Lenovo makes a lot of laptops for artists. I’ve already reviewed the Slim Pro 7 and the Slim 7 Pro X, and now I get to try out the top-of-the-line Slim Pro 9i. This is a step up in almost every way, making it one of the best creator laptops from Lenovo and one of the best laptops from the company overall. It comes in two different sizes, with a 14-inch screen and a 16-inch screen. Both are great, but the bigger one is more powerful by nature.
But in either size, it looks and feels sleek. It also has a great screen and runs pretty well, so you can edit videos and even play games on it. It’s always cool to see a thin laptop with a lot of power, and Lenovo really did that with this one. Plus, that mini-LED panel gets very bright, so you can see it from anywhere.
Still, for Lenovo’s best creator laptop, the colors could be a bit more accurate, and the cover glass is very shiny, which can be annoying at times. Even so, the Slim Pro 9i is a good device.
With 13th-generation Intel Core processors and Nvidia GeForce RTX 40 series GPUs, the Lenovo Slim Pro 9i is a powerful laptop for creative workers. Even though the colors could be more accurate, there is a lot here for people who need to edit videos or do other hard work.
The price and availability of the Lenovo Slim Pro 9i
Lenovo announced the Slim Pro 9i in March 2023, and the company said it would be available in May. The 14-inch model is listed on Lenovo’s website, but the 16-inch model doesn’t seem to be for sale anywhere, even though it’s mentioned on both Lenovo and Best Buy. Also, Lenovo’s official specs sheet doesn’t list all the types that the company had said it would release, so it’s not clear if they will.
The 14-inch model is still available on Lenovo’s website for $1,900, which is about $200 more than the original starting price. Best Buy offers this model at $1,870 and the 16-inch version at $2,150, but neither one is for sale at the time of this writing.
Design
Back view of a 14-inch Lenovo Slim Pro 9i laptop sitting on a wooden table with grass in the background.
The Lenovo Slim Pro 9i is a very sleek laptop, no matter which size you choose. It comes in a subtle but stylish Storm Grey colorway that feels high-end without being too boring, and both types look pretty much the same besides their size. They are made of aluminum, which gives them a solid feel, even if they are a bit heavy. This fits the powerful specs, though.
The 16-inch model, which weighs 4.92 pounds, is bound to be larger than the 14-inch model, which weighs only 3.7 pounds. That makes them about the same size as the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro, which means they are pretty movable for how powerful they are.
Performance and battery life
As a laptop for creators, the Lenovo Slim Pro 9i needs to have strong tech, and it does. The 16-inch model has an Intel Core i9-13905H processor, while the 14-inch model has a Core i7-13705H processor, which is a bit slower. The benchmark numbers I got were interesting, but these shouldn’t be too far apart.
Both of the units Lenovo sent me had Nvidia GeForce RTX 4050 graphics cards, which means they aren’t the most powerful models the company is selling. Also, the GPU in the 16-inch model has a 100W TGP, while the GPU in the smaller model only has an 80W TGP. This means that the larger model will work better.
As a laptop for creators, the Lenovo Slim Pro 9i needs to have strong tech, and it does.
All of that makes sense, but the difference in speed is bigger than I thought, especially when it comes to the CPU. Even in tests that mostly depend on the CPU, the 16-inch model pulled ahead in all of the scores I ran. Even in tests like 3DMark, the CPU tests made a big difference in the total score.