINEBENCH R23	1,919 Single Core, 17,842 Multi-Core.
3DMARK Fire Strike	19,012
3DMARK Time Spy	8,121

Performance is very good with portablity, It has the Intel Core i7-13705H A45 Watt CPU with 14 Cores, that’s eight efficient cores and six performance cores with into that the Nvidia RTX 4050 GPU with 80 watts of total tgp. In terms of the power it has pretty nice CPU and GPU combination.

Lenovo Slim Pro 9i 14 Core i7-13705H	1,919
Dell Precision 5470 Core i9-12900H	1,778
HP ZBook Firefly 14 G10 Core i7-1365U	1,727
Apple MacBook Pro 14 M2 Max	1,613

Single and multi-core performance making it suitable for everyday tasks like Microsoft Office, email, and web browsing. As shown in the table above, it handles these activities well. Its strong multi-core performance also makes it ideal for more demanding tasks that require multiple cores and threads. For content creators especially those working with video editing software like Premiere Pro or DaVinci Resolve, the Lenovo Slim Pro 9i 2023 shines. When rendering a 3-minute 4K video in DaVinci Resolve (h.264), it took just 1 minute 34 seconds, and with h.265, only 1 minute 29 seconds. These are impressive results proving a powerful portable laptop for video editing on the go.

Games	Low	Medium	High	Ultra
The Witcher 3	109 FPS	79 FPS	166 FPS	74 FPS
GTA V	179 FPS	180 FPS	170 FPS	91 FPS
Dota 2 Reborn	181 FPS	166 FPS	158 FPS	147 FPS
Cyberpunk 2077	99 FPS	77 FPS	66 FPS	60 FPS

Lenovo Slim Pro 9i isn’t a gaming laptop but with its CPU and GPU, you can still enjoy playable frame rates on popular games, as shown in the performance table above. So, when you’re not working or creating content you can definitely play some games during your downtime.

Regarding thermal throttling, I ran the Time Spy stress test, and passed with a 99.2% score, meaning it had minimal to no thermal throttling, which is impressive. The laptop stayed relatively cool, with temperatures around 43-44°C above the keyboard, near the display where the vents are located. Since you don’t usually place your fingers there, it’s not an issue.

However, the underside did get hotter, reaching about 57-58°C, so be cautious when using it under heavy load in performance mode. During everyday tasks in balanced mode, it didn’t heat up much. The fan noise can reach up to 53 decibels in performance mode, but it’s not distracting in balanced mode during regular use.”

Battery Life

Laptops	PCMARK 10 Modern Office	PCMARK 10 Video PLAYBACK
Lenovo Slim pro 9i 14″ 75Wh	5 hours 22 minutes	7 hours 48 minutes
Lenovo Slim Pro 9i 16″ 75Wh	5 hours 14 minutes	8 hours 6 minutes

Both the 14-inch and 16-inch models have the same 75Wh battery. In the PCMark 10 Modern Office test, the 14-inch model lasted 5 hours and 22 minutes, while the 16-inch version lasted 5 hours and 14 minutes very similar results. In the video playback test, the 14-inch model lasted 7 hours and 48 minutes, and the 16-inch lasted 8 hours and 6 minutes. Again, the results were almost the same. This isn’t designed for all-day battery life, especially for tasks like 4K video editing. You’ll need to bring your power adapter if you’re doing intensive work on the go. The battery life is average, not the best, but not the worst.

Conclusion

Lenovo Slim Pro 9i 2023 14-inch is known as the Yoga 9i outside North America. It features a stunning 3K mini LED touch display with 1200 nits of brightness and a 165Hz refresh rate. The performance is solid for productivity and competitive gaming. The keyboard and touchpad are excellent and the laptop runs cool with no throttling. It also has a nice 5MP IR webcam for 1440p video and four quad speakers that sound great with Dolby Atmos.

However, it has some downsides. Like the 16-inch model, the 14-inch version has mediocre battery life and noticeable fan noise under heavy load. It also has soldered RAM which is common in many 2023 laptops, though you can get up to 32GB RAM. Overall, the Lenovo Slim Pro 9i 14″ is a powerful, portable option that’s great for content creators. It offers a lot for its price and comes highly recommended.

93%

93%

Editor Choice for Creatives, Videographers, Freelancers, Content Creators.

• Design

  9
• Hardware

  10
• Ports

  10
• Display

  10
• Audio

  10
• Keyboard

  10
• Touchpad

  9
• Webcam

  9
• Performance

  10
• Thermals and fan Noise

  9
• Battery

  6