Features of a great dual-screen laptop from Lenovo

Folding the Yoga Book into clamshell mode obviously reduces the available screens from two to one, but the size change doesn’t feel as drastic as when you fold, say, the Asus Zenbook 17 Fold in half. You’re still looking at one standard 13.3-inch laptop screen with the same aspect ratio as before. (The bottom half where the keyboard attaches isn’t very tight either, another common problem with foldables.)

Either way, when you fold the Yoga Book 9i into clamshell mode, the virtual keyboard and touchpad automatically appear where you expect them. This touchpad is also tactile, and while I generally hate using an on-screen keyboard, this one is probably the most comfortable and user-friendly I’ve ever used. You can also place the physical keyboard right on top of the virtual one, and the touchpad will stay in the same place if you do.

All this seems to be a very effective solution to the problem of the lack of a touchpad. Since time immemorial, hardware manufacturers have struggled with where to place touchpads on dual-screen laptops, and we’ve seen plenty of front-facing keyboards and tiny, poor touchpads in that space. In previous reviews of Asus’ dual screens, I suggested that their trackpads were so terrible that Asus would be better off ditching them all together. Lenovo made that leap, and frankly, I respect that.

The Yoga Book does not use a custom version of Windows 11 ( RIP Windows 10X ), but with all the various gestures Lenovo has added to optimize the interaction for the dual-screen form factor, it seems like it could be. There are many ways to move windows and programs around, and it all takes about four seconds to master.

My favorite film. Press and hold any app or browser tab, then swipe over it and it will move to another screen. There’s also a layout feature set up for this device, which is likely to be much more useful to many people in the Yoga Book form factor than on standard Windows laptops.

A five-finger tap on your tab or window also expands it to both screens in the aptly named “waterfall mode.” I can see this being fun to use, although the giant loop in the middle of your waterfall does detract a bit from the aesthetics. If you’re using a clamshell laptop, pull up the keyboard with eight fingers to open a small control panel with quick access to weather forecasts, CPU usage and performance statistics, Outlook and other applications. (This does get rid of the touchpad down there, though, so it’s more of a quick-reference thing than something you’d want to leave open — unless you have a mouse attached.)

I’m sure there are a thousand other cool things that Lenovo has created. (Lenovo was eager to show us more tricks, but our time was limited.) I’m also sure I haven’t covered all the possible situations you can use this device in, and that buying this requires some research to begin with.

In particular, I’ve gotten a lot of questions about landscape mode and whether it’s possible to use two screens side by side. Answer: Yes, you can, but it’s a little weird. As you can see in the image above, the screens are tall and thin when placed this way, and the result looks more like a storybook than a working setup. This is what you are you can do, but it can take some getting used to (and sometimes creative resizing).

Another question I’ve heard a lot is: Does the Yoga Book wobble? Answer: yes. If you touch the screen and the laptop is completely vertical, the top screen wobbles a bit. However, I don’t find this to be much of a problem because I’d rather do most of my navigation on a solid bottom screen that’s closer to me and easier to access.

And finally: how powerful is this thing and can you edit videos on it? The processor inside is a 13th generation Intel Core i7 U-series chip, and you know what, it’s not terrible. It’s designed for thin and light devices, so you won’t have an incredible editing experience, but you could probably finish a project on it if you were out and about.

That’s true, but whether this device ultimately succeeds will depend on Lenovo’s ability to create great software. The company did not succeed in this case with ThinkPad X1 Fold , which was pretty bad to use. The Yoga Book 9i feels better, although my testing time was limited. I didn’t have any problems browsing the web or switching tabs during my short time with the device; and although there were message about blue screen of the device when tested by other people, I did not experience this myself. I will have many more impressions when I get my hands on the final unit.

But my main impression is that I think someone has finally figured out the right way to build a dual-screen device. This is a really good idea. It manages to combine the portability benefits of complex devices with the interesting versatility of dual screens without many of the drawbacks that I can see.