Lenovo’s Yoga AIO 9i review: an iMac killer in the making

Lenovo Yoga AIO 9i

MSRP $1,488.00

“Lenovo’s Yoga AIO 9i could be an iMac killer if it weren’t for some frustrating problems.”

Pros

• grand stand

• Beautiful 4K display

• wireless charging on stand

• USB 4.0 port

• solid cpu performance

Shortcoming

• no further port

• mediocre webcam

• No discrete GPU at $1,500

Every PC brand has its own catalog of all-in-ones (AIOs), and it’s hard for a new entry to stand out (especially among the best all-in-one computers). Lenovo has an attractive option with the Yoga AiO 9i, which promises not only one of the most unique designs we’ve seen, but also solid performance and some of the features you won’t find with other desktop PCs. Can’t get it.

It’s a great AIO, and it’s coming in at a price that puts it in direct competition with Apple’s iMac M3 while offering some clear advantages. Despite this, there are some flaws in port selection and overall performance. This could be the ultimate iMac killer, but you have to pay attention to a few quirks.

Lenovo Yoga 9i AIO specs

a beautiful aio

The Yoga AIO 9i looks great, that’s for sure. It’s a typical AIO layout, with the machine’s full power packed into the base, but the unique stand makes the Yoga AIO 9i special. It’s a metal ring that looks like it impossibly floats at the base and reaches up to wrap around a circular yoga badge on the back.

This stand gives you a little adjustment, allowing you to tilt the screen up and down, but it doesn’t offer any height adjustment. Most AIOs aren’t worth it, and it probably won’t work with Lenovo’s stand design. However, the massive 32-inch screen would definitely benefit from height adjustment.

Down at the base, Lenovo has kept the design simple with a matte gray finish that contrasts perfectly with the silver Lenovo badge. It’s simple, and this is largely due to the fact that the surface of the base is a wireless charging pad. Place your phone on it while you’re working, and it will automatically keep it on top.

This is a great feature, but you have to be careful with placement. Too close to the front or too close to the stand, and wireless charging will not turn on. The best spot is in the middle, right below the Lenovo badge. Thankfully, Lenovo places a wireless charging icon in the same spot so you know where to set your phone.

all ports are behind

Lenovo keeps all the connectivity for the Yoga AIO 9i on the back of the machine, keeping your cables tidy. I enjoyed how clean the final look was, but I constantly found myself struggling to replace items with the awkward division of USB ports.

On the back, you have access to a power button and two USB-A 3.2 ports with DC, an HDMI 2.1 output, a 3.5mm headphone/microphone jack, a USB-C 3.2 port, and a USB-C 4.0 port. Adapter port. It’s great to see USB 4 on display here, but I was constantly missing an additional USB-A port. Between the keyboard and mouse, whether wired or wireless, you’ll likely have both occupied, forcing you to turn to the USB-C port for anything extra.

Placement is also a problem. Although I appreciate that most of the cables are at the back to keep everything neat, an extra USB-A port on the front would come in handy. As it stands now, the Yoga AIO 9i feels like it’s missing a USB port, and it’s a hassle to reach behind your head to plug something in.

a great screen

The most notable aspect of the Yoga AIO 9i is the screen. I’ve reviewed a lot of monitors, and Lenovo’s display here is on par with the best monitors you can buy. It is a 32-inch display with 4K resolution. It’s locked to a 60Hz refresh rate, but I’d happily trade smoothness for this degree of quality.

The most immediate impression left by the display is clarity. The 4K resolution on the 32-inch screen makes fine details like text sharp, and the glossy finish makes colors pop on the screen. As I’ll explain further, the display is extremely bright, delivering solid HDR performance for movies and sometimes games.

All you need to know is that the display looks great, but I have a few technical issues to back it up. Starting with brightness, the screen reached an impressive 640 nits at its highest, which is one of the highest numbers I’ve ever recorded. In fact, it’s so bright that you probably won’t want to run the display at maximum brightness most of the time.

Color coverage was also exceptional, with 100% coverage of sRGB and 97% coverage of the extended DCI-P3 color space. This is on the level of premium displays like the Samsung Odyssey OLED G8. It’s not an OLED monitor, but the color coverage is fantastic. Color accuracy wasn’t perfect, with an average error of 1.51, but it’s acceptable for some light color work in apps like Photoshop.

For audio, Lenovo offers a quad-speaker array, split as two 2-watt tweeters and two 5-watt woofers, made by Harman Kardon. The audio is solid, although it can’t compete with what Apple achieved on the iMac, even with Dolby Atmos support.

good keyboard, ok mouse

Lenovo has included a wireless keyboard and mouse combo with the Yoga AIO 9i that’s surprisingly good. The ultrathin keyboard is fast and responsive, and the mouse has a solid weight to it, with a bulge at the back that helps it sit comfortably in your palm.

Both sync with the same wireless USB dongle, perhaps explaining why Lenovo only includes two USB-A ports. Additionally, Lenovo allows two Bluetooth connections on both peripherals, so you can easily swap them between devices.

However, these are still stock peripherals, and you’ll get a much better experience with your keyboard and mouse. Of the two, I would replace the mouse first. The keyboard is comfortable, and feels premium thanks to the aluminum top. The mouse, on the other hand, is entirely plastic and feels cheap, no matter how comfortable it is.

all about cpu

The Yoga AIO 9i is based on a mobile processor – Intel’s Core i9-13900H – so although it’s technically a desktop, you should expect performance at the level of a high-end laptop. The 14-core mobile part holds up well, offering six performance cores and eight efficiency cores, and it can clock up to 5.4GHz. However, it’s not always a showstopper.

In multi-core tests like Cinebench R23 or Geekbench 6, the Yoga AIO 9i often loses to laptops like the Surface Laptop Studio 2 with the weaker Core i7-13700H. However, compared to the 24-inch iMac with M1, the Yoga AIO 9i is far ahead. It’s a little behind the M2 Pro inside the Mac mini, but it’s still close.

Single-core performance is where the Yoga AIO 9i shines. Unless you scale up to one of Intel’s HX-series parts or a desktop chip, you won’t get better single-core performance than what’s demonstrated here.

However, how does all this play out in real applications? This is a general productivity machine, so it’s not surprising that more demanding tasks like video editing and transcoding don’t show much potential. In Handbrake, the Yoga 9i took about a minute and a half to complete the codec, while even laptops with the Core i7-13700H can complete it about 10 seconds faster. The Yoga AIO 9i managed to almost halve the time of the iMac M1, but it’s a much older machine at this point.

Similarly, in PugetBench for Premiere Pro, the Yoga AIO 9i posted the lowest overall score we’ve recorded, though that’s with fairly limited data on the latest version. It fell just short of the MacBook Air with the M2 chip. We don’t have data for the Mac mini with M2, although it should provide a similar level of performance.

In apps like this, the biggest drawback is a dedicated GPU. The Yoga AIO 9i relies on integrated Intel Iris Xe graphics, which makes running apps like Premiere Pro and extras like gaming noticeably slower. You can see this reflected in the 3DMark scores. Lenovo says the machine supports up to an Nvidia RTX 4050, though no configurations with that GPU are available at the time of publishing. The extra GPU power will help a lot in some of these demanding apps.

The real question for the Lenovo Yoga AIO 9i is how it will stack up against the iMac M3, which is scheduled to launch in a short time. Both machines are around the same price, and although Lenovo definitely has the advantage in terms of its screen, the GPU performance offered by the M3 may be too big to ignore.

a missing webcam

The Yoga AIO 9i includes an integrated 5MP camera, along with a dual microphone array, and the only way to describe it is “serviceable.” It’s not very sharp, and there’s some grain likely to appear even in brightly lit environments. But it will help you make video calls with solid audio quality. Don’t dim the lights too much if you want the webcam to look good.

Should you buy the Lenovo Yoga AIO 9i?

Lenovo has a lot to offer in the Yoga AIO 9i. There are certainly cheaper alternatives, most of which rely on much weaker mobile processors, but Lenovo offers too much hassle for the $1,500 it’s asking for. It’s a high-performance AIO that makes an impression, with an excellent screen and extra features like wireless charging at the base — and it costs hundreds less than a machine like the HP Envy 34.

Still, there are some issues. The webcam isn’t great, and as much performance as the CPU offers, a dedicated GPU would do wonders to push this desktop forward. Plus, the port selection isn’t great, which is a shame for a desktop that offers everything you need without any extra accessories.

For Windows users looking for a great display and solid overall performance, the Lenovo Yoga AIO 9i is a great choice. However, if you’re on the fence, I’d recommend shopping around for a deal and considering the 24-inch iMac with M3, which will likely offer better overall performance.