Tag: 2-in-1

Categories
Mobile Syrup

Lenovo Yoga 9i Review: Rounded edges are the play

It’s been a few years since I’ve tested a Lenovo Yoga laptop and the company’s latest Yoga 9i is surprisingly great. Sporting a new design with rounded edges and a stylish aluminum chassis, the 9i offers a solid 2-in-1 computing experience.

While the Yoga 9i isn’t exactly the most powerful PC around, it can handle most common computing needs, from browsing social media to word processing. It’s a great balance between high-end, powerful laptops and the lower-end laptops that trade premium materials for plastics.

The downside to this approach is that you don’t get as much performance for your dollar, but you get other benefits. The Yoga line’s signature soundbar hinge returns and the 360-degree hinge lets users get a tablet-like experience from their laptop without needing to buy a separate device.

Overall, I really like the Yoga 9i – my biggest complaint remains Lenovo’s odd pricing strategy and bloatware, but if you can nab the Yoga 9i on sale, it’s an excellent PC.

Specs

  • Display: 14.0″ WUXGA (1920 x 1200) IPS, anti-glare, touchscreen with Dolby Vision, 400 nits, 16:10 aspect ratio
  • Processor: 12th Gen Intel Core i7-1260P
  • Memory: 8GB
  • Storage: 256GB SSD
  • Dimensions: 15.2mm x 318mm x 230mm / 0.6″ x 12.52″ x 9.06″
  • Weight: 1.4kg / 3.09lbs
  • Camera: 1080p FHD IR Camera with Privacy Shutter, face recognition
  • Operating System: Windows 11
  • Battery: Up to 23 hours of local 1080p playback
  • Connectivity: Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.1
  • Sensors: Fingerprint sensor
  • Ports: 2x USB-C Thunderbolt 4, 1x USB-C 3.2 Gen 2, 1x USB-A 3.2 Gen 2, Headphone/mic combo
  • Graphics: Intel Iris Xe graphics

Note: the above specs apply to the model I tested. You can find a full spec sheet here.

12th Gen Intel gets it done

In my experience using the Yoga 9i, the performance was fairly solid. Intel’s 12th Gen i7-1260P did quite well both in real-world use and in benchmarks. My typical workflow, which involves running tons of Firefox tabs, Photoshop, Slack, and streaming music through Spotify, all ran relatively smoothly on the Yoga 9i.

The biggest issues I ran into were related to the low memory on my review unit. The 9i I tested only had 8GB of RAM, which limited my multitasking capabilities more than I expected. On more than one occasion, I encountered apps locking up or crashing outright just because there wasn’t enough memory to go around.

I’d strongly recommend getting a configuration with 16GB of RAM if you’re a heavy multitasker. Oddly, only the i7 variant of the 9i can come with 8GB of RAM, with the i5 version being locked to 16GB.

Despite the lower memory, I found the Yoga 9i benchmarked very well, beating out the Surface Laptop 5 despite having less memory and a similar processor. Given the similarity in CPUs, I’d attribute the difference at least partially thermals – the Yoga 9i is thicker than the Laptop 5 and the fans would kick on sooner and run louder to keep things cool.

Still, Intel's 12th Gen CPUs so far seem impressive, although they still suffer in the battery department.

Rounded edges are sick

I’m a big fan of the Yoga 9i’s design, especially the rounded edges. It makes for a very unique laptop, but there’s a practical benefit too. When using the Yoga 9i in tablet mode, it’s more comfortable to hold than other laptops with sharper angles.

More than that, I think the polished edges mixed with the matte surface look fantastic. The chassis is a tad thick for my liking, but I’m such a fan of the looks I’d happily give that a pass.

I’d like to see more laptop manufacturers take unique designs like Lenovo did with the Yoga 9i. Not every laptop needs rounded edges, but new and different approaches can make for unique styles.

On another note, the display is excellent as well. Sure, it’s not super high resolution, but 1080p remains a solid experience at the 14-inch size. I also appreciate the 16:10 aspect ratio – the extra height makes for a better experience working in long vertical documents.

It’d be nice if Lenovo shrunk the bezels a little on the Yoga 9i, but they’re certainly not egregious.

The Yoga 9i trackpad puts others to shame

It feels like someone finally heard my plea. Lenovo equipped the Yoga 9i with one of the biggest trackpads I’ve ever seen. This thing is massive. And I love it.

As someone who regularly uses multiple monitors, having this giant trackpad is a dream come true. I still prefer using a mouse when I can, but at least with this I still feel productive zipping from screen to screen, moving windows around, dragging files and more.

Frankly, the Yoga 9i sets the bar for trackpad size – anything less misses the mark.

As good as the trackpad is, I wish Lenovo put as much effort into the keyboard. The keyboard isn’t bad by any stretch, but it’s not my favourite to type on. It lacks crisp, tactile feedback, offering up an almost mushy experience instead. It’s not the worst I’ve used, but it could certainly be better.

Another frustration with the keyboard is the line of extra keys on the right side. On one hand, the four shortcut keys could be helpful, but I found I hit them by accident more often than not. The top key (and the one I accidentally pressed the most) cycles the Yoga 9i through three performance modes. The next button launches Lenovo’s ‘Smart Appearance’ software that can replace your video background, frame your face, apply eye contact correction, and more. The next button toggles different sound profiles, and the final button is a dedicated toggle to switch Windows between light and dark mode.

Finally, the hinge speaker remains a great addition. It’s not the best speaker out there, but it did the job well for watching videos on the laptop. I enjoyed it less for listening to music, and ultimately most people would be better off with a decent set of headphones over the hinge speaker, but it’s a nice addition nonetheless.

Categories
Mobile Syrup

Asus’ ROG Flow Z13 is a Surface for gaming

I’ve tried a few gaming laptops over the years and generally arrive at the same core issue: you give up too much performance for not enough portability. However, Asus’ ROG Flow Z13 2-in-1 is a gaming laptop I wouldn’t mind carrying around.

While likely not everyone agrees, for me, I find it a tough tradeoff to make. Generally, I want my laptops to be as portable as possible — thin, light, small, etc. I expect lower performance accordingly, but that’s okay since I make up for it with a large, bulky desktop with tons of performance for when I need it. Gaming laptops tend to walk a fine line of being technically portable while also managing to be obnoxious to carry around. They’re big, heavy, loud, and the battery dies if you spend more than an hour away from an outlet. They tend to be covered in gaudy RGB, giant fan grilles and sport weird designs. None of these things are explicitly bad, but I don’t look for them on a laptop.

At the same time, these things are getting better thanks to improvements in Intel’s recent 12th and 13th Gen chips. Still, in most cases, getting a mobile chip will mean trading performance for improved thermals and energy use versus comparable desktop chips, both of which are important in laptops. The same generally holds true for GPUs.

This is where Asus ROG Flow Z13 comes in. I’ve had the opportunity to play around with one for a few weeks and generally was impressed by its portability. The Flow Z13 offers a similar form factor to Microsoft’s excellent Surface Pro 2-in-1, but significantly more power. Enough to actually play games, although maybe not at the highest visual settings.

The Flow Z13 does still suffer from a major affliction of ‘gamer aesthetic,’ but it manages to be less in-your-face than other gaming laptops. Plus, the rear window showing off some of the internal components plain looks cool.

A brief look at performance

On the inside, the Flow Z13 I played around with sported a 12th Gen Intel i9-12900H CPU and Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 Ti Laptop GPU. It also features 16GB of RAM, 1TB of storage, and a 13.4-inch UHD+ 3840×2400 pixel 60Hz display. The screen looks great, although admittedly having such a high resolution seems like a bit of a waste on such a small screen. Plus, in some games, hitting the coveted 60fps target was hard when running at the higher resolution. It’s also worth noting Asus offers other variants of the Flow Z13 with i7 or i5 CPUs, although the i5 variant only offers Intel Xe graphics, which I don’t recommend for anyone wanting to do serious gaming.

You can view the full spec page for the ROG Flow Z13 here, but I do want to highlight the weight at 1.18kg (2.6lbs). That's quite a bit lighter than the similarly specced MSI Raider GE76 I tested earlier this year, which weighed 2.9kg (6.39lbs). The Flow Z13 is still heavier than the almost 880g Surface Pro 9, but that gap is much narrower.

Speaking of the Raider GE76, it's currently the top dog in our archive of laptop benchmarks. It sports an i9-12900HK and 32GB of RAM, meaning it has slightly more power than the 12900H and 16GB of RAM in the Flow Z13. On the GPU side, it's a 3080 Ti Laptop GPU versus the Z13's 3050 Ti Laptop edition. In CPU benchmarks, the Flow Z13 was close to the GE76, but it fell further behind in GPU benchmarks thanks to the less capable 3050 Ti.

Still, in the games I played, the Flow Z13 did well enough that I'd be happy gaming on it, although I sometimes had to tone down graphics settings to keep a consistent 60fps. I had a blast playing my go-to game at the moment, Destiny 2, on the Flow Z13, while newer titles like Hitman 3 averaged about 55fps on high settings (with some tweaks, 60fps is well within reach). Of course, like any other gaming laptop, performance falls off a cliff when running on battery power, not that the battery will last long enough for a good gaming session anyway.

Will the Flow Z13 blow you away with incredible game performance? No. But it does well enough, and, for the size, I was content with the trade-offs I was making.

A note about accessories

Surface Pro (left) and ROG Flow Z13 (right).

One area where the Flow Z13 differs from 2-in-1s like the Surface Pro is that it comes with the keyboard. Given that keyboards are an integral part of PCs, it's good that Asus didn't make this an extra cost. However, one accessory that you may want isn't exactly readily available.

The Flow Z13 is compatible with the ROG XG Mobile eGPU, which acts almost like a dock for connecting the device to an external monitor. According to Asus' website, the XG Mobile can feature either a GTX GeForce RTX 3080 or 3070 Laptop GPU, further boosting performance. But, the XG Mobile eGPU doesn't appear to be available for purchase in Canada, except as a bundle with a different Asus gaming laptop.

To be fair, the XG Mobile isn't necessary for external monitor use -- I was able to get the Flow Z13 to output to my desktop monitor using a USB-C to HDMI adapter, but ultimately the XG Mobile would be a more elegant solution if it were available. It'd also make it easier to recommend the other Flow Z13 devices with less powerful GPUs since you could make up for that with the eGPU.

The i9-equipped ROG Flow Z13 clocks in at a pricey $2,499.99 in Canada and is available at Best Buy and Amazon. Given how unique the 2-in-1 is, though, if you're looking for a laptop to pull double duty between gaming and portable productivity, this is a great option.

MobileSyrup utilizes affiliate partnerships. These partnerships do not influence our editorial content, though MobileSyrup may earn a commission on purchases made via these links.