How is This 14″ Laptop So Small? | Lenovo Yoga Slim 9i

These are some of the latest 14-inch laptops, and how is this one so small? This is the newly released Lenovo Yoga Slim 9i, and just look at how thin the bezels are around the screen. This laptop has a much higher screen-to-body ratio than all these other 14-inch laptops, which is why it’s able to be so much smaller. There’s also no notch or a lip that sticks up for the webcam. It looks great, but how are they able to do this? And smaller isn’t always better, so let’s find out how this laptop really performs.

Webcam and Display Features

This laptop does have a webcam, and it looks like this. Right now, I have a lot of bright lights on, and even with a lot of light, it doesn’t look the best. In lower light settings, it gets even worse. That’s because the webcam is underneath the display. It’s clearly optimized for being completely invisible when not in use rather than for image quality.

Lenovo has done a really good job at making the camera invisible. If you compare it with the Z Fold 6, which also has an under-display camera, Lenovo’s under-display camera is way less visible. You can see a little bit of that patch-looking pattern up close, but at a typical distance that you would use a laptop, it’s basically impossible to tell where the camera is. So you get zero interruptions on your screen.

Besides just hiding the camera, there are also a few more tricks that make this 14-inch laptop so small. One is using a flexible PCB screen so that the connector can be folded over. This means there’s no need for the bottom bezel to be taller like on other typical laptops, so you get this super-thin bezel all the way around, which is pretty special. It also has rounded edges at the top, which look really nice, but the bottom is still a sharp corner.

Build and Design

The hinge itself is also super small but still very strong. The only thing is that it lacks the ability to fold completely flat, but that’s okay. So yes, this laptop is very small, but it’s not the slimmest since it has a pretty big 75Wh battery. That’s even more battery capacity than the 14-inch MacBook Pro.

The tapered sides feel pretty nice in the hands and make the laptop look thinner than it actually is. There are only two ports on this laptop, but at least they are on opposite sides, and both are Thunderbolt 4. There’s also a privacy shutter for the webcam, and when you’re actively using the camera, there’s a little white light on top to let you know that it’s on. The only other thing on the side is a power button.

I feel like I would prefer if the fingerprint scanner doubled as a power button because when it’s on the side like this, it’s kind of prone to accidental clicking. There have definitely been times where I put this laptop to sleep when I didn’t mean to.

But the most special thing about this build is the big glass top. It’s very pretty and reflects light in interesting ways. Just look at the light pattern it makes. When I first saw all this glass, I thought this has got to be a durability concern. But actually, in some ways, it’s more durable than typical aluminum because this is a 9H hardness glass. Instead of feeling like a laptop lid, it feels more like a super tough glass screen protector.

There’s almost nothing that can scratch it. Here, I have an Allen wrench, and not a single mark. Now, if I drop it, will it shatter? I don’t know. It feels pretty tough, almost like a super hard plastic, so I think it would be fine. But I’m not going to drop-test a review unit. Plus, I don’t remember the last time I actually dropped a laptop—fingers crossed.

Display and Keyboard

So, it’s a great-looking small laptop with a pretty cool lid, but what is it like to actually use? Well, starting with what you see—the screen. Lenovo calls it a PureSight Pro display. It’s a 4K 120Hz OLED touchscreen. It’s very color-accurate with a Delta E of less than one and covers 100% of the P3 color gamut. This is a very sharp and color-capable screen, great for design or creative work. It can hit 600 nits typically, with a 700-nit peak brightness.

As for what you touch, the trackpad is as large as it can be on this small chassis, but it’s still the old diving board design, which is very hard to click at the top.

Now, as for the keyboard, Lenovo really used up all the room on this small laptop and even squeezed in an extra column of shortcut keys. I actually really like them. This one toggles between different power modes, the next one is for different sound modes—like in movie sound mode, it will try to make the dialogue sound clearer. Then, there’s the eye-care mode toggle, and you can adjust how warm you want the color temperature to be in the Lenovo Vantage settings. Lastly, the star key opens a custom app.

The Yoga keyboard has always been pretty good, but with this laptop, they increased the travel to 1.5mm and also tweaked the actuators so it feels even more responsive and tactile. I really love typing on this thing. The keycaps are also slightly concave, helping to center your fingers. There’s also a new coating that feels like a smoother, soft-touch coating. It feels great, but the best part is the anti-oil property. Hopefully, it means that it will stay looking good for a long time and won’t have that nasty shine in a few years.

Performance and Battery Life

Now, when it comes to performance, this laptop has the new Intel Core Ultra 7 155H processor. This new generation of Intel’s Lunar Lake processors is very different. It’s a completely new architecture for Intel and has some unique benefits and drawbacks.

Starting with the fact that it only has eight threads and is technically slower—what? But that’s kind of missing the point. This new processor is designed not for all-out performance but for better day-to-day performance while optimizing for efficiency.

One of the reasons this laptop is so compact is because of the new processor. It has RAM integrated directly into it, making the entire processor unit easier to package. However, that means there’s no adding more RAM after the fact. The last digit of the processor code actually indicates how much RAM you have—8 for 32GB and 6 for 16GB.

For single-core performance, which is important for a responsive web browsing experience and everyday tasks, it’s significantly faster than last generation’s Core Ultra 7 155H, while using less power. The multi-thread score is lower in benchmarks, but if you’re not doing anything super demanding, you won’t feel much of a difference.

During my time with the Yoga Slim 9i, I noticed the increased efficiency. When playing back a 4K 60fps video, the fans didn’t even spin up, and the keyboard deck remained cool to the touch. This wasn’t the case with most x86 laptops before. The biggest difference with this processor is a cooler and quieter computing experience.

This laptop is still very usable in battery saver mode, where the processor uses 60% less energy while maintaining reasonable performance. In day-to-day tasks, this laptop only uses around 60% of the power of previous Intel x86 chips.

Final Thoughts

Overall, I think 14 inches is a sweet spot for a laptop that you take everywhere. It gives you enough room to get work done while still being super compact—especially this one. Plus, the Yoga Slim 9i offers great battery life. As long as you’re not looking to do hardcore rendering or gaming, this laptop is definitely worth checking out.