Lenovo Yoga 7 14 Gen 9 Review: Terrific 2-in-1 for Less Than $1,000

The Lenovo Yoga 7 14 Gen 9 is an exceptionally well-built midrange two-in-one laptop. The rigid aluminum chassis combined with the firm, 360-degree hinge belie its sub-$1,000 price. To hit an approachable price for the Yoga 7 — our test system was discounted to $800 at the time of this review — Lenovo cut a few corners that remain unsevered on the flagship Yoga 9i 14. None are deal-breakers, but with the Yoga 7, you miss out on a high-resolution OLED display (but not OLED entirely) and quad speakers that deliver luscious-for-a-laptop sound, and you instead get a basic IPS LCD panel and limited stereo sound. The Yoga 7 14 Gen 9 is also heavier than the Yoga 9i 14 Gen 9, and not by an insignificant amount.

There are differences inside these two-in-ones as well. As opposed to the Intel-based Yoga 9i, the Yoga 7 features AMD processors. Our test unit offers the Ryzen 7 8840HS, which is the same chip found in Dell’s mainstream convertible, the Inspiron 2-in-1 7445, that we recently reviewed. The Yoga 7 offers performance that’s on par with the pricier Yoga 9i, and much better battery life. With its excellent build quality, adequate display, strong performance and lengthy runtime, the Yoga 7 14 Gen 9 provides a ton of value and is a great fit as a versatile machine for home use or students.

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Our Yoga 7 14 Gen 9 is a fixed configuration (model 83DK000BUS) that lists for $1,025 but is consistently discounted to $800 at Lenovo. It features the Ryzen 7 8840HS CPU, 16GB of RAM, integrated AMD Radeon 780M graphics and a 1TB SSD for storage. You can also find our test system at Best Buy for $900. It’s worth monitoring because discounts at Lenovo and Best Buy are constantly fluctuating. At its sale price of $800, it’s a much better deal than the $750 Best Buy model that supplies a Ryzen 5 8640HS, 8GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD. Both models are based on the same 1,920×1,200-pixel IPS touch display.

Lenovo offers a configurable model on its site, but your customization options are limited. The most interesting upgrade is moving from the base LCD to an OLED. Unfortunately, you don’t gain any extra pixels; the OLED option features the same 1,920×1,200 resolution. 

The Yoga 7 14 Gen 9 starts at £846 in the UK and AU$1,149 in Australia. 

Lenovo Yoga 7 14 Gen 9 performance

The Yoga 7 14 Gen 9 delivers great bang for your buck. On our application and graphics benchmarks, it finished neck and neck with the similarly configured and priced Dell Inspiron 2-in-1 7445 as well as the much more expensive Yoga 9i 14 Gen 9 that’s based on an Intel Core Ultra chip. 

If you’re seeking greater performance than what the Yoga 7 14 Gen 9 provides, then upgrading to the Yoga 9i 14 Gen 9 isn’t the answer — at least until Lenovo’s Intel-based flagship two-in-one gets refreshed with Core Ultra Series 2 CPUs. As the clamshell Asus Zenbook S 14 showed in testing, Intel’s second-gen Core Ultra offers slight gains in graphics performance and a larger bump in battery life. 

The Yoga 7 14 Gen 9 was unable to match the Asus Zenbook S 14 or Qualcomm Snapdragon X-based Microsoft Surface Pro 11 in terms of battery life, but it still lasted for more than 12 hours on our YouTube streaming battery drain test. That’s an impressive runtime and a solid 3.5 hours longer than the Yoga 9i 14 Gen 9 managed on the same test. The Yoga 7’s longer runtime is partially the result of its lower-resolution IPS display compared with the Yoga 9i’s high-res OLED. But the difference in display technology and resolution doesn’t entirely explain the 3.5-hour gap and points to the efficiency of the Yoga 7’s Ryzen 8000 series chip.

Solid midrange build

The Yoga 7 14 Gen 9 is unlikely to turn heads, but it feels rock solid in use. There’s little to no flex to be felt on the all-metal chassis and little to no wobble with the display hinge. The display stays fixed at whichever angle you position it, and it doesn’t begin to slip backward as you tap on the touch panel. On the whole, it has none of the flimsiness that’s sometimes evident with sub-$1,000 laptops.

Along with the Yoga 7 14’s solid feel, however, comes a bit of heftiness. It’s only a hair thicker than the Yoga 9i 14, but it’s substantially heavier at 3.6 pounds. The Yoga 9i is much easier to tote around and operate one-handed as a tablet at just 2.9 pounds. Compared with other midrange two-in-ones, however, the Yoga 7 14 is average in weight. The Inspiron 14 2-in-1 7445, for instance, is slightly heavier, at 3.7 pounds. 

If you are thinking about buying the Yoga 7 14, you’d better be OK with dull gray. The only color option is Arctic Grey; it won’t offend your tastes, but it’s very ordinary. It’s too bad the beautiful Cosmic Blue option of the Yoga 9 14 isn’t offered.

The Yoga 7 14 is grayer than the Yoga 9i 14 and also lacks its soft, rounded edges. Instead, sharper edges surround it and make tablet mode a little less comfortable. The sharpest edge is the bottom of the display, which dug into my right hand when I was using the system as a tablet. The Yoga 9i 14’s soundbar hinge creates a much more forgiving surface along that edge than you get with the Yoga 7 14. In laptop mode, however, the Yoga 7 14 creates a quite comfortable setup. 

The keyboard is roomy and quiet. The keys are well spaced, and none are annoyingly shortened. Key travel is shallow but there’s enough so that there’s a plush feel. And the keys are nearly silent when pressed. It’s a great keyboard, but the touchpad is only so-so. Getting a mechanical-click touchpad at this price is expected; haptic touchpads begin to show up when you head past the $1,000 mark, but even then, it’s never a guarantee, as I saw with the haptic-less Yoga 9i 14 Gen 9. The touchpad’s click is fairly consistent from top to bottom and only becomes too firm when you get right up next to the top edge, but it’s loud. People sitting next to you in a coffee shop will hear your clicks. 

Of course, the Yoga 7 14 Gen 9’s touch display offers an alternative for clicks. It’s a basic 1,920×1,200-pixel IPS LCD that’s rated for 300 nits of brightness. The resolution suffices for the display’s size and produces text that’s fairly crisp and images that are adequately sharp. I’d probably want a bump in resolution if I was going to use the Yoga 7 14 Gen 9 as my everyday work computer and my job required me to stare at text for most of the day. But there’s nothing wrong with the display for general home or school use or a job where you’re on Zoom as much as you’re sending and receiving emails and working inside documents and spreadsheets.

I measured the display’s brightness with a Spyder X Elite colorimeter and found that it was a bit brighter than its rating, hitting a maximum of 327 nits. It looked clearly brighter than Dell’s similarly priced Inspiron 2-in-1 7445, which managed a peak of only 265 nits. That’s a huge difference. I had both laptops dialed to max brightness when I was using them, but the Yoga 7 14 Gen 9 was clearly the brighter of the two and more easily viewable when sitting in my sunny breakfast nook.

Screen brightness proved to be sufficient, but color performance was abysmal. It managed to cover only 63% of sRGB, 49% of AdobeRGB and 48% of P3, which isn’t remotely good enough for color-critical work. The Yoga 7 14 Gen 9’s OLED upgrade won’t net you a higher resolution but it will offer better color accuracy.

One of the best parts of the higher-end Yoga 9i 14 is its soundbar hinge and quad-speaker array. With the Yoga 7 14, you must make do with a simple pair of stereo speakers. They flank the keyboard and fire upward, which is a better arrangement than speakers that fire downward from the bottom and into your desk (or the back of the display in tablet mode). However, you still get muddy audio, with little separation between high and mid tones and a severe lack of bass. 

The Yoga 7 14 Gen 9 features a 2.1-megapixel webcam that can capture 1080p video. Its picture is much crisper than what you’d get from an older 720p cam but it lacks the additional detail you get with the 1440p video from the Yoga 9 14 Gen 9’s webcam. Still, it produces a clean, well-balanced picture and also supplies two items we like to see with a laptop webcam: a physical privacy shutter and an IR sensor for easy secure logins with facial recognition. There’s also a fingerprint reader just below the keyboard on the right edge, if your biometric preferences tilt that way.

The port selection won’t leave you wanting, either. You get two USB-C ports, one of which is of the speedy USB4 variety. A USB-A port is included, so you won’t need to worry about carrying around an adapter, and there’s also an HDMI output and microSD card slot.

Is the Lenovo Yoga 7 a good laptop?

With a great design, strong overall performance and outstanding battery life, the Yoga 7 14 Gen 9 is a good midrange two-in-one. Moreover, it’s a great value at its price of $900 at Best Buy and an even better deal at its regularly discounted price of $800 direct from Lenovo. Its brighter display and slightly lighter weight make it a better choice than Dell’s similar Inspiron 2-in-1 7445, and its much lower price and longer runtime make it a better pick for most people than Lenovo’s flagship Yoga 9i 14 Gen 9.