The newest attempt to unseat the MacBook Pro 16-inch as the preferred laptop for numerous creative workers seeking something serious without looking corporate is the Lenovo Slim Pro 9i 16. I genuinely believe that this laptop can and most likely will be that laptop for a lot of people; however, if a few late-stage possibilities hadn’t been squandered, it might have been the best MacBook Pro substitute to date.
Along with the more accessible Slim series that debuted this year, Lenovo has added the Slim Pro 9i 16, which is a great step forward in terms of design for the business.
When I first saw this laptop at preview events earlier this year, its rounded corners, the overhanging webcam and microphone that break up the smooth line of the laptop display’s top edge, and other subtler design touches made it one of the first of the years that made me straighten up and take notice. Now that I’ve gotten my hands on it, it lives up to its billing and is definitely in the running for a spot on our list of the best laptops.
Lenovo’s Slim Pro 16 is leading the way in a class of laptops that take a look at the largely unchanged and progressively stale MacBook design we’ve had for more than a decade and have the guts to say, “Nah, we can do better than that.” This is in a market for laptops that has long faltered after Apple tried to trick customers into buying their laptops instead of the MacBook Air they actually wanted.
And it does, in a variety of ways, easily unseat the Dell XPS 15, which had long held the title of greatest Windows laptop in opposition to the Apple MacBook Pro 16-inch, and establishes itself as the superior product overall.
Lenovo Slim Pro 9i Specifications
| SPECIFICATIONS | Description |
| CPU: | Intel Core i9-13950H |
| RAM: | 32GB |
| Display: | 16″ 3.2K (3200 x 2000) |
| Connectivity: | Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.1 |
| Ports: | 1 x Thunderbolt 4, 1 x HDMI 2.0, 1 x SDCard Reader, |
| Dimensions | 14.3 x 9.64 x 0.71 inches |
| Storage: | 1TB |
| Weight: | 2.20kg |
| Battery: | 75WHr |
Price
In the US, the Lenovo Slim Pro 9i 16 is currently on sale for $1,799.99 (about £1,370/AU$2,630). Sadly, the Slim Pro 9i isn’t presently available in the UK or Australia. We’ve contacted Lenovo to inquire when and how much the device will cost in those regions. If and when we receive any information from the company regarding cost and availability, we will update this evaluation.
The initial configuration in the US has a 16-inch 3.2K (3200x2000p) mini-LED touch display operating at 165Hz, an Intel Core i9-13905H processor with an Nvidia RTX 4050 GPU, and 32GB of LPDDR5X-6400Mhz RAM soldered to the motherboard (thus, sadly, you cannot update it).
You can upgrade to an RTX 4060 GPU and receive the same configuration for $2,199.99 (about £1,670/AU$3,215).
In comparison, the similarly specced Dell XPS 15 with an RTX 4050 GPU will set you back $2,449/£2,214.60/AU$3,399, while the MacBook Pro with an Apple M2 Pro chip with a 12-core CPU and 19-core GPU, 32GB unified memory, and 1TB SSD storage would set you back $3,099/£3,299/AU$4,899.
Design
The Lenovo Slim Pro 9i 16 is an exquisite laptop from top to bottom, as was previously noted. Although it is not as slim as the greatest ultrabooks, the Storm Grey chassis is attractive and feels solid, and it lacks the heft that many of the best mobile workstations typically have.
It is still fairly tiny and light, especially when you consider the sort of hardware that is packed into this thing, but it is still a fairly heavy device. Creative professionals will definitely still want to have the finest drawing tablets or something similar on hand if they aren’t on the road, the full-size keyboard with ten keys is a pleasure to type on, and the trackpad is smooth and quick.
Though this isn’t my ideal configuration, given how many laptop manufacturers still don’t include one of these in their products, it’s a very small gripe. The switch is located on the side of the laptop, close to the power button.
In terms of music, there is a six-speaker Dolby Atmos sound system with top-firing tweeters in addition to the headphone output, which is more than enough to fill a room with outstanding sound. Having said that, musicians will undoubtedly want to utilize something a little more advanced, such as one of the top headphones for recording studio work.
Performance
When it comes to performance, this laptop truly shines as a professional workstation because of its robust hardware, which includes an Nvidia RTX 4050 or RTX 4060 GPU and an Intel Core i9-13905H processor.
This is about as good as it gets for something on the move and at a reasonable budget; it won’t be as powerful as the greatest workstations sitting on top of a desk, but it can handle almost any significant workload out there while you’re on the road. The Apple MacBook Pro 16-inch (2023) and the Dell XPS 15 (2023) are the logical comparison points since both have long served as reliable workstations for creative professionals.
While there aren’t many Windows and macOS synthetic benchmark tests available, the Lenovo Slim Pro 9i 16 beats the M2 Pro MacBook Pro 16-inch (with its 12-core CPU and 19-core GPU) and the Dell XPS 15 (2023), which has an Intel Core i7-13700H and an Nvidia RTX 4070 GPU.
The Geekbench 6 performance of the Lenovo Slim Pro 9i 16 is 12% to 19% faster than that of the Dell XPS 15, and it is roughly even to slightly faster than the MacBook Pro 16-inch. While 3DMark Time Spy and Fire Strike are not compatible with the MacBook Pro 16-inch, the Slim Pro 9i 16 outperformed the Dell XPS 15 in Time Spy and Fire Strike by roughly 27% and 17%, respectively. Though the Core i9-13905H outperforms the Slim Pro 9i in the physics and CPU aspects of those benchmarks, it’s still not terrible considering that it has a worse GPU.
The Lenovo Slim Pro 9i 16 is roughly 1.7% quicker overall than the XPS 15 and 6.5% faster overall than the MacBook Pro 16-inch in the cross-platform CrossMark benchmark.
The Lenovo Slim Pro 9i 16 is unquestionably among the greatest laptops for photo editing on creative tasks, and it’s definitely worth looking into if you’re seeking the best laptops for video editing as well. It more than holds its own against the MacBook Pro 16-inch and XPS 15 in our tests. When converting 4K to 1080p in Handbrake 1.6, it is roughly 6% faster than the MacBook Pro and about 26% faster than the XPS 15.
The Slim Pro 9i 16 only truly lagged behind the XPS 15 in the HDXPRT 4’s Music Editing benchmark, scoring roughly 20% less on that test while being even with or noticeably ahead of the XPS in photo editing and video converting, giving it about a 5% higher overall score. According to PugetBench, the Slim Pro 9i 16 has suffered the most performance loss to the MacBook Pro 16-inch in terms of Adobe Photoshop and Premiere Pro, earning only 4% and 42%, respectively.
Software
Software-wise, I didn’t have to remove a lot of horrible bloatware off the laptop, but McAfee antivirus was one of them—especially once its annoying popups began to interfere with my day to day work and game testing. While McAfee isn’t bad, it’s not the greatest antiviral program available, and the price is very high for what you get. As soon as your free trial period expires, or perhaps before, you’d be better served purchasing a better program at a lower cost.
Other than that, Lenovo Vantage is the only noteworthy piece of software. It allows you to adjust various hardware controls in addition to other system settings. All of these is fantastic news (except from McAfee), as bloatware shouldn’t be present on a laptop this expensive. You’re not subsidizing a lower price with useless software contracts that you’ll never truly need, since you’re paying more than enough to cover the cost of the system.
Battery Life
This laptop will drain your battery life quickly due to its powerful hardware and mini-LED display. Sadly, its 75WHr battery isn’t large enough to last you through a full workday given how inefficient its internals are in comparison to the extremely efficient Apple M2 Pro and M2 Max, whose batteries can last much longer on a 70WHr battery (the XPS 15 uses a substantially larger 86WHr battery).
The XPS 15 scored over nine hours and the MacBook Pro 16-inch scored an incredible seventeen hours and six minutes of battery life in our in-house web surfing test, while the Slim Pro 9i 16 only managed to reach six hours and twelve minutes.
Additionally, the battery life of the PCMark 10 Application was a rather pitiful four hours and thirty-six minutes. It goes without saying that if you’re not at your desk or have no access to a wall outlet for lunchtime recharging, you’ll need to be mindful of how much power you use.
Even with a sale, this is still not a great laptop, especially considering that its MSRP is almost half that of a similarly specced MacBook Pro 16-inch and nearly a third less than a comparable Dell XPS 15 (let alone an XPS 17). Nevertheless, something had to give. In this instance, the battery is the only drawback, and only you can decide if it makes the otherwise exceptional laptop unworthy of your attention.
