A 16-inch laptop is a desktop-PC alternative (commonly called a desktop replacement) by definition, so we’ve always been bemused by 16-inch convertibles: They’re too bulky and heavy for use as tablets, so they spend most of their time in laptop mode, perhaps occasionally propped up for a presentation or folded flat on a desk for marking up a document with a stylus. Lenovo’s Yoga 7i 16 Gen 9 (starts at $818.10; $899.99 as tested) is a big-screen 2-in-1 that updates last year’s model with Intel’s new Core Ultra silicon under the hood and Microsoft’s new Copilot key on the keyboard. It’s about as fine as an affordable large convertible gets, but it’s more of a niche player than a mainstream option.
Configurations and Design: Back Away From the Brick and Mortar
Our review unit, model 83DL0000US, is an $899.99 Best Buy configuration equipped with an Intel Core Ultra 5 125U processor (two Performance cores, eight normal and two low-power Efficient cores, 14 threads), 16GB of memory, a 512GB NVMe solid-state drive, Windows 11 Home, and a 1,920-by-1,200-pixel IPS touch screen. It’s $100 less than the Lenovo Yoga 7i 16 Gen 8 we tested a year ago.
Since 1982, PCMag has tested and rated thousands of products to help you make better buying decisions. See how we test.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
The same hardware costs less—$818.10—at Lenovo.com and also comes with a stylus not found in Best Buy boxes. The only options online are a faster Core Ultra 7 155U chip, a 1TB SSD, and Win 11 Pro. You can also find an AMD Ryzen-powered version that starts at $723.60 (with 8GB of RAM); it’s dubbed Yoga 7, not 7i.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
Clad in Storm Gray aluminum that’s passed MIL-STD 810H tests against travel hazards like shock, vibration, and extreme heat and cold, the Yoga 7i 16 measures 0.67 by 14.2 by 9.8 inches and weighs 4.39 pounds. That’s virtually an exact match for the rival Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 (0.75 by 14.1 by 9.9 inches, 4.4 pounds); the slightly smaller-screened HP Envy x360 15.6 is the same weight but a bit trimmer at 9 inches deep.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
You’ll feel just a bit of flex if you grasp the screen corners or mash the keyboard, but the Yoga feels as sturdy as it is stylish, with thin screen bezels (and a slight ridge at the top center to hold the webcam and make it easier to open the lid). The camera has a sliding privacy shutter and IR face recognition, joining a fingerprint reader in the palm rest to give you two ways to skip typing passwords with Windows Hello.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
Two USB-C Thunderbolt 4 ports join an HDMI monitor port and audio jack on the laptop’s left edge. The right side has two USB 3.2 Type-A ports (the rear one is always on for charging handheld devices) and a microSD card slot plus the power button. The included Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth radios handle wireless connections.
Using the Yoga 7i 16: An Economy Model With Little to Apologize For
The 16-inch touch screen is probably the Yoga 9i 16’s weakest feature, which is not to say it’s bad: Its brightness is merely adequate and colors don’t pop, but they’re reasonably clear and well-saturated and the contrast is decent. Viewing angles are wide, though the touch glass causes reflections when not viewed head-on, and details are sharp with no pixelation around the edges of letters. Its white backgrounds are clean instead of dingy, though if you tilt the screen back far enough to optimize them the Lenovo threatens to tip over in your lap.
A speaker grille above the keyboard produces clean if not super-loud sound; you’ll hear no bass to speak of but you can faintly make out overlapping tracks. Dolby Atmos software provides an equalizer plus dynamic, movie, music, and game presets; all save the music option sound harsh or tinny.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
The 1080p webcam isn’t the brightest I’ve seen, and the Windows Camera app lacks the operating system’s new auto framing and background blur options, but its images are reasonably colorful with minimal noise or static.
I’ve often called Lenovo’s laptop keyboards the best in the business, but that praise applies more to ThinkPads than the company’s consumer models. The Yoga’s backlit keyboard has a comfortably tappy if shallow typing feel, but I’m never happy to see cursor arrow keys arranged in a clumsy, HP-style row instead of an inverted T, with half-height up and down arrows stacked between full-size left and right.
On a more positive note, the 7i has a numeric keypad so you get real Home, End, Page Up, and Page Down keys with Num Lock off instead of having to pair the Fn key and cursor arrows. Its midsize, buttonless touchpad glides smoothly with a quietly precise click.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
Lenovo’s preinstalled Vantage software combines system updates, Wi-Fi security, access to Dolby Atmos, power modes (cooling versus fan noise), and an option that promises to enhance resolution for videos playing in Chrome, Microsoft Edge, or Opera, though I didn’t notice a major difference in Edge. A McAfee LiveSafe trial is preinstalled.
Testing the Yoga 7i 16: Neither a Disappointment Nor a Speed Demon
Last year’s Yoga 7i 16 Gen 8 with its 13th Gen Intel Core i7 CPU was an obvious comparison pick for our benchmark charts, as were two big-screen convertibles priced above and below the 7i Gen 9 respectively: the HP Envy x360 15.6 and Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1. The last slot went to one of our favorite 16-inch non-convertibles, the MSI Prestige 16 AI Evo, which like the Envy has a spiffy OLED instead of an IPS screen.
Productivity Tests
We run the same general productivity benchmarks across both mobile and desktop systems. Our first test is UL’s PCMark 10, which simulates a variety of real-world productivity and office workflows to measure overall system performance and also includes a storage subtest for the primary drive.
Three other benchmarks focus on the CPU, using all available cores and threads, to rate a PC’s suitability for processor-intensive workloads. Maxon’s Cinebench R23 uses that company’s Cinema 4D engine to render a complex scene, while Geekbench 5.5 Pro from Primate Labs simulates popular apps ranging from PDF rendering and speech recognition to machine learning. We also use the open-source video transcoder HandBrake 1.4 to convert a 12-minute video clip from 4K to 1080p resolution (lower times are better).
Graphics Tests
We test each Windows PC’s graphics with two DirectX 12 gaming simulations from UL’s 3DMark, Night Raid (more modest, suitable for laptops with integrated graphics) and Time Spy (more demanding, suitable for gaming rigs with discrete GPUs).
We also run two tests from the cross-platform GPU benchmark GFXBench 5, which stresses both low-level routines like texturing and high-level, game-like image rendering. The 1440p Aztec Ruins and 1080p Car Chase tests, which are rendered offscreen to accommodate different display resolutions, exercise graphics and compute shaders using the OpenGL programming interface and hardware tessellation respectively. The more frames per second (fps), the better.
The Arc Graphics found in the MSI are Intel’s best integrated graphics at present, so it’s no surprise that the Prestige led the way in these tests. It is a surprise, though, that the Core Ultra 5 125U’s graphics silicon, humbly labeled just “Intel Graphics” without the Arc or Iris Xe brands, finished second. None of these systems comes close to gaming laptops with discrete GPUs, but they’re fine for video streaming or solitaire games.
Battery and Display Tests
We test each laptop and tablet’s battery life by playing a locally stored 720p video file (the open-source Blender movie Tears of Steel) with display brightness at 50% and audio volume at 100%. We make sure the battery is fully charged before the test, with Wi-Fi and keyboard backlighting turned off.
To gauge display performance, we also use a Datacolor SpyderX Elite monitor calibration sensor and its Windows software to measure a laptop screen’s color saturation—what percentage of the sRGB, Adobe RGB, and DCI-P3 color gamuts or palettes the display can show—and its 50% and peak brightness in nits (candelas per square meter).
The 7i Gen 9 blew away its rivals in our battery rundown, showing enough stamina for a long workday plus an evening of Netflix or YouTube—for more than a 24-hour day in total. Alas, its screen was unimpressive, with the lowest brightness and humdrum color coverage even by the standards of budget IPS panels, let alone OLED displays, which likely helped boost its immense battery figure.
Verdict: Oh, You Were Expecting an X1 Carbon?
The two raps on the Lenovo Yoga 7i 16 are that it’s big and heavy as 2-in-1 laptops go, which you knew already since it’s 16 inches, and that its screen is dull and dim, which you may have suspected since it’s priced well under $1,000. Approach it with those drawbacks in mind, and the Yoga will serve you well. It’s no threat to join our Editors’ Choice list, but it’s a capable big-screen convertible for value shoppers.
Pros
The Bottom Line
Big-screen 2-in-1s are a tough sell (and the 16-inch panel here is no selling point), but Lenovo’s low-priced Yoga 7i 16 Gen 9 delivers everyday computing basics for fans of oversize convertibles.
Like What You’re Reading?
Sign up for Lab Report to get the latest reviews and top product advice delivered right to your inbox.
This newsletter may contain advertising, deals, or affiliate links. Subscribing to a newsletter indicates your consent to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe from the newsletters at any time.