While the idea of a dual-screen laptop seems like a far-out concept, with the Yoga Book 9i, Lenovo is proving there’s a lot of merit to its design. By including a bunch of bundled accessories including a stylus, a magnetic keyboard and a folding kickstand cover, the laptop can transform from a standard clamshell to a portable all-in-one in seconds. Its daul 13.3-inch OLED displays are punchy and bright and, despite having two panels instead one, battery life is pretty solid. The big issue is Windows because, while Lenovo’s hardware is solid, Microsoft’s OS isn’t quite ready for the dual-screen laptop revolution. Video transcriptSAM RUTHERFORD: Typically, a reviewer's main purpose is very simple, to help people figure out if they should or shouldn't buy a specific product, but every now and then, a device comes along that challenges you to not only consider its pros and cons, but also the viability of an entire product category, which is exactly what we have here with Lenovo Yoga Book 9I. [UPBEAT MUSIC] From the outside, it seems like any other clam shell, but as soon as you open it up, you're looking at a whole new world. That's because instead of a traditional layout with a screen up top and a physical keyboard down below, it's all glass as far as the eye can see. Featuring not one, but two 13.3 inch, 2.8K OLED displays. In some respects, this potentially represents the biggest change in mobile computing since Microsoft popularized the modern detachable two-in-one with the original Surface back in 2012. On the other hand, you could argue it's a natural progression, mirroring the transition we saw on smartphones in the late 2000s. You remember all those enVs and Blackberries? Now companies like Dell have teased similar dual-screen designs with devices like the concept Duet, but Lenovo has been working on this form factor for the better part of a decade, dating back to the original Yoga Book from 2016, and the Yoga Book C930 from 2018. And with its latest model, it feels like the idea is finally ready for a proper debut. Now at this point, some of you might be death-gripping the keys on your laptop, or grumbling about how the dual screen notebook isn't something you want or need, and that's totally fine. But if you're feeling this way, I think you might be slightly missing the point. No one is trying to kill off the traditional clamshell. It's a time-tested design that's going to be around for years to come. And as the second largest laptop manufacturer in the world, I'm pretty sure Lenovo knows this, but if you look back, history is littered with companies such as Xerox and Kodak that invented things like the graphical user interface and the first digital camera that were years ahead of their time. Sadly, after not giving their creations the proper attention both companies were surpassed by competitors on top of that, if you look at existing devices, we already have a ton of systems that can handle stuff like basic productivity, gaming, video editing and more. So while the Yoga Book 9i might seem a bit weird or awkward, I think it's important to be open-minded when something comes along that's a bit different, especially when replacing a laptop's keyboard with a display fundamentally changes how you use it. The big question though, is what do you do for a touchpad and keyboard? Well, the answer is pretty simple. Just touch eight fingers on the bottom panel, and, voila, suddenly you get virtual stand ins. Alternatively, if you only need to control your mouse, you can use a three-finger tap to summon just a touch pad. But perhaps the biggest surprise is that typing on glass isn't actually all that bad. It's definitely slower than using a regular keyboard, and my accuracy is worse too. Normally, I can hit about 80 to 85 words per minute. On the Yoga Book, though, I'm down to around 60 or 65, but like a lot of people, I have years of experience with traditional setups, whereas, I've been only using the Yoga Book for a couple of months. I hope in the future, Lenovo can update the virtual keyboard so that it can adjust to a person's typing habits over time. And while it's a bit too late, I really wish there was a way to put a small dimple or two somewhere on the screen to help prevent your fingers from drifting. I often find that when I'm in the zone, I can type super quickly without much trouble, but as soon as my hands shift even just a little bit, I'll miss a key, usually, backspace, and that's it. Everything becomes a jumble. Typing on a virtual keyboard on a laptop still feels like a little bit of a gimmick. However, I don't think that's enough to rule out the idea completely. If we look back to smartphones again, there was a time when the vast majority had physical keyboards, but then the iPhone and others came along and now touchscreen keyboards reign supreme, while physical ones are basically extinct, and that's despite the best efforts of devices like the BlackBerry Keyone that tried to revive that trend. The thing you have to remember is that you can't treat a virtual keyboard the same as a physical one. If you're like a lot of people, including myself, that type by punching the keys like in "Finding Forrester"-- - You're the man now, dog. SAM RUTHERFORD: --you're going to have a bad time. It's a gentler, almost frolicky sort of input style, and that takes a lot of getting used to. That said, if you don't want to type on a virtual keyboard, you don't have to because the Yoga Book comes with a magnetic Bluetooth one along with a stylus, mouse, and origami-style cover that doubles as a kickstand. The mouse is pretty basic, though, so I wouldn't blame anyone for replacing it with something a little nicer. Regardless, when you combine all the pieces together, you get a kit that transforms a traditional laptop into something else entirely. When you prop the Yoga Book up on a stand, you instantly get two options for a really useful dual-screen setup. Now some of you might not care about having multiple displays and I get it, but when I'm away from home without access to dual monitors, it feels like I'm missing a limb. Oftentimes, when I'm writing, I need to revert to a spec sheet or something like that, and that's a great use-case for Lenovo's side-by-side mode. Alternatively, if you're trying to chat with friends or colleagues, you can switch to a stacked display setup, which I use to keep a big project open up top, while the bottom panel is reserved for something like Slack or Discord or your messaging app of choice. And in cramped spaces like on an airplane, you can slap the keyboard on top of the bottom display and then just type away to your heart's content like on any other clamshell. The Yoga Book even lets you shift it to the front or back of the screen depending on how close you want your keys to be. You can also do fun stuff like spanning an app across both screens, just maybe don't do it when you're watching videos, unless you really like big bars cutting through the middle of your content, or you can use the bottom of the screen to take notes with the stylus while watching a presentation up top, but one of the best things about the yoga book is that if you try to recreate a similar setup with a regular laptop and a bunch of accessories, you're looking at a much bulkier and awkwardly constructed kit compared to Lenovo's machine, which collapses down into a pretty neat semi self-contained package. Here, let me show you what I mean. So here we have the Lenovo Yoga Book 9i. And over here, we have my attempts to recreate a similar kit using stuff I have at home. Now, I fully admit, this is a 15-inch laptop, so it's bigger than the Lenovo Yoga Book, and this is a 17-inch portable monitor, so once again, larger than it really needs to be. But if you watch me collapse this stuff, I think you'll get the point. So here we go, clamshell folds in half, and I can just do one of these. And it's ready to go. Meanwhile, if I collapse this down, we have the laptop. We have this and it's fiddly screen, and a keyboard. You probably might not need the keyboard because, again, the laptop has a pretty good physical keyboard, and a mouse. And I think the size difference-- once again, this is bigger than it really should be. But the size difference is pretty obvious, and if you're going with a home-brew kit like this, you might as well get a second bag at that point, and then you're juggling a bunch of stuff. In a lot of ways, it's like a portable all-in-one desktop, which I frankly think is kind of awesome. Now it might not be as powerful as a true desktop, but it offers more than enough performance for everyday work tasks. The Yoga Book features an Intel Core i7, 1355u chip, 16 gigs of RAM, and 512 gigs of storage. In general use, it feels snappy enough. Though, it did turn in some slightly underwhelming times on our video rendering test when it took a minute and a half to convert a 4K movie trailer to 1080p. However, its audio punches way above its weight thanks to Lenovo's nifty speaker hinge. You also get a decent amount of usb-c ports, one on the left and two on the right, all of which support Thunderbolt 4, a more than serviceable five megapixel IR webcam and Wi-Fi 6E. The one thing you don't get, though, is a 3.5mm audio jack, which is definitely a bummer. I think it's still a bit too early for Lenovo to start removing those. Thankfully, its battery life is better than expected, hitting eight hours and 12 minutes on our standard video rundown test. That's not quite as long as something like the ASUS Zenbook S13's time of 10:39, but it's still hours better than what you get from something like a thin and light gaming machine that struggle to get North of five hours on a charge. And that was with both of its displays turned on. That said, the Yoga Book isn't without its issues because while Lenovo's hardware is surprisingly solid, windows 11 and even modern day BIOSs just aren't designed for devices with two screens and no physical keyboard. For example, any time you try to install a new app, you get that familiar windows permission pop-up which completely disables the lower display. Same goes for the login screen. You can get around this by using a mouse or hitting a button with your fingers, but it's just kind of annoying. It actually gets a bit more troublesome, though. One time when I tried to install a bunch of updates, including a fresh BIOS, because I was using a third party usb-c power adapter, I got a message that told me to switch to the first party one, and then hit any key to continue. And I think you might be able to see where the issue is because I was in the middle of flashing a new BIOS, there was no cursor, no way to summon the virtual keyboard, and no touchscreen support. So I had to find a wired keyboard and plug that in before I could even continue. Other times when say, booting up a game, the laptop would just get confused about which screen to use. So I had to frantically Alt-Tab and then hunt around for the right window. I also want to mention that while the Yoga Book's user center app does a pretty good job of supporting and introducing the laptop's various dual-screen features, Lenovo's Vantage app is a mess. Settings are hard to find, and thanks to offer notifications from pre-installed third-party apps like McAfee livesafe, Prime Video and others, the Yoga Book felt like the most bloated laptop I've used in a long time. And then there's its price. Starting at $2,000, the Yoga Book 9i costs a lot more than a typical ultraportable. Now that's kind of understandable given that it comes with two screens and a bunch of bundled accessories, but there's no getting around that increase cost. So now let's go back and try to answer our original question, or questions in this case. Should you buy a Yoga Book 9i? And is a dual-screen laptop something the world even needs? For most people, a traditional clamshell is almost certainly a better choice. They're cheaper. They're easier to use. They have longer battery life, and they offer way more configuration options. However, if you want the flexibility of multiple displays on the go but in a package built with portability as a priority, the Yoga Book might be worth considering. That said, you have to be willing to live with something that's a bit experimental, and you can't be embarrassed to catch a few stares if you set this thing up at a coffee shop. You don't even need to rely on that virtual keyboard all the time, but you should be open to giving it a shot. The Yoga Book 9i shows that there's merit to Lenovo's design. Eventually, I think systems like this will need to feature integrated kickstands, more like what you get on a Surface because while Lenovo's folding cover is kind of clever, it's kind of clunky too. Microsoft needs to get on board though. Systems like this aren't going to truly shine until we can get an OS that embraces them fully. Hopefully, that day isn't too far off because even in its gangly teenage stage, the Yoga Book 9i is a tantalizing vision of what laptops may become, but what do you think? Are you ready for this newfangled next gen version of dual-screen laptops, or are you going to stick with what you got right now? Let me in the comments down below. And as always, don't forget to comment, like, subscribe, for more news, reviews, and videos from Engadget. |
