CES 2023: The Lenovo YogaBook 9i is the world’s first dual-OLED screen laptop

Lenovo already made a big splash at CES 2023 with its tablet announcements, but it was far from finished, following up with a slew of exciting new laptops. Most intriguing among these was the YogaBook 9i, which Lenovo claims is the world’s first full-size, dual-OLED screen laptop.

Both of the YogaBook 9i’s displays use 13.3in OLED panels with a 2.8K resolution, 16:10 ratio and 60Hz refresh rate, as well as support for HDR and Dolby Vision. The YogaBook 9i will be powered by a 13th Gen Intel Core i7-U15 processor, paired with 16GB of LPDDR5X RAM and either a 512GB or 1TB SSD. There are a total of four Bowers & Wilkins-tuned speakers, two woofers and two tweeters, as well as Dolby Atmos support.

The various ways in which you can use the YogaBook 9i are designed to enhance efficiency in the workplace. The double-sided tent mode, for instance, was suggested as a good choice for presentations, allowing you to show slides on one side while reading your notes on the other, while dual portrait mode was shown off as helpful for those who regularly use word documents and web pages side by side.

A tap on the bottom display with five fingers will take the YogaBook 9i into “waterfall mode”, allowing you to scroll through both displays, fitting more content on screen. The same action with eight fingers will turn the bottom display into a keyboard. You can position the keyboard with either custom widgets above it or a trackpad below it, and off to the side is a dedicated area for you to jot down notes, which then get sent to the lock screen as reminders.

If you prefer a physical keyboard, the YogaBook 9i also comes with one bundled. This can be magnetically attached to both displays and connected via Bluetooth. If you place the keyboard on the bottom display, it will recognise the peripheral and offer up the same widgets, trackpad and notes options as the digital keyboard.

While the YogaBook 9i is focused on work, Lenovo also showcased a couple of laptops better suited to play: the Legion 7 and Legion 7i. The latter will run on a 13th Gen Intel Core processor, with your choice of i7-13700HX or i9-13900HX chips, while the Legion 7 will use an AMD Ryzen 9 7945HX CPU. Both models will support GeForce RTX GPUs up to 4090, as well as house up to 32GB of RAM (2x 16GB) and support up to two 1TB SSDs.

Both models will use a new LA2-Q AI chip that promises to optimise performance and framerates by improving communication between the GPU and CPU. The 2,560 x 1,600 display supports a variable refresh rate of up to 240Hz, and Lenovo’s Coldfront 5.0 cooling system is on hand to help prevent the device from getting too hot. Per-key RGB lighting is also supported, with six presets that you can toggle between with Fn + spacebar, and brightness that can be adjusted with Fn and the up/down arrow keys.

Holding down Fn will also illuminate all of the compatible keys, showing you which functions you have access to. Fn + Q, for instance, toggles between the Quiet, Balanced and Turbo fan speeds, while Fn + R toggles the refresh rate. The RGB key settings are fully customisable through the Lenovo Vantage and Legion Spectrum software, and the set pattern will coordinate with the lighting bar across the front of the laptop.

The Lenovo Legion Pro 7i is expected to release in March 2023, starting at $2,000, with the Legion Pro 7 due to follow in April 2023, starting from $2,699. Finally, the Lenovo YogaBook 9i has a release window of June 2023, with the cheapest specification priced at $2,100. UK prices and availability are yet to be confirmed for all of these, but as soon as we have more information, we’ll bring it to you. Keep an eye out in the future for full reviews to see what we think of Lenovo’s latest lineup of laptops.