At a glanceExpert`s Rating Pros Solid image quality Easy setup Works well with other myQ gear and service plans Cons No interior chime option for now, unless it’s hardwired to an existing chime Weak night vision App needs some TLC A subscription is required for it to be useful Our Verdict The myQ Doorbell Camera fits right in with Chamberlain’s expanding ecosystem, although a few bugs—and for the time being, the absence of an indoor chime—hobble the device. Price When Reviewed This value will show the geolocated pricing text for product undefined Best Pricing Today Best Prices Today: myQ Video Doorbell (model MYQ-D49TXXB) Retailer Price $79.99 View Deal Price comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwide Product Price Price comparison from Backmarket Best Prices Today: Check today’s prices The world needs another doorbell camera like it needs another social media influencer, but I get it: Every smart home device manufacturer needs a video doorbell to round out its product line. Chamberlain is the latest to enter this space after cranking out myQ-branded indoor and outdoor cameras like mad as it steps further away from its garage door-centric heritage. You can register faces with the myQ Video Doorbell to get a detailed look at who’s coming and going. Specifications The myQ Video Doorbell will surprise absolutely no one in design or function. The oblong, black rectangle is about 6 inches high and features a large doorbell button beneath a camera lens that captures video in a 1:1 aspect ratio (1952 x 1952 pixels) with a 150-degree viewing angle. The unit contains a built-in (and non-removeable) battery that charges via USB-C cable. It can also charge via standard 24V doorbell wiring, via two wiring posts on the back of the device. Chamberlain does not specify the size of the battery but estimates it will run for 4 to 6 months before a recharge will be needed. The myQ Video Doorbell runs on battery power, but it can also be hardwired to a 24V transformer and indoor chime if you have one. Christopher Null/Foundry While there’s no formal IP rating on the device, the only electronic element you might need to worry about–the USB-C port for charging its battery–is well covered by a rubber flap. myQ does specify an operating temperature of -4 to 122 degrees Fahrenheit. Installation and setup Physical setup is straightforward. A flat mounting bracket attaches to the wall with two provided screws, and the camera then slips onto the bracket. No angled mounting bracket option is available. As with the myQ Smart Garage Video Keypad, a security screw on the underside of the camera helps hold it in place while adding an obstacle to deter easy theft. As with most myQ devices, electronic setup is a simple affair involving selecting your device of choice and pressing a small button on the back of the camera to complete the connection to the myQ app. Once onboarded to your 2.4GHz Wi-Fi network, the doorbell camera appears in the app alongside any other myQ equipment. Performance The myQ Video Doorbell fits in well if you have other myQ home security products.Christopher Null/Foundry There aren’t a lot of surprises with the way the doorbell works, except for one I noticed right away. The large doorbell button is ringed with a blue light, but this light doesn’t illuminate until after the button is pressed, which also causes a loud chime to erupt from the device (and from your existing chime if you’ve hardwired it. In my mind, the main point of the light ring is so visitors can see the button in the dark before they press it, not after. This needs a simple but important rethink, namely using the camera’s built-in motion sensor to detect when someone is approaching and turning the light on when they’re nearby. The motion sensor does do a good job of detecting people nearby, which promptly causes a small green LED to light up while launching a video recording operation. As with other myQ gear, there’s no way to initiate a manual recording (although the feed can always be viewed on demand) and the resulting clips are short, usually 10 to 30 seconds, but as long as 43 seconds in my testing. Video quality is fine for a doorbell, and although it’s aggressively fish-eyed, the clarity of recordings was solid in my testing. Infrared night vision is less capable, with the camera’s functional range topping out at less than 15 feet. Fortunately, most recordings will be up close and personal, given the camera’s location next to the front door. As with all other myQ camera gear, the doorbell can recognize and categorize clips based on the type of activity in the frame: any type of motion or a person, animal, package, or vehicle. You can turn off push notifications for each of these in the myQ app, but there’s no way to disable the notification for a doorbell press. The light ring around the myQ Video Doorbells ring button glows only after a visitor pushes it. So, it won’t help anyone find the button in the dark.Christopher Null/Foundry You can also register faces with the app, giving you a more detailed look at who’s coming and going. The feature is especially handy with a doorbell, given the likelihood that you’ll see a lot of people’s faces at a range of just a few feet. Other video options let you adjust the range of the motion sensor and establish up to three detection zones if you’re getting too many false motion alerts for distant activity. The microphone can be disabled, and speaker volume can be adjusted in the app, as well. The myQ Video Doorbell drops all recorded clips into a monolithic collection of video snippets, along with all your various myQ camera activity. A filtering system is supposed to make it easier to find what you’re looking for, but I ran into a bug where the doorbell camera shows up in my devices with the name “Camera,” though I have it set with the name “Doorbell.” This is a problem with other myQ devices, as it turns out. Multiple devices are called “Camera” and can’t be easily distinguished. Some thumbnails were also inexplicably missing from my recordings, and the app would frequently crash when trying to refresh the list of clips, requiring a force quit and restart. None of those problems are deal-breakers, but they’re all a nuisance. The bigger issue is that, for now, Chamberlain doesn’t offer an indoor chime, so the only visitor notification you’ll get is via the app on your phone—unless you hardwire the doorbell to an existing chime. myQ says a wireless “myQ Chime” is coming in October, but you never know how real a projected release date is until it happens. Should you buy a myQ Video Doorbell? As with all myQ cameras, the myQ Video Doorbell stores video only to Chamberlain’s cloud service, there is no option for local storage. So, if you don’t subscribe to that service, you’ll only ever see a live video stream from the camera. That cloud service costs $4/month or $40/year for seven days of storage for a single device; $10/month or $100/year for 30 days of storage for all your myQ devices. A 30-day trial of the single-device, seven-day plan is included with your purchase. As with all myQ gear, it probably makes little sense to opt for this doorbell camera unless you already have other myQ products installed and can make use of the $10/month subscription plan. The $100 myQ Video Doorbell isn’t the most full-featured option on the market, and given its inability to fully perform its primary function—letting you know when someone’s at the door— it’s difficult to fully recommend in its current incarnation. Fix the buggy app and release the myQ Chime, and then maybe we can revisit it. Even then, it’s probably only a worthwhile pick for homes with other myQ infrastructure. Read...

How much should you pay for a budget laptop? Well, that depends on your budget, of course. If you’ve only got $400 to spend, then you should find the best one for $400, end of story—but that can be very limiting, especially when it comes to specs. Today, Best Buy is offering an extremely rare deal: a touchscreen Windows laptop with 16GB of RAM for just $379.99. It’s good for today only, September 2nd. This Lenovo IdeaPad 1i is a budget design down to its bones, but it has a few upgrades over the IdeaPad 1i’s extremely underpowered base model: a surprising amount of power from a 13th-gen Intel Core i5 processor, the aforementioned 16GB of DDR4 RAM, and 512GB of SSD storage. The 15.6-inch 1080p screen is a touch panel (a rare sight at this price), and Intel Xe graphics should provide enough juice to run Minecraft on basic settings (or pretty much any 2D game). Don’t expect miracles from the underpowered battery, but you at least get plenty of ports (USB-C, double USB-A, full-sized HDMI, and an SD card reader) and a full-sized keyboard with a number pad. I also like the privacy shutter for the webcam, though there’s no mention of an IR sensor for Windows Hello compatibility. This laptop would be pretty good at $500, but it’s an absolute bargain at $380—and because of that, I don’t suspect it’ll stay in stock for very long. Best Buy is only selling it at this price today, with the deal ending at 1 AM Eastern US time according to the product page. It also says there are only three at my nearest Best Buy retail location. Hop on it quickly if you’re looking for an affordable laptop with some extra power and features. If it isn’t what you’re looking for, then check out PCWorld’s picks for the best laptops. This touchscreen laptop with Core i5 and 16GB RAM is crazy for $380Buy now from Best Buy Read...

If you’re paying for a YouTube Premium account, you need to be extra careful going forward. According to initial reports, Google is apparently taking increased action against account sharing, and the company has reportedly already sent some emails to account holders who are sharing premium benefits with people who don’t live in the same household. According to YouTube’s official guidelines, this has been prohibited since 2023, back when Netflix introduced stricter rules against password sharing, prompting other streaming services to follow suit. There have also been repeated reports of YouTube cancelling cheap subscriptions from abroad—which were often subscribed to using a VPN service—without warning. This is particularly annoying for anyone who would otherwise be unable to afford YouTube Premium yet is still willing to pay YouTube something for the privilege of premium features. 14-day deadline Affected users who receive an email from YouTube are apparently informed of a 14-day deadline. After this period, all premium features (such as ad-free viewing and offline downloads) will be cancelled, regardless of how much time actually remains on the subscription. The YouTube account itself will apparently not be blocked. There’s only talk of blocking the family membership. Presumably, all users (except for the account holder) will be banned if YouTube detects a violation of the household rules. YouTube checks your location According to YouTube, it uses location checks with IP addresses and GPS every 30 days to check whether users on a premium plan are in the same household. The respective region is also compared with the account settings in order to expose pricing arbitrage from abroad. This procedure isn’t yet 100 percent foolproof, as there are still many users who share their premium plans but haven’t yet been caught. Conversely, it’s also possible for legitimate family members to be inadvertently classified as non-household members if they’re away for too long (e.g., due to traveling or studying). What you can do If you receive such an email from YouTube but haven’t actually shared your account beyond your household, you can prevent the account block by contacting YouTube support. If you can prove that all users are in the same household, YouTube should lift the block. Otherwise, if you’ve been caught out, you may want to consider adjusting your subscription. Whereas YouTube Premium Family costs $22.99/month, you might prefer to go individual with YouTube Premium Lite for just $7.99/month. For reference, individual YouTube Premium costs $13.99/month. Read...

If there was ever a good time to upgrade your gaming laptop to one with a cutting-edge GPU, it’s now. The Lenovo Legion 5i with an RTX 5060 is now on sale for $1,350 at B&H, a massive $350 off its MSRP. Who says good things don’t come to those who wait? Not only is it packed with solid specs and features, it’s capped off with a gorgeous 15-inch OLED display with a crisp 2560×1600 resolution and fast 165Hz refresh rate for smooth visuals at high frame rates. And with the RTX 5060 powering it all, you’ll be able to play the latest games with Nvidia’s latest tech, including DLSS 4 and frame generation. Under the hood, this machine is fitted with an Intel Core Ultra 7 255HX processor, a hefty 32GB of speedy DDR5 RAM, and a roomy 1TB SSD. All of this makes for a laptop that easily breezes through your games, apps, and even a million browser tabs without breaking a sweat. Connectivity isn’t a worry here either. On the Lenovo Legion 5i, you’ll find a next-gen USB4, a fast USB-C, three fast USB-A, plus HDMI 2.1 for an external 4K display, as well as LAN and 3.5mm audio. This one also comes with top-of-the-line Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.3. This is an awesome price for an awesome gaming machine, so what are you waiting for? Get the Lenovo Legion 5i for $1,350 at B&H! Save $350 on this high-performance laptop with RTX 5060 GPUBuy now from B&H Read...

If you always feel achy and uncomfortable after a long day at your desk, then you have to look into a chair upgrade. Considering how many hours you spend in that thing, a good chair isn’t a luxury—it’s an essential. But who says a good chair needs to cost a fortune? The Staples Emerge Vortex is on sale for $130 right now, a solid 50% off its usual price. If that’s not an awesome deal, I don’t know what is! Though technically a gaming chair, it has a clean and understated design that makes it a solid addition to any home office. It features a tall back, lumbar support, a comfy headrest, and flip-up armrests that make it easy to slip the chair under your desk when not in use. (While it isn’t flimsy, it isn’t exactly heavy duty—it supports up to 275 pounds.) With over 10,000 reviews and a glowing 4.6-star rating on the Staples online store, the Emerge Vortex has earned high praise for its balance of comfort and affordability. Don’t miss out on this chance to snag the Staples Emerge Vortex gaming chair for $130! Save 50% on this budget-friendly ergonomic Staples gaming chairBuy now at Staples Read...

I love one-handed gaming keypads. I love them so much that I even made my own because I couldn’t find one that had all the features I want. So I’m thrilled whenever I see a new, ultra-premium option on the market… even if it isn’t quite what I’m looking for. Say hello to the Lemokey L0 HE by Keychron. This is ostensibly a premium alternative to the Lemokey X0, the company’s previous attempt at a one-handed gaming keypad. But this one is a lot more blinged out, more akin to the Keychron Q series of keyboards. It’s got a chunky full-aluminum body, magnetic switches for adjustable actuation, and fancy PBT keycaps that still show off some RGB bling thanks to some transparent windows. You also get a snazzy scrolling knob, multiple levels of internal foam, programming options via a browser tool, and the removable USB-C cable missing in the original design. Keychron But it has a price tag of $160. Holy freakin’ crap. I get that this thing has premium materials and it’s a niche product, but that’s a hundred and sixty simoleons for essentially half a gaming keyboard. It sure doesn’t help that it’s missing a wrist rest—essential for this form factor, whether integrated or discrete—and it doesn’t have an option for wireless. Combined with limited options for those semi-proprietary switches and Lemokey’s inability to program settings for individual games, I can’t say I’m rushing to buy one. Razer’s Tartarus Pro pad is cheaper with more options… and yes, I’m aware that that’s an extremely rare thing to say about any Razer product. Read...

If your laptop’s anything like mine, then it lacks many of the ports you need to connect all your displays, peripherals, drives, and accessories. If that’s you, then what you need is a proper docking station—like this Ugreen Revodok Pro, which happens to be 30% off on Amazon right now, knocking its price down to $25.89 (was $36.99). That matches its all-time lowest price, so now’s a great time to get one. The Revodok Pro is a delightful 7-in-1 USB-C hub and a superb pick for anyone who wants to attach more stuff to their laptop without paying too much for the opportunity. This one features dual HDMI ports that each support a 4K@60Hz display, instantly turning your laptop into a proper workstation. Just imagine how much more productive you could be if you had two full-blown 4K monitors for spreading your apps around. On top of those HDMI ports, you also get two 10Gbps USB-A ports and two 10Gbps USB-C ports, plus another charging-only USB-C port with 100W of power delivery. That means you can hook up all kinds of drives and peripherals while keeping your laptop powered, and those fast ports are compatible with both Thunderbolt 3 and 4. This tiny little hub solves so many laptop connectivity issues, and that’s invaluable when you’re on your laptop all day long. Grab this Ugreen 7-in-1 USB-C hub for just $25.89 with this limited-time deal! Save 30% and turn your laptop`s USB-C port into 7 ports todayBuy now at Amazon Read...

KB5064081 is now available as an optional update for Windows 11 24H2. “Optional” means that Windows 11 isn’t yet installing this one automatically on available PCs. It’s currently available in Windows Update but must be manually installed by users. (You can either search for it in Windows Update download it via the Microsoft Update Catalog.) Update KB5064081 brings a wealth of new features to Windows 11, including new personalized start page for Microsoft’s AI-driven Recall feature. The new page lets you check on your past activity and jump back into one of those tasks. There’s also a new navigation bar that allows you to switch between “Home,” “Timeline,” “Feedback,” and “Settings” pages. The “Recent Snapshots” section lists all current snapshots while the “Top Apps” and “Top Websites” sections list all current app activity, explains Windows Latest. Get Windows 11 Pro for cheap Windows 11 Pro This update also adds a seconds display to the clock in the Notification Center, but you’ll have to enable it in settings for it to show. You’ll also have more settings for widgets on the lock screen, allowing you to change the size and position of widgets, plus remove any you don’t like. Other improvements include Microsoft refreshing and expanding the interface for Windows Hello, with the various authentication options now displayed in a modernized look. Microsoft has also revised the CPU display in the Task Manager so that CPU performance is now displayed identically in all areas. After installing optional update KB5064081, Windows 11 will have build number 26100.5074. If you don’t want to install KB5064081 yet, you can hold off until the next Patch Tuesday in September. At that point, KB5064081 will be turned into a mandatory cumulative update for all all compatible Windows 11 computers. Read...

At a glanceExpert`s Rating Pros Excellent 10Gbps performer, even with long writes Small even for a thumb drive Both Type-C and Type-A connectors Cons Slows down off secondary cache Our Verdict Not only is the X2 Max the fastest, most compatible (Type-A and Type-C) thumb drive I’ve ever tested, it’s among the fastest 10Gbps SSDs of any size I’ve tested. It’s not cheap, but its tiny-dancer excellence is worth the price. Price When Reviewed This value will show the geolocated pricing text for product undefined Best Pricing Today Best Prices Today: Teamgroup X2 Max Retailer Price $69.99 View Deal Price comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwide Product Price Price comparison from Backmarket Best Prices Today: Check today’s prices The Teamgroup X2 Max took me by surprise. I was expecting a slowish commodity drive, as it’s as small as any thumb drive in my collection. However, when push came to shove, the X2 Max delivered superlative 10Gbps USB performance across nearly all of our tests — rivaling that of many significantly larger 10Gbps SSDs. In short, it’s a gem. Read on to learn more, then see our roundup of the best external drives for comparison. What are the X2 Max SSD’s features? At just under 3-inches long, by 0.75-inches wide, by 0.25-inches thick — and including both a captive Type-C port and Type-A port — the X2 Max is outstandingly demure, even for a thumb drive. It’s so svelte it makes most of its ilk look chunky in comparison. The dual port types, shown below, also make it easy to use with virtually any USB-enabled device on the planet. Lightning connector Apple stuff of course excepted. The drive uses NVMe internals to operate at 10Gbps USB 3.2 speeds, with sustained transfers maxing out at just under 1.1GBps. Teamgroup wasn’t inclined to discuss the controller or specific type of NAND involved. However, given the excellent performance and ability to sustain reasonable transfer speeds over the long haul, I’m thinking state-of-the-art on both counts. There’s not specific durability (TBW) rating, but Teamgroup warranties the drive for a full five years, a munificent rarity for any external SSD. How much is the X2 Max? While it isn’t slow like a commodity USB stick, the X2 Max isn’t cheap like one either. 1TB costs $70, and the 2TB version we tested is $130. But you get what you pay for. This is not your father’s USB stick — it’s a full-on 10Gbps SSD in a tiny form factor. For, that, the price is right on. How fast is the X2 Max? The X2 Max benchmarked extremely well for a 2TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD in CrystalDiskMark 8, ATTO 4, and AS SSD 2. It also performed well in our main real-world transfers — most impressively, by not tanking as many SSDs do during super-long writes. In point of fact, the X2 Max is easily the fastest thumb drive I’ve tested, and faster than many of its larger 10Gbps brethren. While not light years better in CrystalDiskMark 8 than the Seagate Ultra Compact SSD and SK Hynix Tube T31, the X2 Max did best them overall in sequential transfers. Unlike many SSDs, the X2 Max doesn’t tank during super-long writes. Though it only took two out of the four contests, the X2 Max was highly competitive in all four. Longer bars are better. The one area where the X2 Max lagged behind its competitors was in random performance under CrystalDiskMark 8. Not disastrously so, but certainly noticeably — especially in the 32-queue write. Of course, I’m not aware of any real-world software that uses more than four queues. This was the one series of tests where the X2 Max fell short of the competition. Longer bars are better. The X2 Max was back to shining in our 48GB transfers. Note that there have been changes in the way I’m testing storage. Xcopy and our new favorite utility FastCopy are now used to show more of the true potential of the drives, and I’ve replaced the RAM disk with a 25GBps dual RAID 0 SSD array as the second drive in transfer tests. Read the “How we test” section at the end of the article for more info. While not total dominance, the X2 Max offers a nice uptick in real-world transfers over the competition. Shorter bars are better. Where the X2 Max really impressed me was with its sustained write performance. During the 450GB write (using Windows Explorer), the X2 Max did slow down, but not by that much — dropping from around 850MBps to between 500MBps and 650MBps. The same thing occurred when I wrote 950GB on top of that. Because of this, I’m not dead set on recommending the 2TB drive as the 1TB version (if it behaves similarly) likely won’t slow tragically either. Whatever you’re doing, Teamgroup… Keep on doing it. This is a total whoopin’ by the X2 Max in the 450GB write. The other drives slow to a much reduced pace when the secondary cache is exhausted. Shorter bars are better. Below is visual confirmation that the X2 Max doesn’t slow to an absurdly low pace during long writes as some SSDs do. Yes, the speed of the X2 Max drops during long writes, but not absurdly so as do many SSDs. As you can see above, where the X2 Max really separated itself from the pack was in the super-long writes — long a bugaboo of thumb drives and less expensive SSDs. The upshot being that this drive is good for prosumers and average users alike. Should you buy the X2 Max? Absolutely. If you want small and fast — it’s almost impossible to beat. Even forgetting the small, the X2 Max is more than competitive speed-wise with far larger 10Gbps SSDs. It ain’t cheap, but the best rarely is. Good on ya’, Teamgroup. How we test Drive tests currently utilize Windows 11 24H2, 64-bit running off of a PCIe 4.0 Samsung 990 Pro in an Asus Z890-Creator WiFi (PCIe 4.0/5.0) motherboard. The CPU is a Core Ultra i5 225 feeding/fed by two Kingston Fury 32GB DDR5 4800MHz modules (64GB of memory total). Both 20Gbps USB and Thunderbolt 5 are integrated and Intel CPU/GPU graphics are used. SSDs involved in the test are mounted in a HighPoint 7604A 16x PCIe 5.0 adapter card. We run the CrystalDiskMark 8, AS SSD 2, and ATTO 4 synthetic benchmarks (to keep article length down, we only report one) to find the storage device’s potential performance, then a series of 48GB and 450GB transfers tests using Windows Explorer drag and drop to show what you’ll see under Window, as well as the far faster Xcopy to show what’s possible. The 48GB and 450GB write tests are written to/from a 25GBps two-SSD RAID 0 array on the aforementioned Highpoint 7604A. Formerly the 48GB tests were done with a RAM disk. Each test is performed on a newly NTFS-formatted and TRIM’d drive so the results are optimal. Note that in normal use, as a drive fills up, performance may decrease due to less NAND for secondary caching, as well as other factors. This can be less of a factor with the current crop of SSDs with far faster late-generation NAND. Caveat: The performance numbers shown apply only to the drive we were shipped and to the capacity tested. SSD performance can and will vary by capacity due to more or fewer chips to shotgun reads/writes across and the amount of NAND available for secondary caching. Vendors also occasionally swap components. If you ever notice a large discrepancy between the performance you experience and that which we report, by all means, let us know. Read...

At a glanceExpert`s Rating Pros Absolutely stunning display Ripping CPU performance RTX 5050 has huge advantage over iGPU Potent, six-speaker audio system Largely silent operation Cons Mics need noise cancelling Front edge of laptop can dig into wrists Our Verdict If you want a laptop that exudes greatness everywhere you look, the Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition is it. From brilliant performance in its class and respectable battery life to a brilliant display and solid design, this machine makes the price tag seem reasonable. Price When Reviewed This value will show the geolocated pricing text for product undefined Best Pricing Today Best Prices Today: Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition Retailer Price Check Price comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwide Product Price Price comparison from Backmarket Best Prices Today: Check today’s prices Usually, when I think of a high-end laptop, I think of one that has pulled out all of the stops, going far too exotic on build materials, cramming too much hardware in too thin a machine, and winding up with an exorbitant price tag that perfectly illustrates the concept of diminishing returns. At first glance, the Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition looks like it might just be that kind of machine. With a high-power CPU, a discrete GPU, and two display options that both are geared up to dazzle, the Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition certainly has the hardware, but it’s packed into a modest aluminum frame that’s not overly ambitious in its thinness. And with a $1,949 price tag for the potent configuration tested here, it feels like Lenovo struck the right balance, delivering solid quality everywhere it counts to make for a very respectable machine for folks who need a machine that can do a bit of everything and do it well.  Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition: Specs and features Model number: 83L00009US CPU: Intel Core Ultra 9 285H Memory: 32GB LPDDR5x-8400 Graphics/GPU: Nvidia RTX 5050 8GB (100-watt TGP) Display: 16-inch 2.8K OLED, 120Hz, DisplayHDR True Black 1000, Touch Storage: 1TB PCIe Gen4 SSD Webcam: 5MP + IR Connectivity: 2x Thunderbolt 4 / USB4 with 65-100W Power Delivery and DisplayPort 2.1, 2x USB-A 5Gbps, 1x HDMI 2.1, 1x SDcard reader, 1x 3.5mm combo audio Networking: Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4 Biometrics: Windows Hello fingerprint, facial recognition Battery capacity: 84 watt-hours Dimensions: 14.28 x 9.99 x 0.75 inches Weight: 4.52 pounds MSRP: $1,949 as-tested ($1,869 base) At the time of testing, the Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition was available in just a few configurations. All of them shared the same Intel Core Ultra 9 285H CPU, 32GB of memory, and 1TB of storage. The type of display and GPU were the only different points. Lenovo provides the option between a 2880×1800 OLED display paired with an RTX 5050 for $1,999 and a 3200×2000 Tandem OLED paired with an RTX 5060 for $2,299, though at the time of writing, those prices were discounted to $1,899 and $1,949 respectively. Best Buy also had the former configuration available for $1,949.  In addition to its preconfigured models, Lenovo offers a custom configuration tool. This starts at $1,869 for the same configuration as the base model above. But you can upgrade to 64GB of memory, an RTX 5070, and the 3.2K Tandem OLED display for $560 more. Or you can stick with the base specs and just upgrade to the Tandem OLED for $150 extra.  Lenovo’s full technical specifications for the product suggest quite a few more configurations to come, including touch and non-touch display options and an Intel Core Ultra 7 255H. The Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition is a great machine. It comes at a price, but the premium isn’t so unreasonable when factoring in all that it brings to the table. Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition: Design and build quality IDG / Mark Knapp The Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition is simple and elegant, but a little bland as a result. Lenovo has done a nice job rounding corners all over the place for a smoother look and feel, though the edges of the keyboard deck could still be a little more rounded for comfort. That said, it’s still a big gray slab, and nothing about it being an “Aura Edition” gives it anything more than an aura of plainness.  The construction is good. Just about everywhere you look — aside from the keycaps — is smooth aluminum or glass, including the display and its bezels. There’s some flex here and there, but it’s very slight. The display hinge moves smoothly, and is easy to open with one hand thanks to the weight of the base and a little lip at the top of the screen for this purpose and to give more space to the webcam and IR sensor. The hinge does wiggle for a second or two after moving the display or shifting the laptop around, but it holds firm while I’m typing.  The base sits on three rubber feet, a long one at the back and two small ones at the front. These are taller than is typical on productivity laptops, and this helps create an extra large channel underneath the laptop for airflow into the large grille underneath. Most of this grille is filled in, with sections at either side actually serving as intakes for the two fans.  Lenovo has squeezed in six speakers in total with two tweeters and four woofers. You’ll find speakers on either side of the keyboard and on the edges underneath the laptop.  Ports are all packed reasonably close together on either side of the laptop, including a dedicated power plug. The right edge also includes a privacy shutter switch that deactivates the camera — nice to see and easier to avoid accidentally swiping every time I open the laptop, though a little less reassuring than a shutter that actually covers up the camera sensor. The Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition’s power button is also on the right edge of the laptop, where it’s a little too easy to accidentally press any time I shift the laptop around on a desk or table.  With all the Lenovo has jammed into this 16-inch laptop, it’s little surprise that it’s over four pounds, but at just 4.52 pounds, it’s not unreasonably heavy. The laptop has a tapered design, seeing it sit at about 0.7 inches thick near the front and 0.75 inches thick near the back, though the rubber feet add almost 0.2 inches to that. At 14.28 inches wide and 9.99 inches long, it’s still fairly modest in size for a 16-inch laptop. Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition: Keyboard, trackpad IDG / Mark Knapp The Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition has a pretty good keyboard on it. It’s a little bland to look at with its drab gray keycaps, but that doesn’t hurt its usability. Thanks to the slight dish to each keycap, good stabilization, and a short, poppy travel, I was able to quickly get up to a 118-word-per-minute typing speed with 98 percent accuracy in Monkeytype. Comfort while typing is an issue though. The laptop’s depth makes the keyboard quite a reach up the keyboard deck even for me (I’m 6’3”), and this leaves my wrists pressing into the front lip of the laptop, which isn’t very comfortable. It also can take some adjusting, as the keyboard is off-center to make room for a full number pad, albeit with keys slightly narrower than standard.  The keyboard has bright backlighting that can even be seen in the daytime with ambient lighting. It effectively illuminates the keycap legends. It has two levels, and a third option lets it turn on automatically. It’s a bit too aggressive, though, turning on even in a room plenty bright for seeing the keys.  The trackpad here is substantial. It’s both wide and tall, providing a huge surface to mouse around on and perform multi-finger gestures. Its glass surface is also wonderfully smooth. It has a shallow travel to perform physical clicks with a nice soft feel. Like the keyboard, it’s off-center, shifted to the left slightly to be centered under the keyboard alphanumerics. For left-handed users, this may be ideal. But for righties, it might not be. I often find this alignment has me largely using the right side of the trackpad, so when I go for a physical click, it ends up being a right click instead of the left click. If you tap to click, it won’t be a problem though. Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition: Display, audio IDG / Mark Knapp The Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition has an absolutely excellent display, and this configuration of the system has the lower-end display option. The upper-tier’s tandem OLED display should only improve on its quality. The only quality to knock is that the screen is glossy, which leaves it subject to glare when set to low brightness levels. Beyond that, it’s brilliant. It’s perfectly sharp for a display its size, and its variable refresh rate keeps visuals smooth at up to 120Hz while also providing energy savings by dropping as low as 30Hz. The display offers 100 percent coverage of the DCI-P3 color space and provides a reasonable degree of accuracy, hitting an average dE1976 of 0.95 and a max of 2.4 — a bit of calibration would likely have it ready for professional color work. In SDR, the display was able to reach a peak brightness of 486.1 nits for a full white screen, and with its OLED panel, it can achieve perfect blacks for infinite contrast. Turning on HDR, the display’s capabilities leap up even higher. I measured the fullscreen white peak brightness at 606 nits, and when displaying a 10 percent window of white, it achieved 1040 nits. The display is even a responsive touchscreen.  With its set of two tweeters and four woofers, the Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition puts out impressive sound for a laptop. Most impressive is the clean, low-end it provides, giving musical bass lines a nice heft. Meanwhile, the upper registers get a clean presentation, albeit a little bit lacking in brilliance. There’s even some surprising stereo imaging. When listening to music with the laptop at a comfortable distance for typing, I was caught off guard by how sounds actually seemed to be coming from my sides and not just from the laptop right in front of me. At full volume, the speakers can distort a little, but they sound reasonably loud even at 50 percent volume.  Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition: Webcam, microphone, biometrics IDG / Mark Knapp The webcam on the Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition is excellent. It can exhibit a little noise in the video, but otherwise has a very sharp image with natural lighting that looks great. Though Lenovo doesn’t have a physical shutter to cover the lens, it does provide a hardware switch on the side of the laptop to disable the camera. The webcam also provides Windows Hello facial recognition, which has worked quickly throughout my testing. You won’t find fingerprint scanning though. The mics aren’t quite as impressive. On one hand, they pick up my voice clearly without any weird compression artifacts. But on the other hand, they’re not doing much to eliminate background noise, picking up things like a nearby fan and my hands clapping — noises I’ve seen some laptops completely eliminate while still picking up my voice well.  Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition: Connectivity IDG / Mark Knapp The Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition provides respectable connectivity, both wired and wireless. You’ll find two USB-C ports on the left edge offering Thunderbolt 4/USB4 capabilities and up to 100W power delivery to charge the laptop if you forget the standard charger (a 170W unit with Lenovo’s charging plug). The ports also support DisplayPort 2.1, but you can rely on the HDMI 2.1 port for video output as well. The left side is rounded out by a 3.5mm audio jack. On the right side, you’ll find a pair of 5Gbps USB-A ports and a full-size SD card reader. It would have been nice to see 10Gbps ports or at least to get the USB-C ports split between the two sides.  For wireless connections, the Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition offers Wi-Fi 7, and it’s proven both fast and reliable in my testing, never showing signs of lag or being slow to re-establish a connection when booting up the machine. Bluetooth 5.4 is also supported, and it has worked consistently while listening to audio on Bluetooth headphones. Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition: Performance The Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition is built like many other productivity laptops in the 16-inch class. This sees it face off against models like the Acer Swift 16 AI, the HP OmniBook X Flip 16, the Dell Inspiron 16 Plus, and the Dell 16 Plus, which all offered as-tested prices hundreds of dollars below the Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition. But, even as the Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition competes on size and weight with these other systems (save for the particularly thin and light Acer Swift 16 AI), it goes a little heavier in performance with a more robust CPU selection and a discrete GPU, an inclusion only the Dell Inspiron 16 Plus made at its as-tested price. The Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition offers excellent performance thanks to its combination of a high-end CPU in the Core Ultra 9 285H — a 16-core beast — with plenty of memory, fast storage, and its discrete GPU. The RTX 5050 inside gives it a strong edge in content creation, where it outpaced all of these other systems, including the RTX 4060-powered Dell Inspiron 16 Plus.  Cinebench helps us see just how much of an edge Lenovo’s choice of CPU gives the Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition. In Cinebench R23, the Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition simply obliterates the performance offered by the Intel Core Ultra 7 256V and Intel Core Ultra 7 258V, more than doubling their results. It even cruises ahead of the Dell Inspiron 16 Plus. This is a level of performance that can put the Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition in league with heavy-duty gaming laptops, like the Lenovo Legion 5i 15IRX10 running on an Intel Core i7-14700HX. The CPU’s single-core performance is also exceptional, giving it all the performance it needs to feel responsive and power through heavy workloads.  That performance is showcased well in our Handbrake encoding test. This is effectively an extension of our CPU test, as it tasks the system with a long multi-core workload encoding a large video file. This not only requires a powerful CPU to perform well but also solid cooling to prevent heat from building up and slowing the system down as the test stretches on. Here, we see the Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition do a great job, keeping its encoding time at under 11 minutes. That’s not only well underneath the encoding times of these other machines, some of which almost ran for 30 minutes, but it even slips underneath the encoding time of the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370-powered Razer Blade 16 (2025).  Though the Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition might have already successfully set itself apart from its competition on CPU performance alone, its discrete GPU helps take it to another level still. Intel Arc graphics work wonders for lightweight productivity machines, but even lower-tier discrete GPUs provide a world of difference. That’s true of the RTX 4060 in the Dell Inspiron 16 Plus and even more so for the RTX 5050 in the Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition. That discrete GPU soared ahead of the competition in 3DMark’s Time Spy benchmark, a rather demanding graphical test. Despite its thinner design and largely quiet operation, the Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition actually managed to offer performance that lines up with many RTX 4060-powered gaming laptops.   Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition: Battery life With as much performance as the Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition was happy to put down, it’s unsurprising that it falls a bit behind its rivals where battery life is concerned. The Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition still managed a commendable runtime of almost 14 hours, but most of the other machines pushed closer to 17 or 18 hours, except the Dell 16 Plus, which also had a small 63Wh battery.  While that’s not as impressive as these other machines, it’s not a bad showing, particularly for a machine with a discrete GPU and higher-power CPU. It’s striking a nice balance with performance that borders on gaming laptop while maintaining battery life more in line with productivity machines. Its offline video playback performance also carried over well into real-world use, where I was easily able to get through a full workday on battery power (albeit without tapping into the dGPU).  Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition: Conclusion The Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition is a great machine. It comes at a price, but the premium isn’t so unreasonable when factoring in all that it brings to the table. Not only do you get exceptional performance from the internals, but you get them in a well-built package with plenty of extras to get excited about. The speakers and display combine for a great entertainment experience. The chassis is elegant and feels solid. And even with such high-power hardware, the Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition is happy to run on battery power for an entire workday. If you need a machine that largely excels in every respect, you’ve just found it. Read...