**1st 24 Hours REVIEW** Lenovo Yoga 9i Gen 8

NOTE: I wanted this review to be for "regular" people. Not all of us are tech-savvy enough to understand the intricate details of every component on our computers. We just want to know how it works on a day-to-day basis for the average Joe or Jill. I will be your Jill for this review of the Lenovo 9i gen 8 2-in-1 laptop. Mine is the 14-inch model with 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD storage, and the 3840 x 2400 display. And that right there is about as techie as it gets!

 Cue the fanfare 🎺

The UPS guy was almost as excited as I was when he got here with my package. (Everyone knows I've been waiting!)

Unboxing:

I have to give it to Lenovo. They do an awesome job of presenting a new machine to a buyer. The wrapping was as elegant as that for a designer handbag. Not only is the overall packaging sturdy and protective but the box holding the laptop is kind of snazzy. (For what they charge...😏)

I was kind of impressed that after getting past the inner carton with the nice (and vivid) red YOGA logo, the computer was covered in elegant (it bears repeating) black paper. The whole setup is beautifully giftable.

Once I got to the computer (and the pen and the sleeve), I felt like a very spoiled kid at Christmas. I have to do yet another thankful shout-out to my amazing family for this.

The machine is heavier than I expected (this site and others put it at almost 4lbs). It's so small in size compared to my 15.6 Dell that the heft caught me off guard. It's not uncomfortably heavy, just surprisingly so. 

I will briefly touch on first impressions and bold point the topics.

First day of use:

I was happy to see that the lid opened easily. With my Dell, this is not a one-handed task - probably because of the wider sizing. Also, the Dell lid has more flex when opening, which is why I was always careful with it. The Lenovo lid is really sturdy. I guess the whole machine is. I read somewhere about the sturdiness of the aluminum build.

The lack of ports (which I knew about) is a bit distressing. I don't attach a lot of things to my laptops but I have a USB-connected mouse that I love and I also tend to charge my phone and watch with the computer's USB in addition to attaching my printer quite often. That's not going to be an option if I am also using one of the USB ports to charge the Yoga. Two of the slots on one side are "Thunderbolt" ports🤔. I kinda get what that means but kinda don't so here you go.

I'm having to adjust to the keyboard because of the smaller size but I love the feel of the keys as I type. They are bouncy and responsive enough and not too clicky-sounding.

It's going to take more use before I have a firm opinion about the battery. I am trying to stick to the 80/20 rule of thumb: charging no higher than 80% and not letting it dissipate below 20%. I don't know if that really helps in the long run but I keep hearing tech-savvy folks talk about it. (UPDATE: There is a setting in the Lenovo Vantage app that lets me keep the battery from charging over 70-80%)

As I've heard so much about, the display totally lives up to the hype, as do the speakers. The display is lush and vivid. James Spader and Denzel Washington never looked so dang good to me! The speakers are amazing. This is nice because I tend to listen to music when I am doing almost anything else on a computer or around the house.

The Face ID sign-in is nice but... I don't like keeping my camera open. Every time I get ready to sign in, I have to remember to open the camera. The nice thing though is that there is a built-in shutter so I can easily slide the notch to block or unblock the camera. On my Dell, I used blocking stickers so much that I had a Subscribe-and-Save order going. My Dell didn't have the face recognition feature so I got used to signing in with my fingerprint. The Yoga has the fingerprint option also. I am just trying to figure out how to make it the default. (By the way, when I tried the Flex, I noticed that the built-in shutter was nicer; there was a symbol to let you know whether it was open or not.)

The camera is better than on the Dell. I still look like James Brown's baby sister though! It's tough to be dark-skinned and trying to appear halfway normal with any camera... I have not played around with it too much but there is a "Smart Appearance" menu for making adjustments to your camera appearance. Gonna go work on that.

I get now what others have said about those "special" keys along the right side of the keyboard. They cannot be reprogrammed, but I probably would not have done that if I could. For now, I have only been using the Power toggle. There are also keys for intelligent cooling, blurring the camera background, changing the computer's performance mode, and the fingerprint key.

Not only is the keyboard backlit but the lighting is adjustable. There is "auto" (my favorite because the keyboard lights up when the room goes dark); "normal" (just moderately light); and bright. I can see using bright possibly while on an airplane. I keep it on Auto for now.

The pen/stylus is one of the main things for me personally. Because of my brain stumbles, I have used my Dell touchscreen & pen feature almost as much as I use the keyboard. The Yoga has a nicer pen, in my opinion. It's easier to hold because of the octagonal, pencil-like shape.  It also writes better because the tip is "rubbery" and grips the screen instead of sliding around the way the harder nib on the Dell did (if that makes sense). Another thing it has over the Dell stylus is that it's USB chargeable. I had to buy rechargeable batteries for my Dell pen because I ran them down so often.

The length & shape of Lenovo's 
is better for natural writing

The nib on the Dell is harder and slicker-feeling.
The Lenovo tip has "grip".

The "zero-touch" features are pretty cool. There is face recognition for signing in, of course, but the coolest one is the zero-touch video play. That makes the video pause when you turn away from the screen. My poor mother would have sprinkled holy water on this kind of voodoo!

It's skinny but has a kangaroo pocket in front

Yeah, so there is a lot going on here. I am surprised that Lenovo didn't mention these features more as a selling point. People (me!) love gadgets and this thing is full of them.

I will be back to update this review as I get more accustomed to the laptop. For now, I can say that I am very happy with it - but this is just part of the first day...

Update - next morning:

I am enjoying the speed of the machine. I am able to run more apps and programs without any glitches. It's really nice that, when I open the lid, the machine just powers up and recognizes me. There is almost no time spent waiting for it to boot up and get going so I'm done with reading the depressing news quickly.

The battery could be better. It does charge very quickly but I expected to get more life out of a charge. I haven't timed it but I just notice it runs down pretty quickly when I'm running a lot of stuff. Also, I need to find out if it's just my machine or a normal thing that, when unplugging/plugging the charging cable, the screen goes black for a brief moment. It's very jarring.

I am still adjusting to the smaller keyboard so that's a thing. However, I watched a video last night, and... The display is awesome. Colors just pop, pop, pop! The speakers still amaze me. I did not have to use any sound-blaster extensions. When I played music while doing some paperwork, it was as if I was listening to a really decent stereo. It's even nicer that one of those function keys on the side lets me cycle through sound modes (music, movie, gaming, etc.). 

The last thing I discovered is that I have not discovered everything about this laptop... There are apps and functions that I had no idea existed. I can tweak a lot of things using the Vantage dashboard. I set up some adjustments to the camera and fiddled with some audio and visual functions. 

One thing I need to figure out is using the phone connection app. With my Dell, I could connect my phone and send messages, calls, photos, etc. via the laptop. When I was done, I could easily disconnect the phone from the computer. On this Lenovo, I have the phone connection capability but... I cannot figure out how to disconnect it in between sessions. I ended up removing my phone from the list of devices for now. 

My favorite discovery is the Smart Note app. Because I am extremely forgetful and have trouble focusing, I tend to use a lot of sticky notes - digital or hard copy - to quickly jot down ideas and questions. This is especially important when I am listening to books or doing any kind of study. With my Dell, I used a desktop sticky note app that I really liked. Last night, I found the Smart Note app on the Yoga. 

Smart Note lets me use my laptop's handwriting feature in place of sticky notes. I'm sure that a lot of people use it to illustrate things to share with others. I'm not participating in work meetings or in a work environment. I use mine just as a note-taking app. Here is a screenshot of a test page to show you:

The only scare I had all evening was when, at one point, there was some streaking of images at the bottom of the screen:

I almost stroked out!

I looked up some info online and realized that I just had not finished updating all the drivers. Whew! 

So, yes, I do like love the laptop. It's everything that I expected and a little bit more. I feel like I got my family's money's worth. 

Peace

--Free