A lot of what makes the best laptops for graphic design is similar to the best laptops for Photoshop, but the two most important are blazing performance and and a display that can produce a seemingly endless expanse of colors. These features are crucial when you are, say, designing marketing materials for Academy Award-nominated films like my fiancé used to do — sometimes as the awards aired on live TV.

If one of them won, he'd have to open the correct Photoshop file, edit and arrange the text, convert the file, and send it to the marketing firm so they could post it to social media before the award winner finished their 45-second speech. A slow processor would have been disastrous to that entire process.

But so would have a dull, lifeless display. The colors of those marketing materials often matched the overall color pallet used in the films themselves, so his job also relied on having a display with great color coverage and overall brightness.

Depending on where you spend the most time designing, a laptop with a shorter than average battery life might not be a dealbreaker; some of the best workstations and the best laptops for video editing also make fabulous graphic design machines. But unless you're desk-bound, ideally look for something that lasts at least 11 hours.

This page is regularly updated with our latest reviews to reflect Laptop Mag’s top picks for 2025.

Update Log

6/10/25: Added Apple MacBook Air 15 M4 as best budget option, Asus ProArt PX13 as best 2-in-1; updated the following sections: recently reviewed, FAQs, intro, and how to choose a graphic design laptop.

The Quick List

Best overall

If you're a professional graphic designer who needs a new laptop that won't bottleneck the second you add one too many layers to your latest Photoshop project, we recommend the newest 16-inch Apple MacBook Pro with an M4 Pro processor.

Laptop Mag's managing editor, Sean Riley, describes it best in his review: "It's almost simultaneously the most powerful premium laptop we've reviewed while also offering the second-longest battery of any laptop we've tested." Our benchmark numbers mostly speak for themselves.

With 20 hours and 46 minutes of battery life, it lasts 7 hours longer than the average premium laptop. It also outshines them all in the Geekbench 6 multicore benchmark with a score of 22,822 — over a 100% speed increase compared to the average premium laptop (10,492).

I realize numbers alone might not be convincing enough, so I asked a professional graphic designer (my fiancé) with over a decade of experience creating company logos, website wireframes, and user interfaces for video games how he felt about his new MacBook Pro 16 M4 Pro. He didn't convey his excitement in words at first. He made happy grunting noises and told me it's the best laptop he's owned during his career. (If you are also upgrading from an M2 Max, you might need help picking your jaw up off the floor like he did.)

Everything else about this MacBook Pro is just as good or better than previous generations. It's still expensive, but it's our best overall pick for a reason.

See our full Apple MacBook Pro 16 M4 Pro review.

Best budget

15-inch laptops are increasingly rare these days, but as Laptop Mag managing editor Sean Riley writes in his review, the new Apple MacBook Air 15 M4 "deserves to be in the conversation." He gave it 4.5 stars for a good reason! It offers many of the same benefits for graphic designers as the pricier Pro M4, and its performance and battery life remain unparalleled among many of its budget competitors.

Its CPU multicore performance is nearly 38% faster than the 15-inch Air M3, according to our testing. In our real-world video transcoding test, the Air M4 converted a 4K video to 1080p in just under 5 minutes — 2 minutes faster than the Air M3.

The Air M4's display isn't the most vibrant or color-accurate screen you can get, but it covers a larger portion of the DCI-P3 color gamut compared to last year's Air M3 (83.5% versus 77.8%). For graphic designers on a budget who want the largest laptop display possible, that's less of a compromise between the Air M4 and 14-inch M4 Pro — and you still get Apple's True Tone technology, which adjusts how colors are displayed depending on the lighting.

Its max brightness is 476 nits, just like last year's model, and its battery still lasts 15 hours, too. The Air M4's other features have remained mostly the same or improved, which is especially notable considering Apple dropped the 15-inch Air M4's starting price by $100.

If you currently have an Air M2 or earlier, you're in the best position to get the most out of your money by upgrading.

See our full Apple MacBook Air 15 M4 review.

Best Windows

If you're more comfortable using Windows, the Asus ProArt P16 is a "stellar example of what a creator laptop should be: powerful, reliable, and stylish," as our reviewer, Stevie Bonifield, said. You don't have to pay MacBook Pro prices to get suburb performance in a thin and light chassis with a beautiful design that's just as easy on your eyes as it is on your wallet.

While I'd normally recommend a laptop with a wider color gamut for graphic designers, the ProArt P16 covers a high enough percentage of the DCI-P3 (85.5%). If you want this laptop for professional video editing that could be more of a concern, where the AdobeRGB color gamut is more useful for graphic designers.

Just as important as color accuracy is performance; this laptop's AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 processor, 32GB of RAM, and Nvidia RTX 4070 graphics card powers it to a Geekbench 6 multicore score of 15,286, way beyond the average premium laptop. Commonly used graphic design programs like Adobe Illustrator load in a snap, and the ProArt P16 has the right amount of RAM and CPU cores to prevent the system from getting too bogged down with all the processes Photoshop runs in the background.

That stellar performance played out in Laptop Mag's Handbrake benchmark, transcoding a 4K video to 1080p in 3 minutes and 15 seconds, much faster than the average premium laptop (7:58). (Yes, the ProArt P16 also makes a fantastic video editing laptop.)

Its battery life is a letdown, though. Expect up to 9 hours and 32 minutes if you use this laptop for web browsing, with the display brightness set to 150 nits. If you're manipulating images with dozens of vector masks at full brightness (356 nits), the battery will drain much faster. Just something to be mindful of if your workspace doesn't have a nearby outlet.

See our full Asus ProArt P16 review.

Best 2-in-1

If you start your design process with hand-drawn sketches on a tablet but are tired of importing them to a separate device, the Asus ProArt PX13 is "a top choice for creators looking for a compact laptop," as Laptop Mag contributing writer Stevie Bonifield, sums up nicely.

This laptop's 13.3-inch display offers almost the same amount of space as a standard-sized piece of paper, so it keeps a good balance between portability and having enough room to draw. It weighs 3 pounds, which is heavier than the average 100-page sketchbook, of course, but that's incredibly lightweight for a laptop — especially a 2-in-1.

If you draw directly inside a graphic design program, you won't have to worry about your lines lagging behind your stylus. The ProArt Px13 performed exceptionally well in our PugetBench Photoshop and HandBreak video transcoding tests, meeting or exceeding what its competitors are capable of achieving. Coupled with a discrete RTX 4050 graphics card and 32GB of RAM, you likely won't have to manually adjust the memory allocation to your graphic design program.

Graphic designers who work with the DCI-P3 color gamut might find the display's coverage on the low side with 80% of that color space in our testing. While this is below the recommended 85% minimum, it's important to note that OLED displays typically underperform on this test, so the true number is almost certainly above 85%.

What might be a concern for anyone considering this laptop is its battery life: 9 hours and 49 minutes. That's not terrible for a creator laptop, but it's less than the 11-hour minimum we recommend.

See our full Asus ProArt PX13 review.

Best gaming

If your graphic design work takes you into the realm of video game UI (like my fiancé's did for a period of time), you most likely will need a gaming laptop — one with "powerful performance, smooth graphics," and a "stunning display," as our staff writer, Madeline Ricchiuto said in her review of the Legion Pro 7i Gen 9.

Those are its stand-out features, especially at a price compared to some competing gaming laptops that are less powerful. For under $2,500 (on sale), you get an Intel Core i9-14900HX processor and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 GPU with 12GB of VRAM. Combined with 32GB of system memory, this laptop spiked into the high-90s and low-100s in our gaming benchmarks.

Its display is also suitable for UI design work, averaging 108.7% of the DCI-P3 color gamut — way beyond what most graphic designers probably would need. It also gets super bright, averaging 456 max nits in Laptop Mag's testing. It does only have a 1600p native resolution, but that may or may not be a deal breaker based on the kind of work you primarily do on your laptop.

Just keep in mind that if you go with this laptop, it's chunky, 1.01 inches thick, and weighs 5.7 pounds — definitely a desktop replacement. You can technically carry it around if you want to, but after a week (at most) of doing that, I can imagine the process becoming a hassle.

See our full Lenovo Legion Pro 7i Gen 9 review.

Benchmark comparisons

Recently reviewed

Not every laptop can make our best laptops for graphic design page. (We wouldn't be doing you that much good if that were the case!) We review new laptops every week and over 100 laptops yearly, so here's a look at our most recently reviewed laptops that didn't make this page either due to a fault, battery life, performance, or something else.

How to choose a laptop for graphic design

CPU: The faster your processor, the faster certain features will work in programs like Illustrator and Photoshop. (Not to mention opening the program itself!) Look for a laptop with either an Intel Core Ultra 200 series, AMD Ryzen AI 300 series, or Apple M4 CPU if you want your workflow to move as efficiently as possible.

GPU: If you work primarily work with static graphics, you might be able to do your work just fine on a laptop with integrated graphics. But if you work with motion graphics or UI, you might use a lot of intricate filters, 3D effects, generative AI, or similar resource-heavy tools.

For those of you in the latter camp, we recommend a laptop with either an RTX 40- or 50-series discrete graphics card — especially if you want to take advantage of any hardware acceleration features that your graphic design program offers.

RAM: If you're looking at a laptop with a discrete GPU, it should also have a bare minimum of 16GB. Though in our experience, 32GB (or more) is the ideal for professionals. It ensures the program won't lag if certain features like drawing and editing in real-time or animated zoom are active.

Storage: Our recommended minimum is 512GB, though if you regularly work with massive vector or other types of files, definitely go for at least 1TB.

Display: Most laptops span 95% or higher of the sRGB or AdobeRGB color gamut, but if DCI-P3 is more important to you, look for a display with at least 85% coverage. Color accuracy is also important; a laptop with a display Delta E (dE) level of 2 or less produces the most true-to-life colors.

Portability: Not all great graphic design laptops are thin and light. If you're constantly working between your home, the office, planes, or trains, look for a laptop that weighs 3 pounds or less and is around half an inch in height. Those will be less of a hassle to put in and remove from your bag several times a day.

FAQs

Q: Are gaming laptops good for graphic design?

A: Yes! Any laptop with a discrete graphics card lets you take advantage of Hardware Acceleration, a common feature in popular image and video editing programs. Instead of relying on the CPU and RAM to do all the work, Hardware Acceleration uses the GPU to perform the same tasks much faster.

Gaming laptops' GPUs also work with Nvidia Studio Drivers, which provide more stability and reliability for content creation. Workstations usually come with Nvidia's RTX A-series or Ada Generation graphics cards, which are designed specfically for professional workstations and have better data integrity and stability. (They're more expensive, too!)

Q: What GPU should I get for graphic design?

A: It depends! If you want high frame rates and stunning graphics, then an RTX 5080 or RTX 5090 are your best bet. Those graphics cards make the most out of high refresh rates and OLED displays. If you are willing to compromise on one or the other, look for gaming laptops with an RTX 5070, or RTX 4090 or lower.

Nvidia's DLSS Multi Frame Generation is only supported on 50-series cards, but all other DLSS technologies are accessible on both the RTX 50-and 40-series.

Q: Do I need a discrete GPU for graphic design?

A. Not necessarily! In general, graphic design leans heavily on the processor, so regardless if you get a MacBook, Windows, or Windows on ARM laptop, you'll be in fine shape.

MacBooks have been the de-facto graphic design machine for a long time. (My fiancé, who is a professional graphic designer, won't use any thing else.) But Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Elite chips can process the same, common design tasks just as efficiently.

Q: How much RAM do I need for graphic design?

A: It depends! With a discrete GPU (which has its own on-board video RAM) and Hardware Acceleration, you can get away with at least 16GB if you're not working on anything resource-intensive. But if you're a professional graphic designer, we recommend a minimum of 24GB — though if you have the budget for 32GB or more, that would be ideal.

If the graphic design laptop you have your eye on has unified memory (RAM that is built into the CPU itself), you probably want to configure it with at least 32GB of RAM. The RAM in these laptops is shared between the CPU and integrated graphics; if you don't have enough total RAM, then the integrated graphics might not have enough resources to load or convert large design files.

Q: Is a laptop that's good for graphic design also good for video editing?

A: Most laptops that are good for graphic design will also work for video editing, but you'll also want to be aware of the audio quality of a laptop when choosing a video editing machine. So not all the laptops on this list will be ideal for editing video or audio files.

Video editing can often demand more RAM and GPU resources than photo editing, so you may want to opt for a laptop with a discrete GPU if video editing is going to be a large part of your workflow.

Q: Why don't we recommend a Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite laptop for graphic design?

A: On the hardware-side, a Snapdragon X Elite laptop is an excellent machine for running editing programs like Photoshop — but few native Windows on Arm versions of Adobe programs exist overall.

Currently, only Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Photoshop Lightroom can run natively on Snapdragon X Elite laptops. This might not be an issue if you only use Photoshop, but if you also use Adobe InDesign or Illustrator, those can only run via emulation.

It's a similar concept to running a virtual version of Windows 95 on a Windows 11 PC, but the computer will use more resources running both the emulator and program at the same time, which could slow down various editing tasks. If you don't have enough available RAM or video RAM, the entire program could crash.

How we test graphic design laptops

We put each laptop through extensive benchmark testing — both synthetic and real-world — before they end up in the hands of our reviewers. We evaluate every aspect of the laptop, but to find the best laptops for graphic design, we pay extra close attention to performance, graphics, and the display.

Performance testing includes Geekbench 6, which evaluates the laptop’s ability to handle a variety of different tasks and continue running smoothly. For laptops with discrete graphics cards, we use the 3DMark Fire Strike benchmark, and for integrated graphics we use 3DMark Night Raid.

To determine real-world performance, we convert a 4K video to 1080p resolution and duplicate a 25GB file. For gaming performance on integrated graphics, we use Cid Meier's Civilization V: Gathering Storm benchmark at 1080p resolution and Medium graphics.

For discrete graphics, we run benchmarks in Red Dead Redemption 2, Assassin's Creed Mirage, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Borderlands 3, Far Cry 6 (and more) in full-screen mode with vertical sync disabled at 1080p and the laptop's native resolution.

We use a Klein K10 colorimeter in our display testing to measure overall brightness, as determine the DCI-P3 and AdobeRGB color gamut color accuracy.

For our battery test, we continuously web surfing over WiFi at 150 nits of brightness. For MacBooks and premium Windows 11 laptops, a runtime of over 10 hours is considered a good result, whereas gaming laptops and workstations that can stay powered longer than 5 hours deserve praise.

We also run heat tests by playing a 15-minute full-screen video (or playing a video game) and measuring temperatures in different areas of the laptop.

We complement these tests with extensive hands-on testing from our reviewers, who critique everything from the laptop's materials to the feel of its touchpad.

See this page on How We Test Laptops for more details on our benchmarking procedures.

Why trust Laptop Mag

Laptop Mag reviews over a hundred different laptops every year, from paperweight ultralights to everyday workhorses to lumbering gaming notebooks that scorch the frame rates of even the hottest AAA games. We're not just experts in the laptop field, as we go one step further by meticulously testing smartphones, tablets, headphones, PC accessories, software, and even the latest in gaming.

We are 100% independent and have decades of experience to help you buy with confidence. In fact, Laptop Mag has been testing and reviewing products for three decades, and we continue to deliver trustworthy reviews you can rely on.

Our experienced team of writers and editors scour the available information about the laptop and put it through its paces to determine which is best for you. But before they start, the testing team subjects each system to a rigorous regimen of synthetic and real-world tests to see how a system handles the type of work and games you’re most likely to throw at it.

Our editorial trustworthiness is enforced by one of the world's largest technology publishers, Future Publishing. As a company, we have unrivaled experience across every tech sector — and we're the group's specialist for all things mobile tech.

The best touchscreen laptops cover a wide spectrum of performance powerhouses, budget-minded stalwarts, entertainment wonders, and versatile 2-in-1s. Toss in a long battery life, and it's no wonder they're a great value for anyone who likes navigating with a screen instead of a touchpad — and you'll often find them among Laptop Mag's best 2-in-1 laptops and best laptops overall, too.

Our new favorite touchscreen laptop is the 2-in-1 Asus Vivobook 16 Flip. With commendable speed, battery life, and a vibrant 16-inch OLED panel, it's a strong value. If you need something cheaper, the Dell Inspiron 14 Plus offers incredible multitasking performance and over 18 hours of battery life for under $1,000. If you want the best, thinnest, and lightest touchscreen laptop available, check out the Asus Zenbook S 14.

If you're not sure you'll need a touchscreen, check out our best laptops page, which includes non-touch models. If you are looking for a touchscreen to do specific creative work, the best laptops for Photoshop or the best laptops for graphic design include touchscreen laptops geared for those specific tasks. If you want to save money, our curated selection of the best laptop deals is an excellent, up-to-date resource.

This page is constantly updated based on our latest reviews to reflect Laptop Mag's current picks for the best touchscreen laptops in 2025.

The Quick List

Best overall

2-in-1 laptops are designed for a wide range of situations, and as Laptop Mag staff writer Madeline Ricchiuto mentions in her review of the Asus Vivobook 16 Flip, we "tend to be picky about our 2-in-1s." But the Flip offers a “compelling combination” of solid performance, power efficiency, a stunning OLED display, and smooth iGPU gaming performance — making it the best touchscreen laptop on the market.

Its speedy Intel Core Ultra 7 258V processor and 32GB of RAM offer ample multitasking power, but the laptop's battery life doesn't suffer for all the performance it cranks out. In our battery rundown test, it surfed the web for nearly 14 hours before it needed a charge — 3 hours longer than our previous pick, the HP Spectre x360 16. And in our Handbrake transcoding test, it converted a 4K video to 1080p in under 8 minutes. That's not the fastest we've ever seen, but for a 2-in-1 laptop that's not primarily designed to be a video editing or graphic design laptop, that's good!

The Flip doesn't have the brightest OLED display Laptop Mag has ever tested, but a max of 356 nits of brightness is enough to ward off most glare. (Try to angle the screen away from any harsh overhead lighting, though.) A good thing, too, since the display produces incredibly vibrant colors and deep contrasts. It covers 84.4% of the DCI-P3 color gamut, which is much more than most competing laptops.

Another of the Asus Vivobook 16 Flip's great features: gaming. Its integrated graphics make most games playable (at least 30 fps) on Medium graphics at 1080p — even Baldur’s Gate III.

See our full Asus Vivobook 16 Flip review.

Best budget

The Dell Inspiron 14 Plus (7441) is part of the first wave of Copilot+ PCs to feature a Qualcomm Snapdragon X processor — and for a budget touchscreen laptop we've seen go on sale for less than $1,000, it's impressive: great performance, great heat management, excellent battery life, and even a solid webcam. Laptop Mag's editor, Rami Tabari, sums it up best in his review: "If your focus is affordability and incredible battery life, the Dell Inspiron 14 Plus is the one to buy."

It has one of the slower Snapdragon X processors, but it sure doesn't feel like it. This laptop flew past the average premium machine in our Geekbench 6.3 overall performance test, 13,281 to 9,726, respectively. It also has one of the longest battery lives we've seen in any laptop: 18 hours and 20 minutes, which blows past the average premium laptop by almost seven hours.

There's more: it has a surprisingly good 1080p webcam that clearly captures fine details like strands of hair, and the contrast doesn't blow out when there's too much light. You can safely keep this Inspiron on your laptop, too, whether you're writing a paper for a history class or streaming the latest gaming news on YouTube.

But here's the sacrifice: this laptop's display color. It's dull, covering only 69.1% of the DCI-P3 color gamut. (The average premium laptop covers 88.7%.) Brightness is its redeeming quality: a max of 470 nits.

See our full Dell Inspiron 14 Plus review.

Best Chromebook

I definitely agree with our reviewer, Stevie Bonifield, in that the Acer Chromebook Plus Spin 714 is "ideal for students or professionals who mainly work through web browsing."

Typing with its keyboard feels comfortable and crisp. Movie dialogue comes through its speakers loud and clear. It can transform into a tablet, which makes it easier to use certain Google Docs features like handwritten annotations. And as an added bonus, buyers get a free, 1-year subscription (normally $20 per month) to Gemini Advanced, Google's suite of AI tools like Deep Research.

Its Intel Core Ultra processor handles multiple open Chrome tabs, video streaming, and other basic tasks with legerity. In the Geekbench overall performance test, the Spin performed admirably with a score of 6,335, making it 8% faster than the average Chromebook (5,246) and in-line with our real-world experience.

While we wish its battery life was longer, it can still last through a typical day at work or school — but that's dependent on how bright you set the display and how often you'd use this Chromebook throughout the day.

For our battery run down test, we set the display to 150 nits of brightness and have the laptop continuously cycle through a series of web pages until the battery runs out of power. The Spin made it 9 hours and 30 minutes before powering down.

If you have the display set to its maximum brightness of 355 nits, that number can be shorter. Still, that number is higher than some Chromebooks we've tested in the past.

See our full Acer Chromebook Plus Spin 714 review.

Best OLED

The Lenovo Yoga 9i 2-in-1 Aura Edition is another convertible laptop that passed the Laptop Mag "taste-test." Our reviews editor, Rami Tabari, called it a "great all-in-one package" that's like having an LG OLED TV in your lap. Featuring an alluring OLED display, boomin' audio, a clicky keyboard, and long battery life packed into a lightweight chassis, it has almost everything an ideal laptop should have.

It's our best OLED pick for a reason: the incredibly color-accurate display. The Yoga 9i 2-in-1 Aura Edition covers an outstanding 149.2% of the DCI-P3 color gamut and had Tabari "drooling over the colors." (I would too.) With over 400 nits of max brightness to push through harsh glare, it's not only great for watching movies, but also for video editing, graphic design, and drawing.

However, its processing performance makes it a better portable movie theater than a device for editing them (at least professionally). The Intel Core Ultra 7 258V isn't a slow-poke, but some of this laptop's biggest competitors offer comparable features with faster performance at a lower price.

The Yoga 9i 2-in-1 Aura Edition falls behind in raw multicore performance by as little as 1% or as much as 29%. However, when it comes to real-world tasks like video transcoding, this laptop fares better. In our Handbrake test, it took almost 6 and-a-half minutes to convert a 4K video to 1080p.

If you want to use it as a drawing tablet, this laptop is thankfully cool enough to put in your lap. Its hottest point, between the G and H keys, didn't exceed 88.3 degrees during testing — well below our 95-degree comfort threshold.

See our full Lenovo Yoga 9i 2-in-1 Aura Edition review.

Best ultraportable

As Laptop Mag's Madeline Ricchiuto said in her review of the Asus Zenbook S 14: "This is an impressive launch laptop for Intel Lunar Lake and a win for Asus." Nearly everything about it — its design, portability, performance, battery life, and OLED screen — makes it the best-balanced, thin and light laptop in its class.

It's OLED display and battery life are this laptop's most impressive features. The glossy, 3K display produces rich and accurate colors. Its peak brightness (342 nits), though dimmer than some of its competitors, is still bright enough to ward off the harsh glare of fluorescent office lighting. The 3K display also helps conserves power, while still looking as crisp and clear as 4K; the Zenbook S 14 lasted just under 14 hours in our web surfing battery test.

While that's not as long as some of its competitors, it's impressive how Asus fit a large, 72Wh battery inside the laptop's incredibly thin chassis. That definitely has a hand in powering this laptop past the 10-hour mark.

It handles dozens of open browser tabs and simultaneously running apps without a hitch, too. On the Geekbench 6 cross-platform CPU benchmark, it's evenly matched in single-core performance with the the Asus Zenbook S 16 (AMD Ryzen AI), 2,751 to 2,765, respectively. Just a 0.5% difference.

Multicore performance is a different story, though. It trails behind the Asus Zenbook S 16 (13,282) by 16% and the Asus Zenbook 14 OLED (12,707) by 13%. That's disappointing to see, especially compared to Intel's last-gen Meteor Lake chip.

But the Zenbook S 14 makes up for that with its quick SSD, taking just 17.8 seconds to complete our 25GB File Copy test at a transfer rate of 1,513 MBps.

See our full Asus Zenbook S 14 (UX5406) review.

Best business

A good business laptop should have a powerful CPU, a snappy keyboard, and an office-appropriate chassis. But a great one does all that and more, like the Lenovo ThinkBook 13x G4. Our reviewer, Stevie Bonifield, writes that it has "surprising strengths" for a business laptop, including "seriously impressive speakers." It's the kind of laptop that can be an "an around-the-clock companion."

At 0.5 inches thick and 2.7 pounds, this ThinkBook is as thin and as light as other laptops on this list. It's easy to travel with, whether flying to a conference or walking down the hall to the conference room (or, for you remote workers, to your favorite coffee shop). Its two-toned, silver-gray chassis is business-appropriate without being business-boring. It also has a snappy keyboard with a decent amount of tactile feedback, yet it stays pretty quiet. (I've tested a lot of Lenovo laptops over the years, and I like their keyboard for the same reasons.)

Stevie praises how well Billie Eilish’s “Ocean Eyes” sounded through the ThinkBook's speakers; the bass was smooth, balanced with the highs in a way that created a surround-sound effect.

While this laptop's CPU isn't the most performative compared to some of its closest competition, it still handles numerous open browser tabs with two or three apps open at once just fine. Geekbench 6 benchmark tests revealed a multicore score of 11,058, which is lower than some of its director competitors. But most people will not notice a difference in basic productivity tasks.

Unlike CPU performance, though, battery life is definitely more noticeable, and we wish this laptop lasted longer than 8 hours and 39 minutes. By comparison, every laptop on this list has much more battery life, between two hours and ten hours more.

But if your job doesn't constantly keep you glued to your laptop, or you rarely ever work away from a desk (maybe you're a teacher!), its lower-than-average battery life shouldn't be a huge concern.

See our full Lenovo ThinkBook 13x G4 review.

Benchmark comparisons

Recently Reviewed

Not every laptop can make the best touchscreen laptop page. (You'd be scrolling for days if we included them all!) We review new laptops every week and over 100 laptops yearly, so here's a look at our most recently reviewed laptops that didn't make this page either due to a fault, price, battery life, display brightness, or something else.

How to find your perfect touchscreen laptop

Whether you're looking for a clamshell or a 2-in-1, there are a few key things to keep in mind before you buy a touchscreen laptop.

Display: You need something bright and sharp

Touchscreen laptops aren't exclusively reserved for artists and designers but many use them. (Some even come with a stylus.) If you're looking for your next digital sketchbook or canvas, you absolutely need a display that can accommodate your creative endeavors. If it's too dim or can't accurately present color, you most likely will be disappointed.

OLED displays generally produce the richest colors with the widest color gamuts, but there are also good IPS displays out there. 80% coverage of the DCI-P3 color gamut should be your minimum if you're an artist, but you'll be better off the closer you get to 100% (or higher in some cases).

We also recommend getting a laptop with a high resolution display since they present sharper images. If you're an artist or designer who creates highly detailed work, a 2K display or higher will let you get into the nitty gritty.

Design: Sturdy portability is a necessity

Flexibility is vital, especially for 2-in-1 laptops. Not only do its hinges need to support up to 360-degree angles, but trying to draw or tapping on a screen that constantly bounces becomes a headache real quick. Creaky hinges and a lid that feels like it'll snap off every time you lift it are an absolute no.

The best touchscreen laptops support themselves in any position and require conscious force to open and close the lid. Laptops with an aluminum chassis are usually the sturdiest, but you'll want to read our reviews and see which ones feel the best in practice.

We also recommend getting a light laptop, anything around four pounds. Depending on the size, some can be a little heavier or lighter, though.

Battery life: The longer the better

Battery life is another key component of any good laptop. If you travel a lot, walk back and forth across campus multiple times a day, or draw in the park against your favorite tree for hours on end, don't count on there being an outlet! Consider a laptop with at least ten hours of battery life, which should get you through most days.

FAQs

Q: Is there an Apple touchscreen laptop?

A: No, currently, no Apple touchscreen laptop is produced by the company. The closest you can get in 2025 is purchasing an iPad Pro 13-inch M4 with an Apple Magic for iPad Pro 13-inch. This combination gives you a powerful detachable 2-in-1 laptop experience, but the big trade-off is that you are running iPadOS rather than macOS. Depending on your usage and software needs, that may be a dealbreaker for you.

As for whether there will ever be an Apple touchscreen laptop, there have been rumors of a foldable MacBook and patents for touchscreen MacBook designs filed by Apple, but it is unclear if any of these designs will ever come to market.

Q: Are there touchscreen gaming laptops?

A: While touchscreen gaming laptops are uncommon, they do exist. The best touchscreen laptop for gaming in 2025 is the Asus ROG Flow Z13 (2025). This detachable 2-in-1 gaming laptop offers a bright and vivid touchscreen display and remarkable performance.

For gamers, the biggest caveat with this laptop is that it only includes integrated graphics, and while our reviewer says they are, "The most powerful integrated graphics I've ever tested," they still can't compare to a dedicated high-end GPU. Asus does have a solution for that, you need to purchase the Asus ROG XG Mobile, an external GPU that plugs into the Z Flow 13 via Thunderbolt 5 and supercharges it with up to an RTX 5090 laptop GPU.

Q: I already have a stylus; will it work with one of these laptops?

A. That depends! Not all touchscreens have stylus support. The ones that do might not support the same type of pens. We recommend checking the manufacturer's website of both the laptop and stylus to be absolutely sure.

This will help you determine what pen protocols the stylus and laptop support. The two main ones are Microsoft Pen Protocol (MPP) and Wacom AES. They're not intercompatible, but some pens support both, while others only support one.

How we test touchscreen laptops

We put each touchscreen laptop through extensive benchmark testing—both synthetic and real-world—before we send it to our reviewers. We evaluate each aspect of the laptop, including its performance, battery life, display, speakers, and heat management.

For synthetic performance, we run each laptop through a gauntlet of benchmarks, including Geekbench 6 and 3DMark professional graphics tests. On Chromebooks, we also use Geekbench 6 in addition to JetStream 2, WebXPRT 4, and CrXPRT 2 to determine their CPU and web performance.

To measure real-world performance on laptops, we: convert a 4K video to 1080p resolution; duplicate a 25GB multimedia file; and run the Sid Meier's Civilization 6 Gathering Storm benchmark with medium settings at 1080p resolution to test graphics.

On both laptops and Chromebooks, we use a Klein K10 colorimeter to measure display brightness and DCI-P3 color gamut. To measure heat output, we play a 15-minute, full-screen video and then measure the surface temperature of different areas on the laptop.

For battery tests, we set the display to 150 nits of brightness and then the laptop navigates a controlled group of web pages with text, images, and videos.

Once a laptop is through our initial lab tests, our expert reviewers take over, using it extensively in their daily work for approximately a week. This hands-on, real-world approach, coupled with our lab data, enables Laptop to deliver a detailed and accurate review of every laptop.

See this page on How We Test Laptops for more details on our benchmarking procedures.

Why Trust Laptop Mag

Laptop Mag reviews over one hundred different laptops yearly, from paperweight ultralights to everyday workhorses to lumbering gaming notebooks that scorch the frame rates of even the hottest AAA games. We're not just experts in the laptop field, as we go one step further by meticulously testing smartphones, tablets, headphones, PC accessories, software, and even the latest in gaming.

We are 100 percent independent and have decades of experience to help you buy with confidence. In fact, Laptop Mag has been testing and reviewing products for three decades and continues to deliver trustworthy reviews you can rely on.

Our experienced team of writers and editors scour the available information about the laptop and put it through its paces to determine which is best for you. But before they start, the testing team subjects each system to a rigorous regimen of synthetic and real-world tests to see how a system handles the type of work and games you’re most likely to throw at it.

One of the world's largest technology publishers, Future Publishing, enforces our editorial trustworthiness. As a company, we have unrivaled experience across every tech sector — and we're the group's specialist for all things mobile tech.

The best 2-in-1 laptops in 2025 offer a versatile experience: They can flip between a traditional laptop layout, a tablet, and anything in between using a 360-degree hinge. For those who constantly change their environments, this form factor is perfect.

After over five years of reviewing laptops, I've tested my fair share of 2-in-1 laptops, so I know what boxes a laptop needs to tick to earn a spot as one of the best. Plus, I have a personal love for convertible laptops. My first work laptop was the convertible Lenovo Flex 5, and the Lenovo Yoga 9i has been my daily driver for the last three years.

If you've decided a 2-in-1 laptop is the best option for you, you're likely looking for a laptop that can move with you throughout the day. Use it in traditional laptop mode to get your work done, flip it into tablet mode for drawing or graphic design tasks, and tent mode is perfect to end the night watching your favorite TV show or movie.

Every convertible laptop I've picked for this list is well-constructed, with sturdy hinges that'll stand up to daily rotation. Beyond great build quality, the best 2-in-1 laptops feature a battery that'll last all day, solid multi-tasking performance, and a gorgeous display. These 2-in-1 laptops are among the best laptops, period.

No matter what you're searching for in a 2-in-1 laptop, we have an option that'll fit the bill.

Update log

5/22/2025: Swapped the Lenovo Yoga 9i 2-in-1 Aura Edition in for the Lenovo Yoga Book 9i as the best graphic design option and updated benchmark comparisons.

The Quick List

The best 2-in-1 laptops in 2025

Through extensive hands-on testing and a series of thorough benchmarks, we decided that the products below are indeed the best 2-in-1 laptops of 2025.

Best 2-in-1 overall

The Asus Vivobook 16 Flip is a “compelling combination” of specs and features, according to Laptop Mag’s Madeline Ricchiuto, making it our favorite 2-in-1 laptop to recommend for most people.

Inside, you’ll find an Intel Core Ultra 7 258V processor leading the pack, accompanied by 32GB of RAM, 1TB of SSD storage, and integrated Intel Arc 140V graphics. For supporting multiple RAM-hungry browser tabs and even Photoshop and low-intensity games, this configuration is more than equipped.

For concrete proof of this convertible laptop’s performance abilities, let’s take a look at a few benchmarks. In our testing, the Vivobook 16 Flip delivered a great Geekbench 6 multi-core score of 10,987, completed the Handbrake conversion test in 7 minutes and 41 seconds, and maxed out at 85.8 degrees Fahrenheit, well below our comfort threshold of 95 degrees.

Despite impressive performance, this laptop promises healthy battery life. In our battery test, which involves continuous web surfing at 150 nits brightness, the Vivobook 16 Flip lasted a whopping 13 hours and 47 minutes, winning out easily over our previous overall pick: the HP Spectre x360 16 (11.07). That’s more than enough for a full work day, followed by a few hours of streaming or internet shopping.

And of course, for a 2-in-1 laptop, a stunning display is paramount — and this laptop doesn’t disappoint. The Vivobook 16 Flip sports a 16-inch, 2880 x 1800, OLED display with a smooth 120Hz refresh rate. Whether you’re drawing, watching a TV show, or organizing your calendar, this laptop’s display will deliver vibrant colors and rich contrast.

As a bonus, you can even get some solid gaming performance out of this laptop. In our review, it handled Baldur’s Gate III at Medium, 1080p settings incredibly well, with stable frame rates and lush visuals. It’s not going to earn a spot as one of the best gaming laptops any time soon, but it’s an impressive feat for a convertible laptop.

See our full Asus Vivobook 16 Flip (TP3607) review.

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Best budget

The Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i Chromebook Plus is a 2-in-1 Chromebook that'll save you a little more than a shiny penny and still provide a solid overall experience. It's packed with an Intel Core i3-1315U processor, 8GB of RAM, 128GB of eMMC storage, and a 14-inch, 1920 x 1080 touchscreen display.

Mark Anthony Ramirez said, "The Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i takes full advantage of Google's AI-infused Chrome OS and delivers potent performance that will impress you," in our review of the Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i Chromebook Plus.

For its performance, we tested it against the Geekbench 6 overall performance test where the IdeaPad Flex 5i scored 5,384, sliding past the 5,259 Chromebook average at the time. That's decent enough to get you through most less-taxing tasks. And thanks to the Chromebook's relatively light operating system, it won't suffer the same slowdowns as a Windows laptop.

The IdeaPad Flex 5i is also quite portable, measuring 12.4 x 9.0 x 0.8 inches and weighing 3.57 pounds. It lands somewhere between the Acer Chromebook Spin 714 (3.02 pounds) and the Acer Chromebook Plus 515 (3.7 pounds). It also looks nice, featuring an aluminum storm grey colored lid — that's not common for a cheap laptop.

Adding to that portability is its battery life. It lasted 9 hours and 43 minutes on the Laptop Mag battery test, which consists of continuous web surfing over Wi-Fi at 150 nits. It's a bit shorter than the Chromebook average at the time (9:50). However, you'll get more than a workday or school day's worth of life out of this laptop. Close to 10 hours is still solid, especially for a laptop this affothat is rdable.

Unfortunately, you'll need to sacrifice the display. The Flex 5i's 14-inch, 1080p display covered a dismal 46.5% of the DCI-P3 color gamut and produced only 306 nits of brightness. This isn't too far from what we expect from a laptop at this price point. Still, both scores landed well below the Chromebook average at the time.

Despite that, the Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i Chromebook Plus is an excellent 2-in-1 laptop if you are on a budget.

See our full Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i Chromebook Plus review.

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Best for graphic design

With its gorgeous OLED display, good performance, and a plethora of other premium features, the Lenovo Yoga 9i 2-in-1 Aura Edition is one of the best laptops for graphic design you’ll find with a nifty convertible form factor. Though it's not a cheap 2-in-1 rig at $1,749 full price, you get a lot of value in exchange.

In our review of the Lenovo Yoga 9i 2-in-1 Aura Edition, Rami Tabari notes, “Between its battery life and punchy keyboard, and its OLED display and strong speakers, this thing is sure to be one of the best laptops I review this year.”

This laptop’s best-selling feature is, without question, its 14-inch, 2880 x 1800-pixel OLED display with a smooth 120Hz refresh rate. We were “drooling over the colors” in testing, which makes total sense, seeing as the laptop covered an impressive 149.2% of the DCI-P3 color gamut. Then, the display also clocked 421 nits brightness, plenty for working indoors or in direct sunlight.

On top of its enticing display, the Yoga 9i 2-in-1 Aura Edition also packs one of Lenovo’s famously clicky, satisfying keyboards, a well-balanced soundbar that lives between the laptop’s hinges and produces stellar audio, and an all-aluminum chassis that’s cool to the touch and rounds out the premium experience.

The only feature that falters slightly is performance, notching a Geekbench 6 score of just 11,059. For everyday tasks, this is perfectly fine. However, if you plan on tackling more intense projects, like video editing, it may struggle to keep up with you. The Yoga 9i 2-in-1 Aura Edition also lacks an HDMI port and more than one USB-A port, but this is easily remedied by adding one of the best USB-C hubs to your setup.

In exchange for average performance, this laptop is able to achieve a full workday of battery life and then some. In the Laptop Mag battery life test, which involves continuous web surfing over Wi-Fi at 150 nits brightness, this laptop held on for 12 hours and 47 minutes. It’s not going to beat the laptops with the best battery life, but it’s impressive nonetheless, considering the laptop’s power-hungry OLED display and its thin-and-light chassis.

See our full Lenovo Yoga 9i 2-in-1 Aura Edition review.

Best foldable

The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Fold model we reviewed is built with an Intel Core i7-1260U, 32GB of RAM, 1TB of SSD storage, and a 16.3-inch OLED display at 2560 x 2024-pixel resolution. Of course, the main selling point of this device is that it's foldable. If you're unsure what that means, it essentially has the ability to act as a laptop with a keyboard magnetically attached to the deck, and if you remove the keyboard, you can extend it out into a single, full-sized tablet.

Madeline Ricchiuto said, "As a business machine, the ThinkPad X1 Fold 16 is perhaps positioned better than its competitors because its flexibility matches the current hybrid work environment better than a standard laptop might," in our review of the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Fold.

This means most people aren't going to need this laptop, but for those that do, our reviewer claimed that it's arguably the best foldable laptop available right now. It's shockingly thin and light, coming in at just 2.9 pounds in tablet mode and 4.3-pounds with the keyboard and stand attached.

Its design allows for a compelling all-in-one use case. You can turn the laptop into a makeshift monitor and then detach the keyboard to emulate a quick desktop setup in no time at all. Considering it's only 4.3 pounds, it can easily fit most bags and is perfect for on-the-go workers who prefer larger space for their projects.

It's important to keep in mind, however, that its Intel Core i7-1260U is a couple of generations old now, so don't expect the latest and greatest processing speeds. On the Geekbench 6 overall performance test, its multi-core score of 7,953 is decent but notably slower than other laptops on this list, like the Yoga 9i's 9,954.

Its battery life also leaves a bit to be desired, coming in at 8 hours and 44 minutes in laptop mode and 7 hours and 22 minutes in tablet mode. Regardless, it has more than enough success in its execution to make for a great foldable.

See our full Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Fold 16 Gen 1 review.

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Best for travel

What makes a laptop great for travel is its physical portability. The LG Gram Pro 16 2-in-1 (16T90SP) is the lightest 2-in-1 16-inch laptop ever. The Gram Pro 16 comes in at 14.1 x 10 x 0.51 inches and 3.08 pounds, which is tiny compared with the HP Spectre x360 16 (2024) (4.3 pounds, 14.1 x 9.7 x 0.8 inches) and the Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 9 (4.7 pounds, 14.3 x 10 x 0.7 inches).

Sean Riley said, "It can rattle around in your laptop bag on a trip or commute and come out unscathed," in our review of the LG Gram Pro 16 2-in-1.

Adding to its portability is its battery life. The Gram Pro lasted 10 hours and 41 minutes on the Laptop Mag battery test, which involves continuous web surfing over Wi-Fi at 150 nits. That puts it in a tightly competitive spot with the HP Spectre (10:45), and it crushes the Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i (9:51). So not only is the Gram slim and light, but it'll also survive longer than your average workday.

The Gram Pro is built with an Intel Core Ultra 7 155H processor, 32GB of RAM, and 1TB of SSD storage. On the Geekbench 6.3 overall performance test, the LG Gram Pro soared over the category average, which was a couple of thousand points lower at the time. It also hovered around the HP Spectre (12,370) and Yoga Pro 9i (12,141).

Its 16-inch, 2880 x 1800 Touch OLED display is absolutely stunning to behold, managing an 133.5% coverage of the DCI-P3 color gamut and a brightness of 392 nits. Its combination of brightness, color, and high resolution should be fantastic for artists who need to go in-depth with accuracy.

The keyboard is pleasantly bouncy despite its low key travel. The touchpad is also quite responsive. Unfortunately, the touchpad is quite mushy, so if you choose the Gram Pro 16, you might want to check out the best wireless mouse page.

Ports are also very important on a laptop for travel. The last thing you want is to be carrying a dongle or worse yet, forgetting to pack it, so make sure these ports suit your needs. The LG Gram Pro comes with two USB Type-C ports, an HDMI 2.1 port, two USB Type-A ports, and a headphone jack. Unfortunately, if you need an SD or microSD card slot, you'll need a USB Type-C hub.

See our LG Gram Pro 16 2-in-1 (16T90SP) review.

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Best business

The MSI Summit 13 AI+ Evo A2VM is among the first batch of laptops that have earned our prestigious Editor's Choice badge in 2025, and it has shot its way up to the top as one of the best business laptops we've tested.

The MSI Summit 13 AI+ Evo is built with an Intel Core Ultra 7 258V processor, Intel Arc 140V integrated graphics, 32GB of RAM, 2TB of SSD storage, and a 60Hz, 1,920 x 1,200-pixel resolution IPS touchscreen. Even while its display may seem underpowered on paper, it boasts solid color depth and decent brightness.

The MSI Summit scored 10,895 on the Geekbench 6 overall performance test, which is pretty solid, but you can definitely find better performance in competitors like the Asus Zenbook S 16 (13,282) or HP EliteBook Ultra G1q (12,717)

Its display performed solidly in our color tests, reproducing 85% of the DCI-P3 color gamut, which is about better than what we'd expect out of a business laptop. The MSI Summit was similarly decent in our brightness tests, as it managed an average of 366 nits, which is fine enough for most. We do think it might be a bit too dim for usage while outdoors, especially if it's a sunny day, but it will be more than enough for a majority of indoor settings.

Unfortunately, we were pretty let down by its speaker system, as it's underwhelming in both volume and quality, delivering audio that delivers an uneven sound.

The best part of the MSI Summit is its staggering battery life, lasting 16 hours and 52 minutes in Laptop Mag's test which involves continuous web browsing over wifi at 150 nits of brightness. We typically recommend laptops with more than 10 hours of battery life, and this absolutely crushes that metric.

You won't regret your purchase of the MSI Summit 13 AI+ Evo if you're a business user. With its incredible battery life, solid performance, sturdy hinges, and satisfying keyboard, this is a great laptop.

See our full MSI Summit 13 AI+ Evo review.

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Benchmark comparisons

Recently reviewed 2-in-1 laptops

Not every laptop we review can make it onto our best 2-in-1 laptop buying guide, but just because they came up short of the guide doesn't mean they aren't worth checking out. Here's a look at some of our recent reviews that may still be a fit for you despite not making our buying guide, either for a minor fault or simply because it isn't a convertible laptop.

How to find the best 2-in-1 laptops

Finding the perfect 2-in-1 for you differs from a traditional laptop. After all, these are meant to be portable and must fulfill their name appropriately.

Display: You need something bright and sharp

While 2-in-1s aren't exclusively reserved for artists and designers, it's often used by them to make a quick and easy transformation from a traditional laptop to a tablet for illustrating. As a result, you absolutely need a display that can accommodate your creative endeavors, and if it's too dim to be taken on-the-go or too lackluster to accurately present color, you will absolutely be disappointed.

OLED is a great start if you're in need of a quality 2-in-1, but IPS displays can also feature excellent color in some cases. 80% coverage of the DCI-P3 color gamut should be your minimum if you're an artist, but if you can get closer to 100% or even go beyond, the better off you'll be.

We also recommend higher resolutions to let you get into the nitty gritty when illustrating, as it will present crisper detail for artists and designers. 2K should be your floor, but the higher, the better.

Design: Sturdy portability is a necessity

2-in-1 laptops are inherently all about flexibility, as their hinges support up to 360-degree angles. You don't want hinges that creak and a lid that feels like it'll snap off every time you lift it. Sturdiness is a necessity, and we've found that the best 2-in-1 laptops can support themselves in any position and require conscious force to move about. An aluminum chassis is a great start, but you'll want to read our reviews and see which ones feel the best in practice.

And since 2-in-1 laptops are frequently moved around quite a bit, we recommend something light. Anything around 4 pounds and under is recommended, but some can be a little heavier, depending on the size.

Battery life: Long-lasting is vital for being on-the-go

Battery life is another key component of any good 2-in-1 laptop. If you plan to take the notebook to class, work, or spend a whole day illustrating in a park, don't count on there being an outlet! Consider a laptop with at least 11-12 hours of battery life, which should be enough to get you through most of the day without worry. In any case, the longer, the better.

FAQs

What does "2-in-1 laptop" mean?

It can mean different things for different laptops, but the core design philosophy implies that the product can transform from a laptop into a tablet. They're also all touchscreen laptops (because it would defeat the purpose otherwise).

Now, that can take many forms. The most common one is a traditional laptop with a 360-degree hinge. But there are also detachable laptops, which feature a removable keyboard. There are dual-display laptops, which feature a discrete Bluetooth keyboard. Then there are foldable laptops, which feature a display that can fold in two and also may feature a discrete keyboard.

Do all 2-in-1 laptops fold the same?

No, and this is actually super important to research. Some 2-in-1 laptops are well-crafted with sturdy hinges and magnetic folds that snap in place when put in tablet mode. However, I've also reviewed laptops with sloppy hinges and no magnetic backing. It's important to take a look at the Design sections in Laptop Mag's reviews.

Additionally, there are foldable and detachable laptops. The former features a screen that folds in half, and the latter features a traditional tablet design with a detachable keyboard. Again, read that Design section to ensure you're getting what you need.

Do 2-in-1 laptops break easily?

Ideally, 2-in-1 laptops should not break easily. 2-in-1 laptops often feature the strongest hinges in comparison to traditional laptops, as they're designed to support their own weight when configured in various positions.

Whether you're in tablet mode or tabletop mode, it should be able to hold its own weight. If we review 2-in-1 with weak hinges, it's unlikely that we'd recommend it to begin with, as sturdy hinges is a necessary baseline requirement for a solid 2-in-1 laptop.

Are 2-in-1 laptops good for drawing?

It depends. 2-in-1 laptops are used for business, or casual use, and then some with a very specific focus on catering to artists.

Some are designed for illustrating, but you want to ensure that's one of its intended use cases. You'll also want to make sure it's compatible with a pen.

Are 2-in-1 laptops good for gaming?

No, 2-in-1 laptops are not generally good for gaming. The crossover between gaming laptops and 2-in-1 laptops is pretty much non-existent, but 2-in-1 laptops with discrete GPUs do exist, like the Asus ROG Flow X16. However, these are pretty rare.

Integrated graphics have gotten significantly better over the years. If you're using a laptop with a modern Lunar or Arrow Lake processor or even one of AMD's latest AI chips, you'll likely get some decent performance for casual gaming, but don't expect too much. The gaming-focused Asus ROG Flow Z13 (2025) is one of the only examples of a gaming 2-in-1 laptop with integrated graphics that we recommend.

Is a convertible laptop the same as a 2-in-1 laptop?

Generally speaking, the terms "convertible" and "2-in-1" are used interchangeably to describe a device that can be used as a traditional laptop and folded into a tablet.

However, more specifically, a convertible laptop typically involves a built-in keyboard. According to IT company CDW, the term "hybrid laptop" describes a laptop with a keyboard that can be removed, like the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Fold.

That said, any laptop with a 360-degree hinge that can fully fold backwards is typically lumped into the same broad category, whether it's technically a convertible or hybrid laptop.

How we test the best 2-in-1 laptops

We put 2-in-1 laptops through extensive benchmark testing — both synthetic and real-world — before they end up in the hands of our reviewers. We evaluate each aspect of the laptop, including its performance, battery life, display, speakers and heat management.

In our benchmark testing, we use a Klein K10 colorimeter to detect the brightness and sRGB color gamut of the laptop's display. For performance testing, we run the laptop through a gauntlet of benchmarks, including Geekbench 5.4 and 6.3 and 3DMark professional graphics tests.

To determine real-world performance, we task the laptop to convert a 4K video to 1080p resolution and to duplicate a 4.97GB multimedia file. Our real-world graphics test is the Sid Meier's Civilization VI: Gathering Storm benchmark with high settings at 1080p resolution. Gaming laptops go through an entire library of games at high settings to see how their discrete GPUs keep up.

We also run heat tests by playing a 15-minute full-screen video and measuring temperatures in different areas of the laptop. Last but not least, our battery test consists of continuous web surfing over Wi-Fi at 150 nits of brightness. For MacBooks and premium Windows 11 laptops, a runtime of over 9 hours is considered a good result, whereas gaming laptops and workstations that can stay powered for longer than 5 hours deserve praise.

These tests are complemented with extensive hands-on testing from our reviewers who critique everything from the laptop's materials to the feel of its touchpad. For 2-in-1 laptops in particular, it needs a strong hinge and practical design to support its own weight. It's important that every part of the design feels sturdy so that no matter what position a user bends the hinge, it won't collapse.

Why Trust Laptop Mag

Laptop Mag reviews over one hundred different laptops every year, from paperweight ultralights to everyday workhorses to lumbering gaming notebooks that scorch the frame rates of even the hottest AAA games. We're not just experts in the laptop field, as we go one step further by meticulously testing smartphones, tablets, headphones, PC accessories, software, and even the latest in gaming.

We are 100% independent and have decades of experience to help you buy with confidence. In fact, Laptop Mag has been testing and reviewing products for three decades, and we continue to deliver trustworthy reviews you can rely on.

Our experienced team of writers and editors scour the available information about the laptop and put it through its paces to determine which is best for you. But before they start, the testing team subjects each system to a rigorous regimen of synthetic and real-world tests to see how a system handles the type of work and games you’re most likely to throw at it.

Our editorial trustworthiness is enforced by one of the world's largest technology publishers, Future Publishing. As a company, we have unrivaled experience across every tech sector — and we're the group's specialist for all things mobile tech.

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Black Friday is here and there's no shortage of amazing deals to get ourselves lost in, and if you're not careful, you'll end up losing the contents of your wallet, too. In this case, we're looking at my personal favorite line of laptops ever: The Lenovo Yoga series.

I called the Lenovo Yoga 9i (Gen 8) a "masterful 2-in-1" and firmly stand by it being my favorite laptop of 2023. While the 2024 Yoga 9i missed the mark compared to last year's model, it was still excellent and reminded me of why these laptops are my favorite: A gorgeous, vivid OLED display, long-lasting battery life, a beautiful aluminum chasis, sturdy exterior, performance that won't disappoint.

Now that Black Friday is here, we're seeing steep discounts on all sorts of Lenovo Yoga laptops, and it's absolutely blowing us away. For example, the Lenovo Yoga 7i 2-in-1 16-inch is currently available for $499 at Best Buy. This is $400 off its original price, and turns an impressive mid-range laptop into something only budget buyers could get their hands on.

There's plenty of other Lenovo Yoga laptops seeing great discounts, so let us jump right into them.

Best Lenovo Yoga laptop Black Friday deals

The Lenovo Yoga 7i Gen 9 is a sleek 2-in-1 laptop/tablet that’s impressive in a few key areas yet seemingly withholds quality in other aspects. Depending on your laptop use, the Yoga 7i Gen 9 could be a terrific fit, but it’s probably not the right choice for everybody, depending on what you think makes a 2-in-1 fun compared to a conventional laptop. 

First, Lenovo’s Yoga series offers excellent options for school and work — a few models have even made it onto Laptop’s best 2-in-1 laptops list. However, in past iterations, the Yoga 7i models have tended to fall short of their Yoga 9i laptop counterparts. So, is the lower price for a 2-in-1 worth a few compromises? I spent more than 40 hours over five days using the Yoga 7i Gen 9 for work, web browsing, watching movies, and more, all to find out whether the latest version of the Yoga 7i is worth your money. 

Before buying the Yoga 7i Gen 9, consider a few critical pros and cons. Let’s examine the specs for this 2-in-1 and compare it to some alternatives.

Lenovo Yoga 7i (Gen 9) 2-in-1: Specs

Lenovo Yoga 7i (Gen 9) 2-in-1: Price and configurations

The 16-inch Lenovo Yoga 7i 2-in-1 starts at $909 for a build featuring the Intel Core Ultra 5 125U CPU, integrated Intel graphics, 16GB of RAM, and 512GB of storage. 

A few upgrades are available, including an Intel Core Ultra 7 155U CPU for an additional $133 and a 1TB storage option for an extra $30. Our review unit includes the base configuration. Any configuration can run either Windows 11 Home or Windows 11 Pro.

Lenovo Yoga 7i (Gen 9) 2-in-1: Design

Lenovo kept the design of the Yoga 7i Gen 9 essentially the same as last year’s Gen 8 model. The chassis is sleek and simple with minimal metallic silver accents and a dark steel gray finish that will blend in anywhere, from school to the office. 

Inside, you have a full-size keyboard with a number pad, fingerprint reader, spacious touchpad, and dedicated Microsoft Copilot AI key. The keyboard also has top-firing speakers along the top edge. 

The Yoga 7i’s chassis measures 14.24 x 9.84 x 0.67 inches and weighs 4.4 lbs. That’s on the heavier side, similar to other 16-inch 2-in-1 laptops, like the HP Spectre x360 16, which weighs 4.3 lbs. 

Lenovo Yoga 7i (Gen 9) 2-in-1: Ports

The Lenovo Yoga 7i Gen 9 has all the ports you could need. On the left side, you have an HDMI port, two USB Type-C Thunderbolt 4.0 ports (one for charging), and a headphone jack. Two USB Type-A ports and a rare MicroSD card reader are on the right side.  

The built-in MicroSD card port makes the Yoga 7i a good candidate for anyone looking for a laptop for photo editing since you won’t need an external MicroSD card reader. Of course, if you need more ports, you can always add one of the top-rated USB Type-C hubs to your setup.  

Lenovo Yoga 7i (Gen 9) 2-in-1: Display

The display was one of the main drawbacks of last year’s Yoga 7i, and unfortunately, this year’s model didn’t fare much better in our display tests. 

The 16-inch 1920x1200 touch IPS panel on the Yoga 7i covered only 47% of the DCI-P3 color gamut, a lackluster result compared to the premium laptop average of 87%. The 13-inch M3 Macbook Air (77.8%) outscored the Yoga 7i, and the Lenovo Slim 7i (134%) blew it out of the water. The Yoga 7i did slightly better on our brightness tests but still underperformed. It scored a max brightness of 312 nits, over 60 points below the category average of 380 nits. 

The display isn’t just underwhelming on paper, either. I also noticed it during my testing. When I watched Ahsoka on Disney Plus, the usual vibrancy of the Star Wars universe looked more washed out on the Yoga 7i. Even little things seemed noticeably different, like the icons on my toolbar, which were visibly brighter and more colorful on my desktop display. 

The dull colors on the Yoga 7i’s display don’t ruin its ability to perform everyday tasks. Still, if you plan to use your laptop for photo editing and graphic design, you might be better served with the Lenovo Slim 7i, which scored much better on our display tests.  

Lenovo Yoga 7i (Gen 9) 2-in-1: Keyboard and touchpad

I spend a lot of time typing, so a great keyboard is a high priority when testing a laptop. I had high hopes for the Lenovo Yoga 7i Gen 9’s keyboard after the Lenovo Slim 7i seriously impressed me. Unfortunately, the Yoga 7i Gen 9 has a couple of quirks that made typing a bit disappointing. 

This laptop has a full-size keyboard, which is excellent for those who need a number pad for things like macros and gaming. However, there wasn’t much space between the number pad and the main keys, so I constantly hit the number lock key on accident when I reached for the backspace key. At the same time, the main keys are all a bit more spaced out than on most laptops I’ve tried, which made typing awkward. 

On the Monkeytype typing test, I scored 81 WPM with 93% accuracy, below my desktop average of 84 WPM and 94.3% accuracy.

While the keyboard could be better, I liked the Yoga 7i Gen 9’s touchpad. It’s roomy without being so big that it interferes with typing. It has a decent amount of travel when you click, and cursor movement is smooth and snappy. The trackpad was one feature that let us down on last year’s model, so seeing some improvement was a welcome surprise. 

Lenovo Yoga 7i (Gen 9) 2-in-1: Audio

Top-firing speakers always elevate the audio experience on laptops, and Lenovo did not disappoint with the Yoga 7i Gen 9’s audio setup. The speakers are located along the top edge of the keyboard deck rather than underneath it. “I Need You” by M83 sounded fantastic, with both highs and lows coming through smooth and clear. The Yoga 7i could blast it loud enough to hear throughout my apartment without hitting 50% volume. 

The top-firing speakers are incredibly convenient for watching movies and TV shows since they create a personal surround sound effect. I watched an episode of Ahsoka on Disney Plus on the Yoga 7i, and everything from droid dialogue to blaster fire came through the top-firing speakers loud and clear.  

Lenovo Yoga 7i (Gen 9) 2-in-1: Gaming and graphics

While the Lenovo Yoga 7i Gen 9 can reasonably handle everyday productivity tasks, one area where it struggled in our testing was gaming and graphics performance. On the 3DMark Fire Strike graphics test, the Yoga 7i Gen 9 scored 4,969, which is noticeably lower than the premium laptop average of 6,745 and almost 4,000 points below the Lenovo Slim 7i’s score of 8,455. 

The Yoga 7i Gen 9 ran Sid Meier’s Civilization VI: Gathering Storm in 1080p at just 20 frames per second, less than half the premium laptop average of 42 fps. That’s also far below the Lenovo Slim 7i and 13-inch M3 Macbook Air, which clocked in at 41 fps. The Acer Swift Go 14, which we reviewed at a price similar to the Yoga 7i, scored a whopping 54 fps.

If gaming or other graphics-intensive tasks are your top priority, the Yoga 7i Gen 9 is not a good choice, considering it also scored poorly on our display tests.

Lenovo Yoga 7i (Gen 9) 2-in-1: Performance

I used the Lenovo Yoga 7i Gen 9 during my testing for typical everyday tasks, such as web browsing, word processing, and watching videos on YouTube and Disney Plus. It kept up well and never felt sluggish, even when I had ten or more browser tabs open. 

It also performed reasonably well in our tests. The Yoga 7i copied a 25GB file in 19 minutes at a rate of 1,368 Mbps. That’s a bit slower than the Lenovo Slim 7i’s time of 17 minutes at 1,534 Mbps but faster than a premium laptop average of 25 minutes at 1,181 Mbps. 

That result is pretty good, but the Yoga 7i could have performed better in a few of our other tests. On Geekbench 6.1, the Yoga 7i scored 9,415, nearly 500 points below our premium laptop average of 9,910. That’s also well below the Lenovo Slim 7i (12,111) and the 13-inch M3 Macbook Air (12,087). 

Lenovo Yoga 7i (Gen 9) 2-in-1: Battery life

Battery life was one area where the Lenovo Yoga 7i Gen 9 did not disappoint. It lasted 11 hours and 24 minutes in our battery tests, over an hour more than the premium laptop average of 10 hours and 7 minutes. It also outscored the Lenovo Slim 7i, which lasted 10 hours and 3 minutes, although the 13-inch M3 Macbook Air had a far longer battery life with a whopping 15 hours and 13 minutes.  

For me, the Yoga 7i lasted most of the day while performing tasks like web browsing and video playback. I could usually go an entire workday before needing to charge it, and when I did have to charge it, the battery was usually back to full within an hour or two.  

Lenovo Yoga 7i (Gen 9) 2-in-1: Webcam

If a cinema-quality webcam is a must-have, the Lenovo Yoga 7i Gen 9 is not for you. The built-in webcam is 1080p Full HD, but my test videos were grainy even in good lighting. The webcam captures a fairly wide angle, though. 

Even if you don’t mind sub-par webcam video quality, the Yoga 7i Gen 9's built-in mic is disappointing. In my test videos, my voice sounded like I was on speaker in a phone call or talking from a room with an echo. It’s not ideal for people who frequently use their laptop for video or voice calls. 

If you plan to use the Lenovo Yoga 7i Gen 9 for anything that requires a camera or mic, you’ll probably want to choose one of our best webcams to clip onto your laptop instead. 

Lenovo Yoga 7i (Gen 9) 2-in-1: Heat

The Lenovo Yoga 7i Gen 9 handled heat well in our testing and never felt uncomfortably warm during daily use. The touchpad averaged 79 degrees, which is on par with our premium laptop average of 78.4 degrees. 

The underside of the Yoga 7i Gen 9 reached 86 degrees during our tests, well below the category average of 94.5 degrees. The hottest temperature recorded during our heat tests was 96.3 degrees in the center of the underside, just above the vents. 

Lenovo Yoga 7i (Gen 9) 2-in-1: Software and warranty

You get Windows 11 Home by default with the Yoga 7i Gen 9, although there is an option to upgrade to Windows 11 Pro for an additional $51. 

Regardless of which version of Windows 11 you choose, the Yoga 7i Gen 9 comes with some preloaded Microsoft and Lenovo apps, including Microsoft Edge and Lenovo Vantage. The latter lets you view your device’s warranty information, troubleshoot technical issues, and customize system settings. The Yoga 7i includes free trials of other apps and services, such as Xbox Game Pass and Dropbox cloud storage. 

The Lenovo Yoga 7i Gen 9 includes a one-year limited warranty. If you want to upgrade or extend your service, you can purchase coverage from Lenovo Premium Care Plus. Lenovo placed third overall in our 2023 tech support showdown, so you can expect great customer service — even if you don’t buy a premium warranty.  

Bottom line

The Lenovo Yoga 7i Gen 9 succeeds in some areas but falls flat in others. It’s a capable 2-in-1 with a battery that can last a full day, loud top-firing speakers, and a roomy touchpad. However, a dull display and mixed results on our performance tests make the Yoga 7i a hit-or-miss depending on individual users’ preferences and needs. 

The Yoga 7i can handle basic daily tasks like word processing and web browsing fine. However, if you are looking for a laptop for graphic design, photo editing, or any graphics-intensive task, you will be better off with the similarly priced Lenovo Slim 7i or Acer Swift Go 14. Visit our guide to the best laptops for even more alternatives to consider. 

Renders of an alleged Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 with the upcoming Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite chipset have been unearthed by Twitter user "WalkingCat" @_h0x0d_ (via Windows Central), indicating a launch may come sooner than expected.

The renders show a Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 14-inch laptop, on the outside it looks exactly like the Intel and AMD versions, which are already available from Lenovo. In fact, the design has hardly changed since we reviewed the Lenovo Yoga 7i Gen 8 last year. Where it gets exciting is the new Snapdragon X Elite chipset reportedly within.

Of course, it's hard to show off a chipset when rendering the design of a laptop. To see what is powering the laptop, we'd need to pry open the chassis and take a look at the CPU socket.

Other than showing us what a potential Snapdragon X Elite platform could look like, these renders also indicate that we may see Snapdragon X Elite laptops hit the shelves sooner than expected.

Could the Snapdragon X Elite hit shelves soon?

Qualcomm has held to a "mid-2024" launch window for Snapdragon X Elite laptops since it first announced the chip last fall. While that could mean we see laptops with the new ARM silicon as early as June, the window is broad enough to lean into September. 

However, these renders of the Lenovo Yoga 7 Snapdragon Edition give us some hope to see X Elite laptops earlier in that window. Lenovo certainly has a plethora of Yoga 7 chassis already built for the Intel and AMD versions of the laptops. It's unlikely to change much of the hardware for the Snapdragon Edition so the laptop is essentially already built and just waiting for the chips.

What we know about the Snapdragon X Elite so far

We've had hands-on time with the Snapdragon X Elite, so we know quite a bit about the chipset. The ARM chip delivered buttery smooth gaming performance running Baldur's Gate III, Control, and Redout II. All three games were running on a Windows x86 emulator but saw no dropped frames or visual stuttering. The Qualcomm silicon also handled DaVinci resolve so well, that we've been considering ditching our MacBooks for a Snapdragon laptop.

In terms of hard benchmark numbers, the Snapdragon X Elite has been putting the Apple M3 chipset to shame so frequently we're now stacking it up against the Apple M4 silicon which isn't even available. With up to 45 TOPs of NPU performance, the Snapdragon X Elite is also the only chip announced so far that will meet Microsoft's AI PC requirements when Windows 11 24H2 launches.

While Qualcomm chips have been in laptops for years now, it was typically found in Chromebooks or other low-powered and affordable options. The Snapdragon X Elite could finally change all that and put Qualcomm in the conversation with Intel, AMD, and Apple among the upper echelon of laptop chip makers.

More from Laptop Mag

• Microsoft feels Qualcomm Windows laptops will topple the MacBook
• I'm going hands-on with a Snapdragon X Elite laptop running DaVinci Resolve 19 — here's what's new
• AMD's Ryzen 8040 series gives it an edge on a huge competitor

As expected, AI tech is all over CES this year and Lenovo’s refresh of the Yoga line is no exception. All of Lenovo’s Yoga laptops this year will come with Lenovo Yoga Creator Zone pre-installed. Yoga Creator Zone is a software developed for creators, artists, and general users who need an easy to use image generation tool. Like many other image generation AI tools available, Yoga Creator Zone will accept text prompts to create images. It will also work with existing sketches, to help fully realize your artistic vision.

All of the Yoga Windows 11 laptops will come with the latest generation of processors from AMD and Intel, with the flagship Yoga Pro 9i and Yoga Pro 7i featuring Intel’s new AI Ultra CPUs.

The new Yoga line will continue Lenovo’s commitment to reaching net-zero emissions by 2050 by using plastic-free packaging, FSCTM-certified paper boxes that are responsibly sourced, and a recycled aluminum chassis with at least 50% recycled aluminum in the base cover.

We're on the scene in Las Vegas to check out the latest tech at this year's CES 2024 showcase. Be sure to tag along on our CES 2024 journey by following Laptop Mag on TikTok, Twitter/X, Instagram, Flipboard, and Facebook for the most up to date hands-on impressions and news coming from the convention floor.

CES 2024: Yoga Pro 9i and Yoga 9i 2-in-1

Lenovo’s headlining Yoga duo are the Yoga Pro 9i and Yoga 9i 2-in-1. Both laptops feature MIL-STD-810H1 ratings for durability, a physical Lenovo AI Core Chip, Lenovo’s Premium Suite of productivity tools like studio-grade noise-cancelling microphones, Dolby Atmos tuned speakers, a 5MP IR camera, and the ultra-smooth Yoga keyboard. A Copilot key for quick access to Microsoft’s AI companion is included on both models.

The Pro 9i features Intel’s AI Core Ultra CPUs, Lenovo Creator Zone with Image Training, which allows users to train a personalized model that is stored locally on the device, so the laptop can learn and create images that match your style and preferences. The Pro 9i also features Lenovo X Power for enhanced 3D rendering and film color correction.

The Yoga Pro 9i can support up to an Intel Core Ultra 5/7/9H series CPU, up to an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Laptop GPU, up to 64GB of DDR5 RAM, and up to 1TB of SSD storage. The 16-inch 165Hz 3.2K (3200 x 2000) display will come in either IPS or Mini LED options, both of which include PureSight Pro, Dolby Vision, and are EyeSafe certified with 100% coverage on the sRGB and DCI-P3 color spaces.

The Yoga 9i 2-in-1 features an Intel Evo certified Core Ultra 7 155H CPU, Intel Arc graphics, 16GB of DDR5 RAM, and up to 1TB of SSD storage. The 14-inch OLED PureSight display features VESA Certified HDR TrueBlack 500, Dolby Vision, and 10-point multitouch glass. You can either spec out the display for up to 120Hz at 2.8K (2880 x 1800) resolution or get the 60Hz 4K (3840 x 2400) panel.

Yoga Pro 7i and Yoga Pro 7 

Helping to round out the Yoga line-up are the Yoga Pro 7i and Yoga Pro 7. Both creator laptops can be configured with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4050 Laptop GPU with NVIDIA Studio validation and a PureSight Pro LCD or OLED 3K display.

The Yoga Pro 7i can support up to an Intel Core Ultra 5/7/9H series CPU, up to an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4050 Laptop GPU, up to 32GB of DDR5 RAM, and up to 1TB of SSD storage. The Yoga Pro 7i has three configuration options for the 14.5-inch display: a 90Hz 2.5K (2560 x 1600) IPS with TÜV Low Blue Light and EyeSafe Certification; a 120Hz 2.8K (2880 x 1800) OLED with HDR Trueblack 500, TÜV Low Blue Light and EyeSafe Certification; and a 120Hz 3K (3072 x 1920) PureSight Pro IPS with TÜV Low Blue Light and EyeSafe Certification.

The Yoga Pro 7 can support up to an AMD Ryzen 8845HS CPU, up to an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4050 Laptop GPU, up to 16GB of DDR5 RAM, and up to 1TB of SSD storage. The 14.5-inch display comes in three variations - a 90Hz 2.5K (2560 x 1600) IPS with TÜV Low Blue Light and EyeSafe Certification; a 90Hz 2.5K (2560 x 1600) IPs with TÜV Low Blue Light and EyeSafe Certification and glass touch; and a 120 Hz 3K (3072 x 1920) PureSight Pro IPS with TÜV Low Blue Light and EyeSafe Certification.

Yoga Slim 7i and Yoga 7i 2-in-1

Finally, rounding out the Yoga family are the Slim 7i and Lenovo Yoga 7i which have been keenly optimized for portability. The Slim 7i is a thin and light laptop powered by Intel Core Ultra processors while the Yoga 7i 2-in-1 comes in 16-inch and 14-inch form factors. Both of the Yoga 7i 2-in-1s feature a Copilot key for quick AI support.

The Yoga Slim 7i can support up to an Intel Core Ultra 7 155H processor, Intel Arc graphics, up to 32GB of DDR5 RAM, and up to 1TB of SSD storage. The 14-inch 60Hz WUXGA OLED display with Dolby Vision, TÜV Low Blue Light and EyeSafe Certification comes in either matte or glass touch options in North America.

The Yoga 7i 2-in-1 can support up to an Intel Evo certified Core Ultra 7 processor, integrated Intel Arc graphics, up to 16GB of DDR5 RAM, and up to 1TB of SSD storage. The 16-inch model features a 16-inch 60Hz WUXGA (1920 x 1200) LCD panel with 10-point multitouch glass. The 14-inch model features up to a 120Hz 2.8K (2880 x 1800) OLED PureSight display.

Update Sept. 5 at 1:20 p.m. ET: The Lenovo Tab M9 sold out at Best Buy, however, Lenovo has it for the same price

Best Buy's Labor Day sale includes fantastic discounts on today's best tablets. If you're on the hunt for an iPad alternative that doesn't skimp on performance, this deal might pique your interest. 

Right now, you can get the Lenovo Tab M9 for just $99.99 at Best Buy. That's $40 cheaper than its usual price of $140 and the lowest price we've seen for this 9-inch tablet.. If you prefer a bigger display, Best Buy offers the Lenovo Yoga Tab 11 for $279 ($70 off). 

As far as tablet deals, these are two of the best you can get

Today's best Lenovo Tab deal

Lenovo is renowned for laptops, however, its best-selling tablets offer excellent value for the price. The Lenovo Tab M9 in this deal features a 9-inch (1340 x 800) 400-nit touch screen and dual speakers with Dolby Atmos sound. The tablet runs on a MediaTek Helio G80 8-core CPU coupled with 3GB of RAM and has 32GB of built-in storage (expandable via microSD). 

While the Lenovo Smart Tab M9 ships with Android 12, it's upgradable to Google's latest Android 13 software out of the box. You'll have access to helpful Google apps like Gmail, Drive, Maps, Photos, and Google Play. Powering the tablet is a massive 5,100mAh battery with 15W+ Type-C fast charging support.

Although we didn't test it, in our Lenovo Smart Tab M8 review, we liked its attractive design, colorful display, and excellent battery life. Just like the Smart Tab M8, the new Smart Tab M9 supports Google Assistant hands-free control. Say “Hey Google '' and dictate emails, play music, or get weather and traffic updates using just your voice.

At just under $100, the Lenovo Tab M9 is a budget-friendly choice if you don't want to spend a small fortune on a new tablet. Amazon didn't put an expiration date on this deal, so we recommend you snag it while you can.

For more deals on today's must-have tech, visit our Labor Day sales 2023 hub for the best end-of-summer discounts. 

If you’re a Windows Insider with Microsoft Edge Canary downloaded on your computer, you’ll have access to a few exciting new flags today. An X user (@Leopeva64) discovered a new “Handwriting to Text” flag and multiple new FedCM flags that bring extra privacy features to Edge. 

Microsoft rolls out any new features to its Canary version of Edge first, and then once all the kinks are worked out, most features make their way to the public version of Edge. So if you’re anxious to try these new features (and many more), you can quickly become a Windows Insider for free and download Edge Canary. 

Read on for a brief overview of what these new flags entail, and which devices you can hopefully use them on when features roll out publicly.  

Handwriting to text may require a pen or stylus

This new feature in Edge Canary will be reserved for Windows laptops that support handwriting input via a stylus or your finger — at least in the beginning. As with other Edge Canary features, this handwriting-to-text feature could roll out to Edge Beta Android app users or people involved with the iOS TestFlight Beta, and eventually to public Edge users on all devices that support handwriting input. 

In the image posted by @Leopeva64 on X, the text attached to this new feature reads “Allows inking via pen to be converted into typed text on most input fields in Microsoft Edge. This is available on devices where handwriting is supported.” The flag’s description also notes that you’ll need to search “Use your handwriting to enter text” in Windows settings to see if Handwriting to Text is enabled on your device. 

Whether you’re able to use your finger as a handwriting input may depend on your device’s compatibility with Edge and its settings. For example, on my Lenovo Yoga 9i Gen 7, I can use my finger or a stylus to type in any text box within Microsoft Edge Canary. However, some devices may require a stylus or pen in order to use this feature, which would leave Edge users on MacBooks in the lurch. 

Right now, this feature is hidden behind a flag within Microsoft Edge Canary on Windows computers. You’ll need to make sure you have Edge Canary downloaded, and then you can navigate to edge://flags in the browser’s address bar. Search for “Handwriting to Text,” and use the dropdown menu to the right to switch from Default to Enabled. Then, you’ll be able to use handwriting instead of typing in most text boxes within the Edge Canary browser. 

In addition to this exciting handwriting feature, it also appears Microsoft may be adopting FedCM (Federated Credential Management) proposals to bring extra security and privacy features to its users. If you head to edge://flags and search “FedCM,” you can look through all the unique privacy and security features you can enable.

It’s not clear when these FedCM privacy features or the handwriting to text functionality will be brought to Edge on all devices. For now, only Edge users through Windows get to take part in the fun. 

Lately, Microsoft seems to be all about improving user experience. There are exciting features coming to Window 11’s next update, including improved Live Captions and bonus voice commands, and Windows Insiders can finally remove unwanted bloatware taking up valuable storage space. 

I couldn’t contain my excitement when pulling the Lenovo Slim Pro 9i out of its box. Lenovo has been knocking it out of the park this year, with the Lenovo Yoga 9i solidifying itself as my favorite laptop ever and the Lenovo Legion 5 Pro blowing my expectations  for what a gaming laptop could do on a budget. I prepared myself for another home run from the company.

In most ways, that remained true. Lenovo has poured its best into this beast, constructing a productivity laptop with staggering performance in both its processor and graphics card, alongside a display that turned my eyes into a puddle of adoration. Alongside an excellent keyboard design, solid aluminum exterior, and surprisingly good webcam, there’s a lot to love here.

But productivity laptops are often designed to be taken on the go, and although this does have gaming capabilities, long-lasting battery life is a necessity for the mainstream. And that’s where the Slim Pro 9i fails, incapable of getting anywhere near the expected eight hours you’d need for a full workday. This flaw has me hesitant, but I still love the Lenovo Slim Pro 9i and would say it’s one of the best 16-inch laptops out there, so keep reading to see if it’s right for you. 

Lenovo Slim Pro 9i price and configuration 

Our model of the Lenovo Slim Pro 9i was built with an Intel Core i9-13905H processor, Nvidia GeForce RTX 4050 Laptop GPU, 32GB of RAM and 1TB of Samsung PM9A1 SSD storage. It also features a lovely 16-inch, 3,200 x 2,000-pixel Mini LED touch display at 165Hz refresh rate. 

It’s currently not available at Lenovo, but it was available at Costco for $1,599. A similar model that is the same in every aspect except it bumps the graphics power to a RTX 4060 is $1,799 on Lenovo’s website. 

Lenovo Slim Pro 9i design 

Lenovo has remained consistent in its modern laptop series, presenting minimalistic silver or gray exteriors without much that stands apart outside of a reflective company logo in one of the corners—in this case, the Slim Pro 9i is dark gray with the signature “Lenovo” at the bottom right. Unlike the Yoga series, there is no additional text that marks it belonging to a larger set of laptops, but there is a reflective camera bar at the top of the lid with small text that reads “SMP f/2.0 Quad Mic Array.”

Lifting the lid reveals a similarly minimalist deck with the keys themselves sharing the same dark gray tint as the rest of the laptop. The Lenovo logo makes its return on the bottom right, and two near-invisible speaker openings sit to the left and right of the keyboard.

I wish the company had something to latch onto here as far as design goes, as the laptop isn’t graced by the iconic and shiny Yoga font seen in that series. But at least the aluminum lid and chassis are strong and didn’t yield under pressure, alongside the hinge that could be bent at any point and would remain stiff, but not too difficult to move.

The Slim Pro 9i measures 14.3 x 9.6 x 0.7 inches and starts at 4.9 pounds. Competitors like the Acer Swift X 14 (12.7 x 9.0 x 0.7 inches, 3.4 pounds) and Dell XPS 15 9530 (13.6 x 9.1 x 0.7 inches, 4.2 pounds) are smaller and lighter, but the LG Gram 17 (14.9 x 10.1 x 0.7 inches, 3 pounds) is larger yet lighter. 

Lenovo Slim Pro 9i ports 

A bit lacking in its overall number of ports, the Slim Pro 9i comes out of the woodworks with a decent selection that could be better. On the left side, it features a USB Type-A 3.2 Gen 1, HDMI 2.0, Thunderbolt 4 and audio jack. On the right side, there’s a webcam privacy shutter switch, SD card reader, another USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 port, and worst of all, the power button.

Yes, Lenovo continues its trend of including the power button on the side of the laptop, which we’ve previously complained about, and it especially makes no sense since this isn’t a 2-in-1 laptop. Otherwise, I wish the company would have at least included an additional Thunderbolt 4, as a single USB-C port is underwhelming. 

Lenovo Slim Pro 9i display 

Built with a stunning 16-inch, 3,200 x 2,000-pixel Mini LED touch display at 165Hz refresh rate, no one will walk away disappointed from the Slim Pro 9i’s lustrous glossy screen. During every one of my tests, whether it was involving a game or movie, the laptop effortlessly transported my consciousness into another world.

I watched the “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” trailer and was enchanted by the color depth as Miles Morales overlooks an expansive New York City skyline while nightfall makes its steady approach. And when the vivid set of flashbacks showcase a younger, more naïve Spider-Man teaming up with others of his kind, the deep orange autumnal forests contrasting with another scene showcasing our protagonist leaping from a skyscraper within the neon-lit city had my eyes glued to the screen.

I launched Elden Ring and was wowed. It took only a few moments before I murmured an exasperated profanity under my breath in amazement. The Slim Pro 9i’s rendition of this beautiful world made it pop more than I’d ever seen before—after all, laptops with gaming capabilities rarely feature a display this phenomenal. Witnessing the golden shimmering leaves atop enormous trees appeared like a collection of crystals seeking to welcome me into their embrace. Simple things such as the slightly burnt hue of fall’s grass appeared deeper and more varied than I’d ever been used to, and as I witnessed great castles and stone structures, their worn gray hue contrasted elegantly against the color of nature.

Demolishing our color tests without a sweat, the Slim Pro soared with its reproduction of 111.2% of the DCI-P3 color gamut, which destroyed the 94.7% mainstream laptop average. But its competitors did even better, with the Swift X (138%), Gram 17 (115%), and XPS 15 (137.9%) pulling ahead.

It did even better in our brightness tests, hitting a peak brightness as high as 637 nits, turning the 359 nit average into mincemeat. While the Slim Pro 9i wasn’t the best in its color, it absolutely demolishes The Swift X (359 nits), Gram 17 (438 nits) and XPS 15 (371 nits) in brightness. I found myself squinting even in my harshly lit basement when staring at the Slim Pro 9i’s display at maximum brightness from sheer luminosity, so it’ll perform excellently on a sunny day if you’re outdoors. 

Lenovo Slim Pro 9i keyboard and trackpad 

Lenovo recently crafted what I boldly stated was my keyboard soulmate with the Lenovo Legion 5 Pro. As you can imagine, I was pretty excited when seeing that the Slim Pro 9i is similar on most fronts. It does fail to fulfill my love of regular-sized arrow keys, as the up and down are cut in half, which gets annoying when navigating pages. Otherwise, this laptop keyboard is as good as it gets.

I took the 10fastfingers typing test and my initial assumption proved true. I achieved 116 words per minute with a 99.7% accuracy on my first try. This number is usually around 96% to 97% accuracy and a bit lower at 110 words per minute on most laptops I test, which goes to show how comfortable it feels to type on this keyboard. 

Its 1.5-millimeter keyboard travel offers a perfect distance, and the slightly smaller size of the keys appeals to me. I’m also glad that the left and right shift-keys are full size, alongside the enter and backspace key, as that can often mess me up when typing quickly. I don’t make it a secret that I’m a huge sucker for full number pads as well, especially on gaming laptops when I want to get lost in my macros for a World of Warcraft raid.

I came away happy from this laptop’s enormous 6.1 x 3.9-inch touchpad. Touch gestures are easy to perform, as moving vertically and horizontally with three fingers to swap tabs is at a decent level of sensitivity and let me jump between them with ease. Clicking and dragging didn’t require that much pressure, and moving from point to point had a solid amount of friction without feeling too sluggish.

Lenovo Slim Pro 9i audio 

Built with two nearly invisible top-firing speakers placed at each side of the keyboard, the Slim Pro 9i offers solid audio quality that can pack a punch when it needs to. Its biggest flaw is that it sounds near-imperceptible during moments when a game, movie or song is a little low, and even when audio gets grandiose, still I wish it could get a little louder. This was especially true while gaming, as the sound of the fans almost overpowers the speakers themselves.

When watching the “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” trailer, the Slim Pro 9i did an okay job representing its highs and lows. With an unpleasantly quiet opening that slightly improved as the nostalgic ensemble accompanied flashbacks to the first movie, sound effects like the slinging of webs were lost to the powerful music. Alongside this, the dialogue didn’t mesh too well with the orchestra, making it come across as a bit quiet.

I played Elden Ring and was still disappointed in the laptop speakers maximum audio capacity, as it remained at the same noise level of the intensely blowing fans themselves. The game’s orchestral overworld music is stunning to get lost in, but it was quickly overshadowed by the intense whirring of heat emitting from its vents due to this demanding game. Otherwise, it sounded good, with the clopping of hooves against dirt and slashing of swords against foe packing decent thuds.

I listened to “Stairs to the Attic” by The Antlers and was disappointed by the quietness of the opening ringing bell against the acoustic strings. Even within my small office, it was barely audible. But as the vocals began in contrast to a stronger strumming guitar, it reached a decent volume with a steady crispness, and when the final explosive act began, I was far happier with the overall loudness.

Lenovo Slim Pro 9i performance 

Packed with an Intel Core i9-13905H processor, 32GB of RAM and 1TB of Samsung PM9A1 SSD storage, the Slim Pro 9i is a powerhouse. It effortlessly demolished its competition on nearly every performance test, and has shown that its lesser battery life and heavier build are likely a result of its beastliness.

On the Geekbench 5.5 overall performance test, the Slim Pro went above and beyond with the inspiring power behind its 13th Gen 9i processor, managing a multi-core score of 14,700. Not only does this bulldoze the 8,450 category average, but competitors like the Swift X (Intel Core i7-13700H, 12,168), Gram 17 (Intel Core i7-1360P, 9,945), and XPS 15 (Intel Core i7-13700H, 12,171) didn’t stand a chance.

This powerhouse continued to perform excellently while converting a 4K video into 1080p using the HandBrake app in 3 minutes and 59 seconds, which is better than the 7 minute and 47 second category average. It also managed to be nearly two times faster than the Swift X (7:46), while the Gram 17 (9:09) was especially left in the dust. The XPS 15 (5:01) got the closest of its competitors.

Last but not least, the Slim Pro’s Samsung PM9A1 SSD duplicated 25GB of multimedia files in 15.7 seconds at a transfer rate of 1,712 megabytes per second, scrubbing the 872MBps category average out of the picture. While the Swift X (1TB SSD, 1,963MBps) and XPS 15 (1TB SSD, 2,061MBps) were a few hundred megabytes faster, the Lenovo outperformed the Gram 17 (1TB SSD, 1,393MBps) without issue.

Lenovo Slim Pro 9i graphics 

Boasting a seemingly underpowered RTX 4050 Laptop GPU with 6GB of vRAM, the Slim Pro 9i impressed me with how it handled games and defeated similar laptops in performance. It’s not great for those seeking a dedicated gaming laptop, as its GPU is considered one for those on a tight budget, but it is a good addition to anyone who wants to do some light video editing or gaming alongside everything else packed inside this beast.

But why go easy on this thing, right? I wanted to put it against the Elden Ring test, so I launched the game, set the graphics to maximum at 3K resolution with no ray tracing, and loaded into the world with uncertainty. To my surprise, I managed a pretty steady 40 to 45 frames per second while galloping throughout Limgrave. But I decided to take a trek into a forest that I learned was infamous for destroying frame rates while testing the game on other hardware, and it dipped to around 35 fps, which is still above our 30-fps playability threshold. 

I boldly took this a step further and bumped those settings up to maximum ray tracing to see if the game could even run with this GPU. Unsurprisingly, it dipped to a pretty consistent 30 fps, and when entering that one demanding forest, it would spike as low as 25 fps. Regardless, I was pretty impressed that this RTX 4050 laptop could do so well with Elden Ring.

On our Sid Meier’s Civilization VI: Gathering Storm test, we reached 124 frames per second at 1080p, whereas the category average is trapped at 40 fps. Bumping the resolution up to the native 3,200 x 2,000 dropped that number down to 95 fps, though. We tested it against laptops that are productivity focused but boast a discrete GPU, and we used the same model number between both the 40 series and 30 series. 

None were a match for the Slim Pro 9i, even the Swift X (RTX 4050, 92 fps) with the same GPU. And of course, older generations like the Gram 17 (RTX 3050, 50 fps). We also pit it against the XPS 15 (RTX 4070, 115 fps), yet somehow, even with a significantly worse GPU, it performed better.

During the 3DMark Fire Strike Synthetic benchmark, we were impressed by the Slim Pro 9i’s score of 20,193, which is nearly three times better than the 7,097 category average. The Gram 17 (7,155) performed significantly worse, which isn’t surprising, but the Swift X’s (13,642) performance caught us off guard considering both have the same RTX 4050 GPU. To take this shock further, the XPS 15's RTX 4070 GPU couldn't compete and only managed as high as 17,340 on this benchmark.

Lenovo Slim Pro 9i battery 

Battery life is the Slim Pro 9i’s Achilles heel. Delivering excellence in all avenues except its longevity, I’m pretty hesitant about this laptop for those who need it on the go. It lasted 6 hours and 12 minutes on the Laptop Mag battery test, which involves continuous web browsing over Wi-Fi at 150 nits. This is significantly worse than the 9 hour and 21 minute category average.

Its poor battery life can be attributed to the presence of its RTX 4050 graphics card, as they’re notorious for being battery-killers. However, The Swift X (7:26) features the exact same GPU yet lasted over an hour longer. The Gram (12:02) which is built with the RTX 3050, also survived way longer. Yet the XPS 15 (8:58) comes out the most impressive here, managing nearly three more hours of battery life even with its RTX 4070.

Lenovo Slim Pro 9i heat 

The Slim Pro 9i stayed pretty cool while it wasn’t gaming, reaching a peak at its underside of 90 degrees Fahrenheit, which is a decent bit below our 95-degree comfort threshold. Otherwise, its G/H keys hit 83 degrees, which means you won’t have to worry about burning your hands while typing up a storm. And in a similar vein, the touchpad’s 75 degrees will keep your fingers cool while clicking and swiping.

Lenovo Slim Pro 9i webcam 

Decent webcams on a laptop are quite the rarity, but the Slim Pro 9i effortlessly breaks the mold. Featuring a 5-megapixel lens that snaps high-quality photos at 2560 x 1440 resolution, I was impressed with this camera beyond just its crispness.

Taking a photo within my harshly lit office did not result in a washed-out image, and even when I shut the lights off and let my warmly glowing lamp provide lumination, it adjusted to the perfect level to ensure my white ceiling was still visible. I also appreciate that the webcam privacy shutter button on the right side of the laptop quickly turned the camera off without issue, and flipping it back on quickly made it available again. 

Lenovo Slim Pro 9i software and warranty 

Coming pre-installed with Windows 11 and a slew of Lenovo-based software, the Slim Pro 9i has a few useful tools. Lenovo Hotkeys showcases available combinations like Function and R, which swaps the refresh rate between 60Hz and 165Hz. Function and Q quickly adjusts performance between modes for battery saving, high performance and cool performance. The built-in Smart Key can also launch custom-bound applications, with the defaults being Lenovo Vantage and Lenovo Smart Appearance.

Lenovo Vantage is the company's jam packed software feature that can modify device settings, view battery information, and update the system. Settings for power, audio, display, camera, input, accessories and security are also available, alongside information on warranty status and far more. Lenovo Smart Appearance is an app that can enhance video quality by smoothing the face, changing the background, and offering filters.

Lenovo Now essentially just puts all of the company’s apps in one place, so it isn’t worth opening unless you want to register your hardware. It also is pretty obnoxious with tons of advertisement pop ups showcasing Lenovo’s support plans, including Premium Care Plus Support, Accidental Damage Protection and Lenovo Smart Lock. It then shows apps you might want before offering three free months of Amazon Music and also suggesting McAfee.

The Slim Pro 9i comes with a 1-year warranty offering Lenovo’s “better” Premium Care Onsite Support. See how Lenovo did in our Tech Support Showdown special report. 

Bottom line 

It’s disappointing when an otherwise great laptop makes one misstep that pulls it away from greatness. Don’t get me wrong, the Lenovo Slim Pro 9i is wonderful, boasting excellent productivity scores thanks to its 13th Gen i9 power, stunning brightness and vibrancy in its 3K Mini LED display, and surprisingly good gaming performance considering its RTX 4050 GPU.

But it’s hard to feel enthusiastic when this incredible piece of hardware is hindered by as little as six hours of battery life. While that’s not terrible coming from a gaming laptop, the Lenovo Slim Pro 9i isn’t one. Yes, it can handle gaming decently, but its focus on productivity makes it a mainstream laptop first and foremost, so I can’t imagine many will walk away happy with its weak battery. And even if you wanted to use it primarily as a gaming laptop, we would recommend something more powerful like the Lenovo Legion 5 Pro. 

As it stands, the Slim Pro 9i was so close to being a near-perfect mainstream laptop that could also handle gaming, but long battery life is a necessity in the former category. Without it, users won’t even last a full workday on the go, while another RTX 4050 laptop like the Acer Swift X at least gets close to 8 hours, while Dell XPS 15 exceeds that threshold with an RTX 4070. If you imagine longevity won’t be an issue for you, the Slim Pro 9i is fantastic, but if you need it for more than six hours at a time between charges, you’ll walk away disappointed. 

It's tough to find an affordable laptop that provides the most it can for your money, and while Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 tried to be that — this ain’t it.

For $799, this looks like a sleek machine on the outside, but if you take a closer look you’ll soon see this laptop isn’t worth your time or money. From its poor display and mushy keyboard to its middling performance and below average battery life, the Flex 5 can’t keep up with its competitors. It has certainly fell from grace since its 2022 outing.

I cannot recommend the Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 for our best laptops or best laptops under $1,000 pages, let alone recommend purchasing it at all.

Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 (2023) price and configurations

Oh boy, it was a journey to find the model of the Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 we reviewed. It costs $799 (on sale for $699 at the time of writing) and comes with an Intel Core i5-1335U processor, 16GB of RAM, a 512GB SSD, and a 14-inch 1200p display. I found this version is available only at Costco.

However, there are other models available elsewhere. There’s a $605 version on Lenovo’s website that drops down to 8GB of RAM. There’s also an AMD version that costs $829 at Lenovo, which comes with 8GB of RAM as well and a AMD Ryzen 5 7530U processor.

If you’re looking for a laptop even more affordable, check out our best cheap laptops page.

Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 (2023) design

One thing I like about the IdeaPad Flex 5 is that it doesn’t look cheap. Instead of the usual black or silver, the Flex 5 sports Lenovo’s Abyss Blue color over its metal hood. That’s complemented by its curved edges and neat Lenovo stamp on the top left corner. 

The interior shifts to a plastic deck and an awkward-looking gray keyboard — it should have been black. There’s a decent-sized touchpad, and a fingerprint reader on the right side. Surrounding the keyboard are top-firing speakers. The display sports relatively thin bezels, but the top has a lip for the webcam.

This is a 2-in-1, so the Flex can literally flex all the way up to 360 degrees, which offers tent and tablet positions for you to experiment with.

At 3.4 pounds and 12.3 x 8.85 x 0.7 inches, the Flex 5 doesn’t get much slimmer or thinner compared with the competition. Except for the 16-inch Lenovo Yoga 7i (Gen 8) (4.5 pounds, 14.3 x 9.8 x 0.7 inches), the Acer Swift Go 14 (2.9 pounds, 12.3 x 8.6 x 0.6 inches) and Asus ZenBook 14 OLED (3.1 pounds, 12.4 x 8.7 x 0.7 inches) are lighter and not as wide as the Flex 5.

Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 (2023) ports

There’s a decent number of ports onboard the Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5.

If we look to the left, we see the power jack, an HDMI port, one Thunderbolt 4 port, and a headphone jack, whereas the right side holds room for two USB Type-A ports, an SD card slot, and the power button.

Find yourself in need of more ports? Check out our best USB Type-C hubs and best laptop docking stations pages.

Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 (2023) display

Oof. Even for a sub-$1,000 laptop, the Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5's 14-inch, 1920 x 1200 display performed poorly all around.

I watched Dimension 20's A Court of Fey & Flowers, and the greenery that made up the set was dull and muted. When the background switched to a dimly lit scenic view, it felt like I was watching the show in battery-saver mode, which was made all the worse by its glossy panel. Despite that, the panel was sharp enough to capture the details in Aabria Iyengar's lovely lashes.

According to our colorimeter, the Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 covered a measly 42.2% of the DCI-P3 color gamut, which is less than half of the mainstream laptop average (91.8%). The Yoga 7i (45.8%), Swift Go 14 (175.7%), and ZenBook 14 (95.6%) destroyed the IdeaPad.

At 288 nits of brightness, IdeaPad Flex 5 could not get past the 341-nit average. It did best the Yoga 7i (267 nits), but couldn't get near the Swift Go 14 (395 nits) and ZenBook 14 (375 nits).

Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 (2023) keyboard and touchpad

Typing away on the Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 felt weird — the keys were shallow and mushy, and not at all satisfying to use.

However, I hit 83 words per minute on the 10fastfingers.com typing test, which is above my 78-wpm average. The keys were well-spaced, like most Lenovo keyboards, which is likely why I did well. But I didn’t like it.

The 4.9 x 2.9-inch touchpad is smooth, but offers shallow clicks, like the rest of the laptop. However, Windows gestures like two-finger scrolling and three-finger tabbing worked fine.

Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 (2023) audio

I love top-firing speakers, but not the ones in the IdeaPad Flex 5. The audio was low and hollow, and the only compliment I can pay it is that it was audible.

I listened to Honey Revenge’s “Airhead,” and the opening guitar sounded a bit distorted. When the vocals took over, they were clear, but the guitar in the background remained noisy, if not more hollow. The percussion was low and couldn’t catch a bass. The instruments were distinguishable from one another, but overall, the sound was low and unfulfilling.

While Lenovo packs in the Dolby Access app, with settings for Movies, Music and Games, there’s not much more that the app can do to help the audio.

Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 (2023) performance

Tucked in the chassis of the Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 lies an Intel Core i5-1335U with 16GB of RAM. It had no trouble working through a couple dozen Google Chrome tabs and a handful of YouTube videos.

On the Geekbench 5.5 overall performance test, the IdeaPad Flex 5 scored 8,440, which doesn’t quite make the mainstream laptop average (9,064). It faltered against the Yoga 7i’s Core i7-1355U (8,663), the Swift Go 14’s Core i7-13700H (11,815), and the ZenBook 14’s Core i5-1240P (8,590) processors.

The IdeaPad Flex 5 transcoded a 4K video to 1080p in 11 minutes and 41 seconds, once again dropping short of the category average (8:10). It fell into last place against the Yoga 7i (10:12), Swift Go 14 (5:35), and ZenBook 14 (8:40).

Lenovo’s 512GB SSD sports a transfer rate of 788 megabytes per second, which isn’t too far from the average mainstream laptop (833 MBps). It crushed the ZenBook 14’s 256GB SSD (246 MBps), but it got nowhere near the 512GB SSDs in the Yoga 7 (1,380 MBps) and the Swift Go 14 (1,481 MBps).

Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 (2023) graphics

The Flex 5 isn’t offering anything special in terms of graphics, sticking with its standard Intel Iris Xe Graphics chip just like its competitors. 

Yet, it somehow ended up last again on the 3DMark Fire Strike synthetics graphics benchmark. The IdeaPad Flex 5 scored 3,936, slowing down against the average mainstream laptop (5,073) as well as the Yoga 7i (5,027), Swift Go 14 (5,533), and ZenBook 14 (4,048).

On the Sid Meier's Civilization VI: Gathering Storm (Medium, 1080p) benchmark, however, it scored 28 frames per second, which might not be playable (30-fps), but it averaged better than the Yoga 7i (25 fps), Swift Go 14 (27 fps), and ZenBook 14 (21 fps).

Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 (2023) battery life

It could be worse, but it could be better. The Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 lasted 8 hours and 22 minutes on the Laptop Mag battery test, falling below the mainstream laptop average (9:54). It survived the Swift Go 14 (8:05), but died before it could see the Yoga 7i (12:04) and ZenBook 14 (10:52) succeed.

Last year's model lasted 14 hours and 16 minutes. A massive step down.

Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 (2023) webcam

I recommend the IdeaPad Flex 5’s 1080p webcam if you feel like being humbled. 

The colorful posters that adorned the wall behind me were muted and faded, like I threw them in the washing machine for a dozen cycles. In terms of contrast — no, the window behind me was washed out and begging for help. Meanwhile, my face looked like a grainy mess. I recommend picking up one of our best webcams.

Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 (2023) heat

Poetry — the IdeaPad Flex 5’s lack of power helps it remain relatively cool. It measured 98 degrees Fahrenheit on the underside, which is just slightly above our 95-degree comfort threshold. Meanwhile, the center of the keyboard and touchpad reach 93 and 80 degrees, respectively. The hottest that the machine got was 101 degrees on the underside, near the hinge.

Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 (2023) software and warranty

If you’ve ever had a Lenovo laptop, you know that the company packs all of its useful systems in the Lenovo Vantage app. This lets you obtain information about your system and warranty, and lets you adjust settings for power, audio, display and more.

There’s some bloatware onboard, like Spotify, WhatsApp, and Solitaire.

The IdeaPad Flex 5 has a one-year limited warranty. See how Lenovo performed on our Tech Support Showdown and Best and Worst Brands ranking.

Bottom line

The Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 falters in more ways than one. Despite its affordable price and its neat design, everything under and around the hood found itself way below the quality we expect from a laptop at this price.

For example, the Asus Zenbook 14 (Q409ZA) OLED is $749 and offers a bright, sharp display, better battery life, and better performance despite its lacking components.

We cannot in good conscience recommend purchasing the Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5. There are better options out there for better prices.

Apple is the leading technology brand when it comes to devices and gadgets of all kinds, spending years solidifying the MacBook, iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch as some of the most highly sought after pieces of tech out there. The company even has its own monitors, TV devices, desktop computers and an enormous suite of applications.

But have you ever looked at Apple’s line-up and wondered why it’s such a simple company? They utilize a very particular brand of slick minimalism that makes everything they create appear perfectly designed, yet they lack variety. 

Where are the OLED MacBooks? Where are the 2-in-1 laptops? Where are foldable iPhones? How is it possible that its $5,000 Pro XDR Display is only LED? WWDC 2023 was a two-hour conference yet the only MacBook edition Apple announced is a slightly larger MacBook Air 15? We’ve previously written about how boring that is, but the company continues to be basic on all fronts. 

Why are there no OLED MacBook? 

I purchased my first OLED TV, the phenomenal LG C1 OLED, back in 2021 and it changed my life. It’s hard to watch or play anything on it and then return to LED screens, as the massive difference in color depth, especially within its range of blacks, is unlike anything I’ve seen.

Since then, I’ve tested quite a few OLED laptops and tablets: The Lenovo Tab P11 Pro, Acer Swift Go 14, and, my personal favorite, the Lenovo Yoga 9i. All three of these have gorgeous displays and watching films was my favorite aspect of testing them, which made me wonder: Why aren’t these phenomenal displays present on MacBook products?

OLED laptops have been a thing since 2016, with the X1 Yoga solidifying itself as the first. We’ve seen plenty of other companies follow suit, with rumors claiming that we won’t see MacBook Pro models with OLED until 2026. Apple is taking its sweet time implementing these beautifully vibrant displays into its line-up, and it made me realize Apple is constantly sluggish in adapting new technologies.

This can be applied to every other Apple product. Where is the Apple Pro Display OLED? Or the Apple iPad OLED? The iPhone X debuted with an OLED in 2017, yet for some reason, the company has yet to implement this into other devices. We are aware of rumors that microLED displays are coming to Apple’s line-up in the future as well, but will it similarly take forever to grace MacBooks? 

Why are there no 2-in-1 MacBooks? 

Apple has been largely present in both the laptop and tablet industry for a long time, yet somehow, the highly popular trend of 2-in-1 laptops hasn’t crossed over the bougie Cupertino lawn. Instead, it foolishly continues to go down the route of implementing shoddily-crafted attachable keyboards to its iPad models, all the while it’s still slowed down by iPadOS’ frustrating software. We’ve written a whole article about how our very own Rami Tabari tried to use the iPad Pro as a laptop for a week and mostly hated it.

Apple already has touchscreens in iPads and even boasts the beloved Apple Pencil, yet we’ve never seen a 2-in-1 MacBook before. What exactly is Apple waiting for, and will the company ever step down this route? Some might argue that Apple isn’t a big fan of gimmicks, but the company’s attachable iPad keyboards are infinitely more gimmicky and work nowhere near as well. 

Why are there no foldable iPhones? 

We continue to see Apple’s lack of innovation with the iPhone, which hasn’t changed all that much since its launch. Samsung introduced its first foldable phone, the Samsung Galaxy Fold, back in 2019. Google just launched its Pixel Fold this year with OnePlus launching one very soon, and yet, we’ve not seen Apple go down the same road.

Instead, the company just filed a patent for a rollable iPhone, which looks like nothing more than an electronic Yodel—it’s the most ridiculous thing Apple will ever do if it does come to fruition. All of this makes us wonder what core philosophy at the center of Apple prevents them from fulfilling these ideas.  

Bottom line 

There used to be a time when Apple was exciting. Nowadays, we are introduced to a new Mac Studio and its greatest selling point is that it has 64GB of RAM. That’s cool and all, but what happened to technology feeling innovative? The Apple Vision Pro is an attempt from the company to do something bigger than ever before, yet everything else has been left to rot.

Apple’s own personal Silicon chips also felt like a step into new and exciting territory, but does it really take this long to implement OLED displays? 2-in-1 laptops? Foldable phones? When a majority of Apple competitors have gone down these roads and done all of this especially well, it’s alarming that the company is still so behind.

The Lenovo Yoga 9i is our top pick for best 2-in-1 laptop for good reason. It has a gorgeous OLED display, solid productivity performance, and great battery life. 

Currently, the excellent Lenovo Yoga 9i is on sale for $1,349 at Lenovo. Typically priced at $1,649, that's $300 in savings. Even better, it drops to $1,289 when you use Lenovo coupon codes, "BBYDEALS" and "BUYMOREOFFER" at checkout. That's a total of $360 off and the lowest price ever for this Lenovo laptop. 

If you want to beat the back to school rush, it's one of the best college laptop deals you can get now. 

Lenovo's Yoga 9i OLED is the best 2-in-1 laptop for most people and has everything you could ever want in a laptop for school, work and creativity. This machine on sale packs a 14-inch OLED (2880 x 1800) 90Hz touch screen, 13th Gen Intel Core i7-1360P 12-core CPU, 16GB of RAM, Iris Xe graphics, and 1TB SSD. Plus, it includes a stylus for taking notes, sketching, and marking up documents on the fly.

In our Lenovo Yoga 9i review, we gave it a solid rating of 4.5 out of 5-stars and Editor's Choice award for its stunning 2.8K OLED screen, top tier performance, and crazy-fast SSD. We also liked its loud, impactful speakers and thought its battery life was decent. 

We tested the laptop's might in the real world and it handled everything we threw at it. Even with dozens of YouTube, Twitch, Google Docs, and Sheets pages running simultaneously while working and zipping between tabs, the laptop didn't stutter. That said, the Yoga 9i's Intel Core i7-1360P processor and 16GB of RAM hardware is more than adequate for day-to-day tasks for school or work. 

Design-wise, the Lenovo Yoga 9i is sophisticated and minimalist. It features a shiny all-aluminum chassis with rounded reflective edges at the base. Putting the final touch to its sleek look is Lenovo's signature and YOGA spell-out logos on the lid, placed at opposite corners. The laptop's surfaces are smooth to the touch.

Measuring 12.5 x 9.1 x .6 inches and with a weight of 3.1 pounds, the Lenovo Yoga 9i is fairly portable for a 2-in-1 laptop. It's significantly lighter than the Dell Inspiron 16 (14.1 x 9.9 x 0.6 inches, 4.6 pounds) and on par with the HP Spectre x360 13.5-inch (11.6 x 7.8 x 0.6 inches, 3 pounds). 

Ports on the Lenovo Yoga 9i are decent. Its left side is outfitted with a USB Type-A 3.2 port and two Thunderbolt 4 ports with Power Delivery 3.0. On the right, there's a USB Type-C 3.2 port and audio combo jack.

Now $360 off, the Lenovo Yoga 9i is at its best price yet. It's a wise choice if you're looking for a versatile 2-in-1 laptop that comes with its own stylus. 

Amazon Prime Day 2023 is delivering great deals, but I cannot stop thinking about how people can get the Lenovo Yoga 9i for $1,445 at Lenovo's website. I claimed months ago that it was the best laptop of 2023 thus far, and that hasn't changed now that we're more than halfway through the year. 

Considering the laptop starts at $1,700, Lenovo dropping its price by $255 is phenomenally convincing. I would have already recommended anyone in need of a 2-in-1 laptop get their hands on the Yoga 9i even before the discount, but this massive price decrease has only bolstered the quality of this recommendation. I will never be shy in my adoration for this gorgeous 2-in-1 laptop, and you won't want to miss it during Prime Day 2023.

Why the Lenovo Yoga 9i is the best laptop I've reviewed this year

My co-workers and friends could tell you that I don't make it a secret what my favorite laptop is. The Lenovo Yoga 9i is the best of the best, and in my review, I claimed "I came away from the 8th generation of the Yoga 9i with newfound love in my heart." Packing a stunning 14-inch 2.8K OLED display, phenomenal color depth, and powerful Intel i7-1360P processing power stuffed in a lightweight but sturdy aluminum chassis, I'm still madly in love with it months later.

It continues to be at the top of Laptop Mag's best 2-in-1 laptops list and I awarded it with a 4.5/5 alongside our Editor's Choice badge. It is the best laptop I've tested in my three years at Laptop Mag thus far, so Lenovo's discount is hard to argue against. But beyond just my endless praise, lets get into the nitty gritty.

The Yoga 9i performed superbly in our color tests, reproducing 142.1% of the DCI-P3 color gamut and reaching 353 nits of brightness. These are superb scores, and I couldn't believe my eyes while watching The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power as Galadriel sailed off through an exceptionally deep and inky sea.

It also crushes performance metrics, managing to hit a multi-score of 9,954 on the Geekbench 5.5 overall performance test with its Intel Core i7-1360P processor. This is quite a bit better than the premium laptop average of 8,800, and it also pulled ahead of competitors like the HP Spectre x360 13.5-inch (Intel Core i7-1255U, 7,243), Dell Inspiron 16 (Intel Core i7-1260P, 6,757) and Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Pro 360 (Intel Core i7-1360p, 8,250).

Looking for more phenomenal Prime Day deals? We've got you covered! Visit our Prime Day deals hub for the best summer discounts.

Amazon Prime Day deals are in full swing and while some of the deals are shaving hundreds off expensive laptops, others are turning already affordable laptops into impulse purchases.

Unless you skipped the headline, you know this is one of the latter, with the HP Chromebook 14 now just $179 at Amazon. It originally cost $289, so you're saving $110. This is one of the best cheap Prime Day laptop deals that we've seen so far.

HP's latest Chromebook 14 is thin, light and great for travel. This particular laptop on sale has a 14-inch (1966 x 768) display, 1.1-GHz Intel Celeron N4120 quad-core CPU, 4GB RAM, Intel UHD 600 graphics and 64GB of eMMC flash storage. As with all Chromebooks, you also get 15GB of Google Drive cloud storage. 

These specs may seem meager, however, it's all you need to create documents, web browse, and stream videos. Google's lightweight Chrome OS ensures near-instant startups, snappy performance and secure logins. Although we didn't test it, 2022 HP Chromebook 14 reviews average 4.2 out of 5-stars on Amazon so far.

For connecting external devices, you get 2 x USB-Type C ports, 1 x USB Type-A port, and a headphone/mic combo jack. Meanwhile, Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5 covers your wireless connectivity needs.

At 3.2 pounds and 0.7 inches thin, the HP Chromebook 14 is on par with rival 14-inch laptops. It's in the same weight class as the Acer Chromebook Spin 713 (3 pounds, 0.7 inches) and Lenovo Yoga 9i (3 pounds, 0.6 inches). It's slightly lighter than the Acer Swift 3 (2.6 pounds, 0.6 inches). 

If you want a laptop that can cover all the basics without making you skip out on any of the other enticing Prime Day deals you're considering, then the HP Chromebook 14 might be the right choice for you.

When it comes to good 2-in-1s, Lenovo’s Yoga models always flex their way up to the top spots as one of the best.

But now, thanks to a special discount code straight from Lenovo, you can save $200 on a Yoga C740 14-inch laptop — starting at just $769.99 with the code NEWYEARYOGA.

• More: Best 2-in-1 laptops 
• Best cheap laptop deals
• Lenovo Yoga C740 review

Take a look at our Yoga C740 review and you will see how much we like this machine, as it packs plenty of performance and a good battery life inside a thin, versatile frame.

Let’s start with the spec sheet. It varies between models (our favourite is the 1TB version we talk about just above), but for context, even the cheapest model packs a 10th Gen Intel Core i7-10510U CPU, along with 8GB DDR4 RAM and 512GB SSD. That is more than enough to crush the essentials and maintain speed when multitasking.

Go for the one we’ve picked, then you get double storage and RAM. All models come with the same glorious 14-inch touchscreen display with FHD resolution and IPS tech, which when paired with the Dolby Atmos speakers makes for a great entertainment experience.

It sounds good, but we haven’t even talked about the flexibility of its design (it’s called “Yoga” after all)! At 12.7 x 8.5 x 0.7 inches, this is a seriously portable frame — made even better with its 360-degree hinge for a mid-tier system that surpasses expectations.

Trust us when we say this is not a deal you should ignore. But if you want to shop around, check out our best 2-in-1s list.

The Yoga series has set such a high bar for laptop-tablet hybrids that nearly every PC maker is copying Lenovo. Now it's not enough to deliver a clamshell that can bend back 360 degrees into tablet mode, and also into tent or stand modes. The Yoga 3 Pro ups the ante with a slimmer, lighter design, a watchlike hinge and Intel's new power-efficient Core M processor. Starting at $1,299, Lenovo's 13-inch hybrid is more expensive than highly regarded competitors such as the MacBook Air and Surface Pro 3. The compelling design and eye-popping screen help justify the premium, but you'll sacrifice battery life versus competing ultraportables.

Design

One of the best-looking laptops just got even more beautiful. The Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro shares the same foldable shape and attractive matte finish as its predecessor, the Yoga 2 Pro, but slims down to just 0.5-inch thickness and 2.6 pounds from 0.6 inches and 3 pounds. Most manila folders I've carried are heavier and have more girth. Apple's MacBook Air 13-inch (2.9 pounds, 12.8 x 9 x 0.68 inches) is bulkier, as are the Acer Aspire S7 (12.72 x 8.78 x 0.51 inches, 3 pounds) and Dell XPS 13 (12.4 x 8.1 x 0.7 inches, 3 pounds).

The top and bottom surfaces of the Yoga 3 Pro are covered in a magnesium matte finish that resists fingerprints and provides a fashion-forward aesthetic that's equally at home in the boardroom or in the living room. Our review unit came in a rather bland Platinum Silver, but Lenovo sells the laptop in Champagne Gold and Clementine Orange, the latter of which looks truly stunning.

Lenovo has replaced the dual hinges that appeared on prior Yogas with a new, classy-looking "watchband"-style design with six beveled-metal hinges along a matte strip that make it look like the links on a Rolex. The new style allows the Yoga to fold perfectly flat when opened 180 degrees and shaves a couple of millimeters off the thickness, helping it achieve its svelte profile.

In another welcome change, the magnesium deck is covered with a luxurious, black-dotted, soft-touch material that looks as good as it feels. Resting my wrists against the palm rest was even more pleasant than putting them on my gel-filled desktop wrist rest.

MORE: Best Lenovo Laptops

Multi Mode Use

The most important aspect of the Yoga 3 Pro's design is its ability to bend into different modes. Like its predecessor and its imitators, the Yoga 3 Pro's lid can bend back a full 360 degrees into tablet mode. If you bend the lid only about 45 degrees with the lip facing down, it can serve in tent mode. Push it to 270 degrees and flip it over so the keyboard leans against your desk and you can use it in stand mode, which is great for presentations or movie watching.

No matter how far I bent it, the hinge felt incredibly sturdy: tight enough not to slide open when in tent mode but loose enough that I didn't have to pull hard to move it.

In order to help you make the most of the notebook's different modes, Lenovo includes its Yoga Harmony software, which suggests appropriate applications to use when you switch modes. As soon as I flipped the lid backward to stand mode, I got a Windows 8-style notification from Harmony saying, "Stand Mode: Click here for your frequently used apps," and received similar notifications for tablet, tent and laptop modes.

When you tap its notification, Harmony launches to full screen, showing two window panes. The left pane contains stats showing the percentage of time you use each mode versus other Yoga users. While it was interesting to learn that Yoga owners around the world use their devices in laptop mode 40 percent of the time while I used it that way more than 90 percent of the time, it wasn't particularly useful.

The right pane shows a series of shortcut tiles, divided into two sections: "My Favorites," which contains applications you've used recently in that mode, and "Trending," which recommends apps to download for that mode. All of the downloadable apps are part of the Pokki store, an ecosystem that contains hundreds of free apps that are touch-friendly but run in windows on the desktop, rather than in Windows 8's Modern UI. Some of these apps, such as IMDB, simply duplicate the functionality of a website, but others such as Webcam Toy, which let you take all kinds of funky photos, are genuinely useful.

Harmony Settings, a separate app that runs in the tray, changes a handful of system settings based on what program you're running and what mode you're in. When I had a photo open in Windows Photo viewer and I switched from laptop to stand mode, Harmony Settings switched the program to full screen and enabled Lenovo Motion Gestures, which allowed me to cycle through pictures by waving my hand in front of the webcam.

Unfortunately, Harmony Settings doesn't work in every application, but it does support several dozen popular programs, including Microsoft Office, iTunes, Dropbox and Netflix. When it does support an application, you can change a handful of settings, telling it to make the application full screen, optimize power settings, enable Lenovo Motion Control, enhance the audio, disable touch for presentations, or provide a more paperlike color scheme for reading.

Display

The Yoga 3's 13.3-inch, 3200 x 1800 touch-sensitive display provides bright, detailed images with vibrant color. I viewed a 4K video of a locomotive running down the track and found fine details, such as the rust on its pipes and the shingles on a distant house, easy to make out. When I watched a 1080p trailer for Avengers: Age of Ultron, the red in Iron Man's armor and the green in the Hulk's skin seemed particularly vivid.

According to our colorimeter, the Yoga 3 Pro's screen can display 99.3 percent of the sRGB color gamut, making it much more capable than the average ultraportable (69.3 percent) and the Apple MacBook Air (63 percent). The Acer Aspire S7 and Microsoft Surface Pro 3were close, showing 98 and 97 percent of the gamut, respectively.

With a Delta-E accuracy rating of 4.9 (0 is best), the Yoga 3 Pro shows truer colors than average (6.5), but isn't perfect. The images in the Avengers trailer appeared to have a slight yellow cast to them that made the outdoor scenes appear bright and sunny but also affected objects like characters' skin and the outside of buildings. Though it displays fewer colors overall, the MacBook Air has a more accurate score of 2.5. However, the Surface Pro 3 (9.9) and Acer Aspire S7 (6.1) fared far worse.

Registering 318 nits of brightness (more is better), the Yoga 3 Pro's screen is significantly brighter than the 259-nit category average and the Acer Aspire S7's 252-nit display. It's also a step above the Surface Pro 3 (298 nits), MacBook Air (288) and last year's Yoga Pro 2 (289). The Dell XPS 13 (356 nits) was a little brighter.

Whether I was looking at it in laptop, tablet, stand or tent mode, colors stayed true at up to 45 degrees to the left or right of center but washed out slightly at wider viewing angles. The glossy panel also tends to show fingerprints under bright light.

Touch Responsiveness

The Yoga 3 Pro's 10-point touch display allowed me to draw smoothly -- with all my fingers at once -- in Windows Paint. However, the Start button in the screen bezel wasn't as responsive. It often failed to do anything or required several taps before returning me to the home screen. Lenovo says it is aware of this bug and is working on a fix.

Audio

The Yoga 3 Pro's JBL speakers provide accurate, pleasant music playback that's good enough to groove to, particularly when the system is in tablet mode. Whether I was listening to Patrice Rushen's bass-heavy "Forget Me Nots" or Jimi Hendrix's guitar-centric "Purple Haze," playback was smooth and tin-free. The Yoga also comes preloaded with Waves MaxxAudio software for fine-tuning the sound.

The quality improves and the output gets louder when you switch from laptop to tablet mode. As a clamshell, the Yoga 3 Pro hit 86 dB on the Laptop Mag Sound Volume test but that number rose all the way to 100 dB when we turned it into a slate--to be fair, we test laptops from 23 inches away, and tablets at 13 inches. Still, both volumes are way above the 84 dB ultraportable laptop category average.

Keyboard and Touchpad

The Yoga 3 Pro's keyboard has many positives that contribute to a comfortable typing experience, but it also has less tactile feedback than I'd like. Covered in a soft-touch rubberized material, the deck was one of the most comfortable I've ever rested my wrists on, offering plenty of support without chafing or digging into my hands. As on other Lenovo laptops, the keys are well spaced with a rounded shape that makes it easy to avoid adjacent-letter errors. The backlight is extremely bright, too.

However, as an aggressive touch-typist, I found the keys not quite springy enough. Our instruments show that the Yoga 3 Pro keyboard requires just 52 grams of actuation force, short of the 56.3 gram category average. When a keyboard has low actuation, touch-typists are more likely to hit the keys a little too hard, which is a little unpleasant .

Perhaps as a result of the low actuation, I had a 3 to 5 percent error rate when I tried the Ten Thumbs Typing Tutor Test, much worse than my typical 1 percent. But I still managed to hit my normal rate of 86 words per minute. On the bright side, the keyboard offers 1.5mm of vertical travel, slightly better than the ultraportable average of 1.3 mm.

The 3.5 x 2.4-inch buttonless touchpad offered generally accurate navigation around the desktop but often stuck when I tried to move long distances, forcing me to lift my fingers and swipe again. The pad executed Windows 8 gestures (swipe from right for charms, swipe from left to change apps) smoothly. Multitouch gestures, such as three-finger swipe and pinch-to-zoom worked, but sometimes required more than one try. Fortunately, unlike many other buttonless touchpads, the Yoga 3 Pro's did not exhibit any jerkiness when I double-clicked on icons.

Heat

Though the Core M processor inside this system can be used with totally passive cooling, the Yoga 3 Pro contains a small fan that helped its skin stay comfortable throughout our testing. After streaming a video for 15 minutes, the touchpad measured a chilly 77 degrees, the keyboard a mere 82 degrees and the bottom a respectable 92 degrees Fahrenheit. We consider temperatures below 95 degrees comfortable and those below 90 degrees imperceptible.

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Ports and Webcam

The Yoga 3 Pro's uber-thin frame still leaves room for most of the ports a shopper would want. On the right side, you'll find a single USB 3.0 port and an audio jack, along with the power button and volume rocker, which have to be on the side so you can access them from Tablet Mode. The left side houses a microHDMI port for video out, a 4-in-1 card reader, a second USB 3.0 port and the laptop's power port, which can be used as a USB 2.0 port when the system is not plugged in.

The 720p webcam captured blurry, noisy images even under direct light. Using the Windows webcam software in a dark area of my living room with the exposure setting turned all the way up, I could make out my face, but just barely. Lenovo's Settings software provides a few additional camera settings for brightness and contrast, along with the ability to enable face tracking.

Performance

The Yoga 3 Pro is one of the first devices to ship with Intel's new low-power Core M processor, which promises better performance than the company's low-cost Atom chip, but with a lot less energy and heat than its Core Series (Core i3, i5 and i7). In regular use, I found the notebook generally snappy, whether I was surfing the Web, playing a 4K video or typing an article. As expected, the hybrid's performance on synthetic tests was generally well above that of Atom-based devices but below Core i5-powered competitors .

The Yoga 3 Pro scored a solid 4,571 on Geekbench 3, a synthetic benchmark that measures overall system speed. That's comfortably higher than the 4,291 ultraportable notebook category average and the Atom Z3795-powered ThinkPad 10 (3,120) tablet. However, notebooks with higher-end processors, such as the Core i5 4200U-powered Dell XPS 13 (5,153) and Acer Aspire S7 (5,101) achieved higher scores.

The laptop's 256GB SSD booted Windows 8.1 in a speedy 8 seconds, 5 seconds faster than the category average. It took just 29 seconds to complete the Laptop Mag File Transfer Test, which involves copying 4.97GB of mixed media files. That's a rate of 175 MBps, which is quite a bit faster than the 114.8 MBps category average and the Dell XPS 13 (145 MBps). However, the Acer Aspire S8 (196 MBps) and MacBook Air 13-inch (190.3 MBps) were a little faster.

The Yoga 3 Pro should handle any productivity task with great aplomb. It took just 5 minutes and 46 seconds for this hybrid to complete the Laptop Mag Spreadsheet test, which involves matching 20,000 names with their addresses. That time is significantly quicker than the category average (9:43) and nearly 300 percent faster than the Atom-powered ThinkPad 10 (15:18). The Dell XPS 13 (5:20) and Acer Aspire S7 (5:15) did only slightly better.

Graphics Performance

When it comes to graphics, the Yoga 3 Pro is capable of showing 4K videos and playing World of Warcraft on its lowest settings, but forget about serious gaming. On 3DMark Ice Storm Extreme, a synthetic graphics test that measures graphics prowess, the Yoga 3 Pro scored a modest 17,283. That's just a little lower than the Yoga 2 Pro (17,814) but well below the category average (20,207), the Dell XPS 13 (30,332) and the Acer Aspire S7 (22,499).

The hybrid achieved a playable 36 fps when running World of Warcraft at 1366 x 768 resolution with autodetect settings, which is slightly above the 34.5 fps category average. However, that rate dropped to an unusable 18 fps at 1920 x 1080, well below the 31.8 fps average.

Battery Life

The Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro is light enough to take anywhere, but it doesn't have the best endurance. On the Laptop Mag Battery Test, which involves continuous surfing over Wi-Fi at 100 nits of brightness, the Yoga 3 Pro lasted a mediocre 6 hours and 8 minutes, nearly 2 hours below the 7:57 ultraportable laptop category average and less than half the MacBook Air 13's endurance (12:20). Dell's XPS 13 (8:38) and Microsoft's Surface Pro 3 (7:42) both lasted quite a bit longer. On the bright side, the 4-ounce power brick is one of the smallest and lightest on any laptop.

On Lenovo's advice we also tested the Yoga 3 Pro with the Harmony software uninstalled and found it lasted a bit longer, clocking in at 7 hours and 5 minutes. However, the Harmony and Harmony Settings apps are fairly useful and run in the background by default.

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Configurations

Lenovo sells the Yoga 3 Pro in two, very similar configurations, for $1,299 and $1,499 each. Both have Intel Core M 5Y70 CPUs, 3200 x 1800 screens, 8GB of RAM and 802.11ac wireless cards, but the base model has a 256GB SSD while the more expensive one has 512GB of storage. You can purchase either config in Light Silver, Golden or, our favorite, Clementine Orange.

Software and Warranty

In addition to the Harmony and Harmony Settings applications, Lenovo includes a handful of useful utilities. Lenovo photo master provides very basic image-editing capabilities, such as cropping and a few special effects in a touch-friendly interface. Built for Windows 8.1's Modern UI, Lenovo Settings allows you to control the audio, display, wireless, power and camera settings.

Phone Companion allows you to share files wirelessly between an Android phone and your notebook, send SMS messages from your notebook or even make calls from within Windows. Lenovo ShareIt makes it easy to share large files between devices. Lenovo VeriFace Pro sets up facial recognition for your login.

Bottom Line

The Yoga 3 Pro is an incredibly thin and light 13-inch laptop that bends back effectively into four different modes, with a gorgeous screen, sexy chassis and solid performance to boot. However, I expect longer battery life from an ultraportable, especially for $1,299, and the Start button needs to be fixed.

If you're looking for longer endurance and don't need a convertible, consider the MacBook Air 13-inch, which costs $300 less and lasts more than 12 hours on a charge. Lenovo's $1,029 Yoga 2 Pro is a viable alternative, too, because it has a similar screen, battery life, performance and bendability as the 3 Pro, but is thicker and heavier. However, if you want a 2-in-1 device with cutting-edge design and versatility, the Yoga 3 Pro is a strong and sleek option.

Even the lightest 10-inch tablet can feel heavy after you've been holding it aloft for several minutes. The Lenovo Tablet HD+ features an adjustable kickstand and hinge, which allow you to stand the tablet up on your desk, tilt it up for better viewing when it's on a flat surface or grip it more easily in one hand. The $349 Android device also features a full-HD, 1920 x 1200 display, front-facing speakers and really long battery life. However, Lenovo has also cut a few corners.

Design

Like its lower-resolution brother, the Yoga 10, the Yoga 10 HD+ has an unusual spiral-notebook aesthetic. The tablet has a long, thin, .1-inch body that tapers into a thick cylindrical aluminum hinge that holds the battery, with a section that flips out to serve as a kickstand. With its silver-colored, polycarbonate skin, the tablet looks every bit like a premium device. I particularly liked the beveled Lenovo logo and the textured surface on the back that made me sound like Grand Master Flash scratching records when I touched it. Placing the power button on the left side of the cylinder and the 3.5mm audio jack on the right is another nice touch.

At 10.3 x 7.1 x .4 inches and 1.37 pounds, the Yoga Tablet 10 HD+ isn't the lightest slate on the market, with the Sony Xperia Z2 (10.47 x 6.77 x 0.25 inches, .96 pounds) and the ASUS Transformer Pad TF701T (10.35 x 7.11 x 0.35 inches, 1.29 pounds) weighing less. However, that extra weight goes into the high-capacity battery and kickstand, which the Yoga's competitors lack.

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Unfortunately, only Hercules could dislodge the kickstand from its crevice with one hand. Because the sides of the crevice obstruct the kickstand's edges, I had to grab the cylinder on the bottom of the device and turn with all my might before it popped out even a little bit. When it does pop out slightly, you must grab the exposed edge with another hand and pull it downward. Otherwise, the stand will just snap back in, and you'll have to start over again. I found this process extremely frustrating.

Three Modes

Click to EnlargeOnce out, the kickstand does a great job of propping the tablet up in landscape orientation, a position Lenovo calls Stand Mode. You can also lay the Yoga 10 HD+ face-up on a table, with the kickstand angling the tablet up in Tilt Mode. The cylinder also makes the device easier to grip when you are holding it aloft; Lenovo calls this Hold Mode, though most people would call it "carrying a tablet around."

I found Stand Mode particularly useful because it allowed me to prop the tablet up on my desk and watch video clips while working on my PC. Though the Yoga is not marketed as a second or third monitor for PC users, I can imagine keeping my email inbox, Twitter feed or other glanceable data on it while using my computer.

Title Mode is most useful when you are looking down at the tablet and don't want to crane your neck to view the screen head on. Travelers will probably employ this mode when typing on the Yoga 10 HD+ on an airplane tray table.

The device's cylindrical bottom makes it easy to carry the tablet in one hand when it's in portrait orientation, but it seemed a bit clunky when I gripped it in landscape mode.

Display

Click to EnlargeThe Yoga Tablet 10 HD+'s 10.1-inch, 1920 x 1200 display delivered sharp images, but weak viewing angles and limited color quality. The tablet was able to display only 68.4 percent of the sRGB color gamut in our lab tests, which means that it has a smaller palette to work with than the average tablet (91.4 percent) and even the Lenovo Tablet A10 (72 percent).

More-premium tablets like the Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.5 (154 percent) and Sony Xperia Z2 (125 percent) show even more colors than the sRGB spec. The tablet also turned in a mediocre Delta E color accuracy score of 6.6 (0 is perfect accuracy), when the category average is 5.3 and competitors like Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.5 (3.4), Sony Xperia Z2 (2.6) and Lenovo A10 (1.2) produce images that are much more true to life.

Interestingly, the tablet's UI has different color schemes for its three different modes. However, users must select the mode manually in the software. I found that the Stand Mode setting looked much better than the Tilt or Hold Mode, with the latter sporting a somewhat yellowish tint.

Unfortunately, the poor color gamut score of the Tablet 10 HD+ is an accurate reflection of what you'll see when viewing videos. When I watched a trailer for "The Avengers" on the Yoga Tablet 10 HD+, blues and greens appeared a bit dull, while many objects had a strong red tint. I was shocked when a scene showed Agent Coulson with skin so red that he appeared to have a sunburn, even though his skin was a realistic off-white color when I viewed the same trailer on the Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.5.

A trailer for "Guardians of the Galaxy" also failed to impress. In a scene of Star Lord shirtless, he looked like he had a giant red rash. On the bright side, the high-res display allowed me to make out every hair in Chris Pratt's facial stubble without a hint of noise.

If you plan to spend a lot of time outdoors with your tablet, you might want to look elsewhere than the Yoga Tablet 10 HD+. Its screen managed a mediocre 342 nits on our light test, below the 360-nit category average and miles behind the 502-nit Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.5. The 402-nit ASUS Transformer Pad TF701T and the 393-nit Xperia Z2 are also brighter.

When I took the Lenovo tablet out on the roof on a sunny day, I could barely see the contents of the screen. Even indoors, colors washed out considerably when I looked at the Yoga 10 HD+ from angles wider than 45 degrees. It doesn't help that the glossy screen is a fingerprint magnet.

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Audio

Click to EnlargeThe Yoga Tablet 10 HD+'s Dolby-enabled front-facing speakers provided loud, accurate audio that's good for listening to music. When I played the bass-heavy "Forget Me Nots," the vocals and backing music were rich enough to get me tapping my feet. The guitar- and drum-laden "Metal Health" was a little tinny but good enough to bang my head to.

The tablet is loud enough to fill a small room, measuring 87 decibels on the Laptop Mag Volume Test, well above the 78.9-dB category average. A Dolby Audio app provides fine control over the graphic equalizer, along with profiles for music, movies and gaming.

Custom Android Interface

Click to EnlargeThe Yoga Tablet 10 HD+ comes with Android 4.3, covered with Lenovo's subtle Android skin. Unlike Samsung, HTC and LG, all of which add a ton of functionality and a completely custom look and feel, Lenovo pops in a handful of features to go with a few unique-looking icons and menus.

The software navigation buttons on the bottom are identical to those in stock Android, but the settings menu has a slightly different aesthetic, with a green highlight on top of white submenus. There's also a special menu bar, which appears when you tap an icon of three dots in the lower right corner. The menu bar allows you to add home screens, change the theme, switch wallpaper, and control some of the scrolling and transition effects.

Unlike most Android devices, the Yoga 10 HD+ has no app drawer. Instead, all apps appear on the home screens. For many users, swiping over one home screen to the right will seem more intuitive than finding an app drawer button.

Multitasking

Click to EnlargeThe Yoga Tablet 10 HD+'s most interesting Android enhancement is a multi-window mode that lets you split the screen among up to four apps at a time. Unlike Samsung, which also has a multi window mode on its tablets but only allows certain apps to perform this function, Lenovo ties the feature to its app-switching menu and lets you use any apps you want.

When you hit the app-switching button in the bottom nav, you're presented with a thumbnail list of open apps. If you press on a thumbnail, it opens full screen. But if you drag an app icon up from the menu bar onto the top of the screen, it takes over half, a third or a quarter of the display, depending on how many other apps you have open in windows.

By default, the screen splits evenly among apps, but you can move the borders around to give some apps more room than others. Tapping the circle that appears on the border allows you to close a window. I particularly enjoyed splitting the screen between a movie trailer and a Web browser I could use to look up info about the flick.

Performance

Click to EnlargeThe Yoga Tablet 10 HD+'s 1.6-GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor and 2GB of RAM allow it to surf the Web and play movies reasonably well, but the device just didn't feel as smooth and snappy as most other tablets I've used. Navigating through the UI, I noticed a fairly significant delay when hitting the home button to return to the home screen. The task-switching menu popped up from the bottom of the screen rather slowly, and transitions, like the one that occurs when you drag an app into multi-window mode, seemed to occur too slowly.

Demanding games didn't work particularly well, either. Asphalt 8 was noticeably jerky. Fast Racing 3D was smooth but suffered from grainy images and flat surfaces. Asphalt 8 was much smoother when I tried it on the Galaxy Tab S 10.5.

On Geekbench 3, a synthetic benchmark that measures overall system performance, the Yoga Tablet 10 HD+ scored a weak 1,483, well below the 2,211 tablet category average and about half as fast as the Nvidia Tegra 4-powered Transformer Pad TF701T (2,712), the Exynos 5-enabled Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.5 (2,776) and the Snapdragon 801-powered Sony Xperia Z2 (2,685).

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The Yoga Tablet 10 HD+ did even worse on the 3DMark Ice Storm Unlimited graphics test, scoring a pedestrian 4,104. That's less than half the 9,874 tablet average and way behind the Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.5 (13,481), the Sony Xperia Z2 (18,935) and the ASUS Transformer Pad TF701T (15,182).

The tablet isn't the slowest on the block when it comes to crunching video, but it is far behind most competitors. The Yoga took 9 minutes and 14 seconds to transcode an HD video to 480p using the Vidtrim app, which is faster than the 11:25 category average but much slower than the Sony Xperia Z2 (5:49), the Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.5 (4:17) and the ASUS Transformer Pad TF701T (4:18).

Cameras

Click to EnlargeThe 8-megapixel camera on the Yoga Tablet 10 HD+ captures sharp, reasonably colorful photos. When I shot pictures of a Manhattan skyline, the clouds in the sky and the bricks on a building were detailed. Colors were pretty accurate but muted

A 1080p video of cars rolling down a New York City street was equally sharp. The front-facing, 2-MP camera captured detailed, bright images of my face, which were free from the noise and pixilation I often see when taking selfies with a tablet.

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Apps

Click to EnlargeLenovo includes a number of custom apps on the Yoga 10 HD+, and most are pretty useful. The best of these are in Lenovo's suite of "DOit" apps. SECUREit lets you see what apps are running, enable an ad blocker or, better still, control what permissions each app has. For example, we were able to prevent all of our preinstalled apps from reading our location info with a couple of taps.

SYNCit backs up your SMS messages and contacts to the cloud. SHAREit lets you share files directly with other Android devices, PCs and even iPhones via a speedy Wi-Fi direct connection. All three apps are also available for free for anyone who accesses the Google Play store.

Like Samsung, Lenovo has its own email, video player and gallery apps. The camera app doesn't offer many special features, but it does have a few filters and an audible photo mode that pairs a still image with up to 9 seconds of audio. This is similar to Samsung's Sound and Shot feature. Strangely, Lenovo felt compelled to include its own Web browser that looks and feels a lot like Chrome, which is also included.

Battery Life

The Lenovo Yoga Tablet 10 HD+'s 9,000-mAh battery allowed it to last an epic 13 hours and 1 minute on the Laptop Mag Battery Test, which involves continuous surfing over Wi-Fi at 150 nits. That's a lot longer than the 8:20 tablet category average, the Xperia Z2 (9:30), the Transformer Pad TF701T (8:33) and the Galaxy Tab S 10.5 (8:57). You can definitely use this tablet all day long or intermittently for several days without charging.

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Accessories

Lenovo sells a $79 Bluetooth keyboard that can snap onto the top of the Yoga Tablet 10 HD+ or its predecessor, the Yoga Tablet 10, and protect the screen. The keyboard features large keys and a touchpad, making it ideal to use when the tablet is in Stand Mode. For those who don't want the keyboard, the company also sells a $29 black sleeve.

Verdict

Click to EnlargeFor $150 less than premium Android tablets and the iPad Air, the Lenovo Yoga Tablet 10 HD+ is a pretty strong value. The slate sports a handy kickstand, loud speakers, and enough battery life to make it through a full day of work and play. Unfortunately, the tablet's sluggish performance makes it a poor choice for demanding games, while users who are picky about color quality won't like the 1080p display.

For just $10 more, you can get the ASUS Transformer Pad TF701T, which is much more powerful and has a better screen. And, if you're willing to splurge, the $499 Galaxy Tab S 10.5 has the most vibrant display of any tablet this size. However, if long endurance is paramount, the Tablet 10 HD+ is certainly worth considering.

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There are many convertible laptops on the market, but there's only one Yoga. Lenovo's latest entry in the series, the IdeaPad Yoga 2 13 (starting at $899), offers extreme flexibility and functionality wrapped in an attractive black chassis. Throw in a vibrant 1080p display and an affordable price tag, and you've got a portable productivity device that can adapt to just about any situation.

Design

In terms of design, the Yoga 2 13 feels a little bit like a downgrade. While the original Yoga was completely swathed in a luxurious, silver, soft-touch finish, the latest rendition sports a plastic, black-matte lid, which looks nice but isn't nearly as satisfying to hold. We recommend the clementine-orange version for those looking for a splash of color.

The Yoga 2 13's lid offers a raised, chrome, diamond-cut Lenovo logo for a bit of flourish. The edges of the emblem are a little rough, so you'll want to watch how you handle it. The laptop's pair of sturdy, silver, aluminum hinges inspire confidence.

The laptop's interior is coated with a black, soft-touch finish, which isn't visually exciting but felt good under our palms. The keyboard resides in a small recess at the top of the deck above the touchpad. There are no physical buttons on the deck; Lenovo placed them along the notebook's sides.

Weighing 3.6 pounds, the 13 x 8.71 x 0.68-inch Yoga 2 13 is a little on the heavy side compared to the HP Spectre 13t-3000 (3.3 pounds, 12.8 x 8.7 x 0.59 inches) and HP Dell XPS 12 (3.2 pounds, 12.48 x 8.46 x 0.59~0.79 inches).

Multimode

Click to EnlargeIf Yoga's in the name, it's a safe bet you're going to see some multimode action. Like the original, the Yoga 2 can fold into four modes: Notebook, Stand, Tablet and Tent. Notebook Mode is your traditional clamshell setup, whereas Tablet Mode folds the lid backward onto the lid.

Stand Mode places the keyboard under the display, which makes it usable in such tight spaces as an airplane tray. Lastly, there's Tent Mode, which turns the notebook into an upside-down V. This mode can come in handy for accessing recipes while cooking.

Click to EnlargeIn practice, the screen has about a second of lag when switching between modes. That often left us waiting for the display to reorient itself after we'd already finished turning the device.

We continue to be fans of multimode, but we wish the Yoga 2 13 had an elevating keyboard base similar to the one on the Lenovo ThinkPad Yoga. Because the Yoga 2 13's keys don't retract, they're somewhat of a distraction in Tablet Mode.

Multimode Apps

What good is a notebook that morphs if there are no good apps to take advantage of its ve

Click to Enlargersatility? Lenovo's Yoga Picks utility highlights apps that it thinks would be beneficial to users, and tailors its selections based on the Yoga 2's mode.

When you switch modes, a small notification appears in the top corner of the screen. Clicking the message opens the app, which offers a series of downloadable apps and games from the Pokki.com app store.

In Stand Mode, Yoga Picks recommended Music Maker Jam, "Einstein Brain Trainer," Book HD, SoundCloud and "Chimpact." When we switched to Tent Mode, the app offered RaRa, MTV, Vevo, Spotify, CNN and Vyclone.

In Tablet Mode, Yahoo Weather and StumbleUpon are recommended, as well as games featured on the Lenovo IdeaCentre Horizon 27 and the Lenovo IdeaCentre Flex 20, such as "Lenovo Roulette," "Chess," "Lenovo Air Hockey," and "Lenovo Tycoon."

Laptop Mode recommendations include Twitch, MapQuest, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Package Tracker and casual game "Duolingo."

While Yoga Picks is a good idea, we wish Lenovo would take the next step and allow you to launch apps instead of just downloading them. Once you've installed the apps that you want from Pokki's app store, Yoga Picks quickly loses its usefulness.

Display

Click to EnlargeThe Yoga 2's 13.3-inch 1920 x 1080-pixel panel delivers vibrant color with sharp details and wide viewing angles. We were mesmerized by the 1080p "Lucy" trailer; Scarlett Johansson's hazel eyes quickly cycled between eyes from the animal kingdom in a flash of red, amber and lime green. Details were sharp enough to show tousled, wavy strands of the actress's wavy blond hair as they framed her sweaty, blood-splattered face.

Viewing angles were excellent, and retained the screen's color and vibrancy in each of the four modes. The panel easily accommodated three people. Despite its vividness, the display registered a dim 239 lux on our light meter, failing to meet the 265-lux ultraportable category average. The HP Spectre 13t hit 254 lux, while the Dell XPS 12 averaged 259 lux.

We found the 10-point touch screen very responsive; it allowed us to quickly launch apps, pinch to zoom and swipe between apps.

Lenovo Motion

Click to EnlargeTouch isn't the only way to control the IdeaPad Yoga. For those who want a more hands-off approach, the Lenovo Motion application uses the Yoga's webcam to interpret gestures.

Once the software had been enabled, the webcam switched on and followed our hand movements. According to Lenovo, the app operates from a distance of between 11.8 inches and 4 feet 11 inches. We found the software was most responsive when we were about 1.5 feet away.

The Lenovo Motion application works in tandem with software such as PowerPoint, Windows Photo Viewer and Yoga Chef. For example, we scrolled through photos and slides with a simple wave of the hand. We also made a thumbs-up gesture to pause and resume videos or slideshows.

When we viewed images, we held one fist up to zoom in or out. Once we became comfortable with the commands, we found that Lenovo Motion was quick and accurate. We preferred using the software in Stand Mode to flip through photos and watch movies. It is one of the better examples of motion-control software we've had the pleasure of using this year.

Audio

Click to EnlargeDespite the assist from Dolby's Home Theater v4 software, the small speakers on either side of the Yoga 2 13 could not fill our small testing space. Drake's vocal on "Hold On We're Going Home" sounded hollow and was nearly overwhelmed by the pronounced echo effect. The bass was practically nonexistent on Kendrick Lamar's "Backseat Freestyle."

The notebook failed to impress on the Laptop Mag Audio Test, hitting a steady 77 decibels at a distance of 23 inches. That's well below the Spectre 13t and category average of 84 dB. The XPS 12 measured 83 dB.

Keyboard and Touchpad

Click to EnlargeThe Yoga 2 13 features Lenovo's AccuType keyboard, with its characteristic smile-shaped keys. The keys are well spaced, but some --such as the right Tab, Caps Lock, Backspace and right Shift keys -- are smaller than we would have liked. We took particular issue with the Backspace key, as we found ourselves constantly pressing the Home key instead. Still, the keyboard was fairly comfortable, and it provided snappy feedback.

The keyboard's vertical travel of 1 mm is less than the normal 1.5 to 2-mm range for notebooks. As a result, we had to exercise more force than usual as we typed. Still, when we took the Ten Thumbs Typing Tutor test, we achieved 55 words per minute, which is on a par with our usual score.

The 3.5 x 2.4-inch Synaptics touchpad delivered snappy feedback along the corners, with fluid multitouch gesture support.

Heat

After playing a Hulu video at full screen for 15 minutes, the laptop's touchpad measured a cool 77 degrees Fahrenheit. The space between the G and H keys was warmer, at 84 degrees, but still well below our 95-degree comfort threshold. However, the notebook's undercarriage registered 103 degrees. Despite the high temperature, we comfortably used the device in our lap for over an hour.

Webcam

Click to EnlargeVideo and stills captured with the 720p webcam and the preinstalled Windows webcam software were grainy and dark. In natural and fluorescent light settings, our skin tone appeared darker than usual, as did our mustard-colored sweater.

We saw similar results when we switched to the Lenovo Camera Man software. However, we appreciated the various frames and effects to spruce up an otherwise forgettable shot. Our favorite feature of Camera Man is the ability to use Lenovo Voice Command to snap a shot with a simple "One, two, three -- cheese."

The webcam can also be used as a security measure with Lenovo's VeriFace Pro software. When enabled, VeriFace snaps your picture to be used for subsequent logins on the laptop. After registering your face, you can use facial recognition instead of a traditional password.

Ports

Click to EnlargeBefitting its role as a hybrid device, the Yoga 2 13's right side holds the buttons for power, volume, rotation lock and Novo, Lenovo's OneKey Recovery software. A USB 3.0 port and a mini-HDMI port are also located on the laptop's right. The left side contains a USB 2.0 port, an SD Card slot, a combination microphone/headphone jack and a proprietary power port.

Performance

The Yoga 2 12's 1.6-GHz Intel Core i5-4200U processor with 4GB of RAM offers solid performance for multitaskers. For instance, the system successfully streamed an episode of "Attack on Titan" on Netflix with eight open tabs in Google Chrome, Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox -- all while running a system scan. However, the system fell flat in various benchmark tests.

Click to EnlargeWhen we ran PCMark 7, the notebook scored 2,939, well below the 4,112 ultraportable category average. The HP Spectre 13t, which also uses a 1.6-GHz Intel Core i5-4200U CPU, hit 4,806. The Dell XPS Intel Core i5-4200U CPU has a 2.6-GHz clock speed, which helped it notch 5,011. To be fair, each of these competing systems have solid-state drives (SSDs), whereas the Yoga 2 has a 500GB, 5,400-rpm hard drive and a 16GB SSD cache, which accounts for the notable difference in performance.

On the Boot Test, the Yoga 2 13 started Windows 8.1 in 15 seconds, which is a little slower than the 11-second average. The XPS 12 and Spectre 13t booted in 10 seconds.

The Yoga 2 13 duplicated 4.97GB of mixed media files in 2 minutes and 47 seconds. That translates into a 30.5 MBps transfer rate, which is nowhere near the 133 MBps average. The Spectre 13t and XPS 12 scored 159 MBps.

When we ran the OpenOffice Spreadsheet Macro Test, the Yoga 2 13 paired 20,000 names and addresses in 5 minutes and 14 seconds. That's much faster than the 7:19 category average, and on a par with the Spectre 13t (5:30), XPS 12 (5:12) and Surface Pro 2 (5:11).

Graphics

With an Intel HD Graphics 4600 GPU, the Yoga 2 13 has enough oomph for playing some mainstream games. When we ran the "World of Warcraft" benchmark, the Yoga 2 13's frame rate was 31 frames per second on Autodetect at 1920 x 1080p. That's just shy of the 34-fps category average, but enough to beat the Spectre 13t (28 fps) and XPS 12 (29 fps).

On maximum settings, the Yoga 2 13's frame rate dropped to 17 fps, which is just below the 18-fps average.

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On the 3DMark Ice Storm benchmark, the Yoga 2 13 scored 38,973, topping the 20,333 ultraportable category average. It also beat the HP Spectre 13t's Intel HD Graphics 4400 GPU score of 24,835.

Battery Life

If you're looking for a laptop-tablet hybrid that can last, you'll have to dial down the brightness. The Lenovo Yoga 2 13 lasted 5 hours and 31 minutes on the Laptop Mag Battery Test (continuous Web surfing over Wi-Fi at 100 nits of brightness).

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The Yoga 2 was tested using the updated Battery Test, where the brightness is set to 100 nits. In the case of the Yoga 2, this was 80 percent brightness. On our previous version of the battery test, we set the brightness to 40 percent; at these settings, the HP Spectre 13t and Dell XPS 12 posted times of 9:04 and 9:24, respectively.

Software and Warranty

Click to EnlargeLenovo Companion helps new users by including the Getting Started Guide, App Showcase and other helpful links. Lenovo Support provides links to a User Guide, Hints and Tips, Knowledge Base, and Discussion Forum. OneKey Recovery System allows you to create a backup image file of your hard drive in case of a crash.

The laptop also ships with a few Lenovo applications designed specifically for the Yoga line of laptops. Yoga Phone Companion syncs with your phone, and lets you text and place calls using your PC, share the contents of your PC via SMS and display your phone's files on your PC.

With Yoga Photo Touch, you can edit photos, add digital frames, create collages and insert text bubbles. Yoga Chef serves as a recipe repository and lets you use voice commands to navigate the cooking instructions if your hands are covered in food. 

Third-party apps include AccuWeather, Zinio Reader, Evernote Touch, Kindle, Nitro 8 PDF reader, and 90-day trials of Absolute Data Protect and McAfee Central.

The Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 2 13 comes with a one-year parts-and-labor warranty. See how Lenovo fared in our Best & Worst Brands Report and Tech Support Showdown.

Configurations

Click to EnlargeOur $899 configuration of the Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 2 13 is a Best Buy exclusive and comes equipped with a 1.6-GHz Intel Core i5-4200U processor with 4GB of RAM; a 500GB, 5,400-rpm hard drive with a 16GB SSD; and an Intel HD Graphics 4600 GPU. For an additional $150, you can get 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD.

Lenovo also has a $1,049 setup with a 1.8-GHz Intel Core i7-4500U; 8GB of RAM; a 500GB, 5,400-rpm hard drive with a 16GB SSD; and an Intel HD Graphics 4600 GPU.

Verdict

Click to EnlargeWith the $899 IdeaPad Yoga 2 13, Lenovo continues to evolve its winning hybrid. You get a vivid 1080p display and a host of preinstalled apps to enhance and complement each of the notebook's modes. However, below-average performance and somewhat short battery life keep the Yoga 2 13 from earning a higher rating.

Consumers looking for an equally portable convertible should check out the Dell XPS 12, which has a unique flip-display design and offers better performance -- albeit for $300 more. Overall, though, the Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 2 13 is a very good choice for consumers who want a mid-level machine that offers extreme flexibility.

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Lenovo is bringing its popular Yoga line of hybrid PCs to the mainstream market with its new Yoga 2 11 and Yoga 2 13. A variation on the 13-inch Yoga 2 Pro that we awarded 4 stars in our review back in November, the hybrids will cost $549 and $999, respectively, when they launch later this month. We went hands-on with both the Yoga 2 11 and 13 and liked their lightweight, flexible designs and useful preloaded apps.

Like previous generations of Yogas, the Yoga 2 11 and 13 can flip and transform into one of four different modes, including laptop, stand, tent and tablet. This time around, however, the notebooks can detect which mode you're using and give you a list of apps that work best with it via the Yoga Picks app.Two of the more impressive apps to make their way from the Yoga 2 Pro to the Yoga 2 11 and 13 are Yoga Chef and Yoga Photo Touch.

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With Yoga Chef,  you can swipe through recipes without having to touch the screen by waving your hand in front of the webcam. Photo Touch lets you edit images including cropping items with a few quick taps on the notebook's display.

At  0.67 inches thick and weighing 2.9 pounds, the Yoga 2 11 is a bit thicker, though lighter, than the 0.61-inch thick and 3.1-pound Yoga 2 Pro. The Yoga 2 13, on the other hand, is both larger and heavier than its more premium sibling, measuring 0.68 inches thick and weighing 3.5 pounds. Despite that, both the Yoga 2 11 and Yoga 2 13 felt light enough to carry around all day without slipping a disc.

In terms of specs, the Yoga 2 11 features an 11-inch, 720p display, up to a fourth-generation Intel Pentium processor, 4GB of RAM and a 500GB hybrid hard drive with 16GB of flash cache. The Yoga 2 13 is the workhorse of the duo and includes a 13-inch, 1080p display, up to a Core i7 processor, an available 8 GB of RAM and a hybrid 500GB hard drive. The Yoga 2 13 also gets the benefit of a backlit keyboard, something the Yoga 2 11 doesn't offer.

Overall, it looks like Lenovo has two compelling entries into its Yoga lineup. Still, we'll have to hold our final judgment until we can fully review both units. Stay tuned.

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