Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 review: Is it a real MacBook Pro competitor?

We shouldn’t expect any Windows laptop with a powerful discrete GPU to replicate what the MacBook Pro does. Yes, there are more powerful systems, but efficiency is not what these systems are about. Even with the improvements Nvidia has made in Advanced Optimus (automatically switching between the discrete GPU when needed), battery life suffers, especially while running heavy apps. In our local video playback test, the Yoga Pro 9i 16 lasted about 12 hours. Despite using the same 84 watt-hour battery, this seems to be a slight improvement over last year’s model, although it’s difficult to make a comprehensive comparison. I know that battery life diminishes quickly under heavy load, as it was consumed in just 45 minutes during my test run. You will need to be connected if you are doing something very dangerous.

No matter the task, you’ll get double the battery life of the M4 Max MacBook Pro. There won’t be competition for Apple until we get ARM-based systems with powerful integrated graphics that rival the M4 Pro and M4 Max. The closest thing we’ve seen so far is AMD’s unique Ryzen AI Max+ processor, which appeared on… Asus Rog Fluo Z13 It used a massive integrated graphics chip to challenge traditional discrete graphics. But we still have a long way to go.

The only other Windows laptop that could be better is this Asus Pro Art B16which I haven’t tested yet. It now even comes with the option of an RTX 5070 or 5090, which could make it significantly more powerful than the Yoga Pro 9i. However, it’s also an expensive laptop, with only a 4K OLED display and high-end GPUs. The Yoga Pro 9i is also hundreds of dollars cheaper than the Yoga Pro 9i Dell 16 Premium When configured similarly.

The Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 gets a lot of things right — enough to make it worth recommending as a valid competitor to the MacBook Pro. Ultimately, performance, display, and premium quality are what make it a worthy content creation machine, and the Yoga Pro 9i succeeds on all of these fronts, perhaps better than any other Windows machine I’ve tested.