and here with the digital digest and today i wanted to share a comparison between the lenovo yoga 9i 15 on the right and the hp spectre x360 15t on the left now in my opinion these are the two best two in ones on the market right now in their form factor respectively with 15.6 inch touchscreens both of these were sent to me for review purposes and of course they will be going back to the manufacturer now i’ve already reviewed the spectre i’m in the process of finishing up my review for the yoga and in terms of pricing and specifications these are very similar machines so start off the hp originally retailed for roughly 2 grand it’s now on sale for around 1500 which in my opinion for this specific build is a bargain the lenovo still sells for 1700 and that price is firm the difference in specs are as follows in terms of displays we’ve got a 4k 15.6 inch amoled on the hp whereas on the 9i you’ve got a 1080p 15.6 inch panel you can spec this out though with a 4k display it will still be an ips not an oled display in terms of processor they both have the same intel 10th gen that is i7 1075 0h 6 core processor they both have 16 gigs of soldered ram so keep that in mind you will not be able to upgrade them they both have one
terabyte nvme drives they both have the same nvidia gtx 1650 ti with max q dedicated gpu under the hood four gigs of ram with that and then they both have wi-fi six bluetooth 5.0 they both have thunderbolt uh three but keep in mind the lenovo has two thunderbolt three ports whereas uh the hp only has one so bear that in mind other than that again very similar the hp does have windows hello capability with its ir webcam 720p unfortunately the lenovo does not and this is how the c940 last year was as well let’s take a look at multimedia performance again remember this is 4k this is not this is amoled this is not so and i’m just going to stop these here because what i want to point out whether or not it’s coming across on camera is that the amoled display is a more brilliant display it’s just a product of the technology being superior to in-plane switching ips that’s what that stands for lcd panels but that does not mean that the hdr certified panel on the lenovo yoga 9i isn’t one of the best of its kind it still is also remember this is 1080p this is 4k and that does make a difference now when it comes to battery life it doesn’t make a difference on these two models which is quite interesting you might think well because this one’s 1080p it’s going to outperform the battery life of the spectre oddly enough they both come in at roughly the same battery life which is around six hours uh with everything maxed out which is very good when you think about the form factor 4.2 pounds 4.4 pounds it’s kind of amazing where we are and that’s without tiger lake 11th gen processors which are right around the corner for both of these machines i think hp is already taking orders i don’t think lenovo is yet in retail channels and i’m being really clear so that people understand this around the world availability outside of direct manufacture purchasing is probably going to be sometime in the first quarter of 2021.
with that said now listen to the audio difference coming out of the yoga versus the spectre there is a big difference because of the sound bar hinge just like there was with the c940 and volume is all the way up stop it right there take a listen and i’ll make sure but i already checked volume yep a hundred percent here on well i should have checked this yes that is correct and let’s make sure it’s a hundred percent on this as well it is and here we go [Music] now if you could barely hear the audio it’s because the lenovo is that much uh more powerful when it comes to audio performance not just being loud the sound stage the bass with the built-in subwoofer all of those things really come to life with the yoga so in other words if speaker performance is important to you the yoga is the way to go just like the c940 before it the 9i still has best in class audio when it comes to display quality though the winner here is the hp because of its amoled display in this video right now the amoled may look blown out but that’s just because it is realistically the more saturated uh display between these two in person the amoled looks basically lifelike whereas the ips panel looks a little bit washed out but still remember the ips panel you can only see this
difference side by side so you really wouldn’t think of it that way if it was on its own but again side by side it is tough to look past the difference here the quality difference that amoled delivers at least in the hp build is significant so again audio goes to the lenovo display quality goes to the hp now let’s talk about the rest of these machines let’s get out of uh each of the respective browsers i’m not going to do any web browsing we don’t need to basically price to performance ratio i talked about this used to be two grand it’s now on sale for 1500 over the holiday i’m not sure if that will stick it probably will and that’s because the 11th gen refresh is basically upon us this machine in retail channels is staying firm as i mentioned at 1700 i think in order to get the 4k display and upgrade to an i9 cpu you’re looking at i think best buy sells that for over twenty three hundred dollars but when it comes to general performance these things are basically identical so for photo and video editing i work primarily in vegas you’re not going to see any difference i will say that the hp gets hotter faster so the thermals on the lenovo in other words the tendency to throttle is less so on the yoga that may make your decision for you on its own for me personally there isn’t a big enough difference for me to say that i would pick the yoga based on the fact that it is that much cooler because it isn’t but it is cooler at the end of the day it isn’t going to get as hot or as loud under load as the hp that is likely a result of the hp being a little bit thinner a little bit lighter and of course internal design being different so with that said let’s talk
about keyboard performance now i personally love the spectres uh keyboard my 13t the 15t it’s the best in my opinion in the two in one category that doesn’t make the yoga’s keyboard bad it just isn’t as good so again it’s a matter of personal preference the key travel here is better on the hp i would i think everything about it it’s just a more comfortable typing experience and then you’ve got the track pad so uh longer a little bit more narrow on the hp compared to the 9i in my opinion these are a wash i don’t like one more than the other there isn’t one that underperforms or over performs for me to say you know this is bad this is good or this is good and this is bad they’re a wash same goes for their fingerprint scanners as i mentioned at the top of the video big difference with the 720p webcams that are on board is that windows hello is supported the facial recognition for unlock on the hp it is not for the lenovo another thing by the way both webcams are pretty bad i would like to see all manufacturers step up and improve their webcam quality you know it’s sad when my samsung tab s7 plus webcams you know outperform these machines when they’re basically at retail just about two grand each that’s not a good thing but again windows hello does exist here i’m not in love with that lenovo still has not updated the kill switch for the camera you can see it’s a physical switch whereas the yoga has an actual switch on the side of the body on the side of the chassis that you can switch that actually disconnects power it
doesn’t just cover the camera so that is a better feature another part i like of the hp keyboard which is really simple and you’ll hear me talk about it all the time when it comes to hp versus lenovo is that i really like that the mute button has an actual led as does the mute for the microphone we have mute buttons here but we don’t have visual cues so in the world especially now go living through a pandemic if you’re on a zoom call i mentioned this in my hp coverage in the past to know that you’re muted audio or microphone visually without having to go check anything is to me something that i kind of can’t look back i need that would that make my choice on which laptop to pick absolutely not there are more important things to me but it is still something that’s important to reference the offset track pad on the lenovo will disturb some but you know it’s offset on the hp as well and this is where i remind everyone that ocd aside you have to realize this is engineered intentionally because when your hands are on the deck typing they have moved it over to make sure that you’re not going to you know unintentionally be on that trackpad touching it and it’s just a matter of making space for the numerical keypad which i think just about everyone welcomes on a desktop replacement class laptop like this really notebook so with that said we’ve talked about display quality we’ve talked about
keyboard webcam the gpu when it comes to gaming you can basically basically play modern titles at 1080p with medium to high settings no ultra is going to happen with of course the uh gpu that’s under the hood of both of these because they’re just not in that tier they are not a 2000 series gpus they are 1000 series so you’re just not going to get that kind of performance with four gigs of dedicated ram and nvidia nvidia’s 1650 ti even with max q design but it is still far better than integrated even with intel’s tiger lake which is crazy for what for being an integrated gpu what iris xe is capable of still having this is going to be a great benefit for both photo video editing and of course gaming now is it night and day versus what intel is doing with tiger lake no it’s not night and day things have gotten a lot closer but you won’t be disappointed and again this is all about your price to performance ratio and in this price range you really aren’t going to see this sort of build quality uh and overall capability uh without spending more to get a better performing gpu so keep that in mind there are no machines that compete directly with these that do sport uh you know 2060s or 2070s they just don’t exist really so these are the mainstays in the mainstream uh beyond the displays keyboards processor performance the nvme drives are pretty much a wash on these as well they benchmark very similarly you’re not going to have any issues you can
upgrade them so that’s good wi-fi performance on both excellent and that’s because you do have intel’s wi-fi 6 chipset behind both of these much like the previous generation so that is also a big plus for both of these machines i won’t say that’s future-proof completely you know wi-fi 6e is somewhere down the road whether anyone wants to discuss it or not so that’s something to be aware of so we’ve discussed gaming now as well again in my experience they’re awash but remember the lenovo slightly basically slightly cooler and not as loud on the fans kicking up that doesn’t mean that the hp will burn you but both of these machines inherently will get hot because of how much power they’ve packed into such thin profiles i mean both of these are under an inch thick keep that in mind i mean that is really crazy when you think about how powerful these machines are and that they both have 15.6 inch displays and dedicated gpus let’s talk about pen input so with the hp uh this is the standard pen that’s included and it’s n-trig driven um we’ve already done a drawing and inking demo with the hp and it’s solid my fiance is the one who gets behind the inking here and i just give you the feedback and basically what it comes down to and we haven’t done an inking demo yet but she has spent time inking with both this 9i as well as the 14 inch version is that the wacom experience is slightly better but when it comes to software optimization they both are dealing with the same crappy um software so basically while the performance of the yoga is
slightly better and i like as does my fiance that the pen is garaged on body which i’ll be getting to a little bit later it doesn’t outperform it enough for me to say go with the yoga if pen input is the most important thing to you because at the end of the day both are very good the difference is really uh that they’re both limited it’s not a difference it’s what they share in common by the lack of software support so you’re still going to be better suited going with something like the galaxy tab s7 plus for pen input over windows based two and ones unfortunately that doesn’t mean they don’t function it doesn’t mean that they aren’t useful they’re just not good enough i think for true artists to rely on and that’s what it comes down to when you look at two-and-ones i think that’s really going to ultimately continue to be my point until software manufacturers step up their game or the next generation of windows frankly with that aside let’s talk about battery life i mentioned that briefly before they’re pretty much a wash you’re looking at you know five to six hours with everything maxed out uh to charge these up you’re looking at an hour and a half with their included uh you know proprietary chargers both of them are proprietary 135 watts one of the big differences on the chassis of the hp besides the display the fact that it’s amoled not 4k but amoled is that you do have a micro sd card reader which i think is a huge difference but then the yoga in its benefit has two thunderbolt 3 ports whereas the hp only has one so keep that in mind that’s another important thing if you plan on utilizing two thunderbolt 3 ports you’ve got let’s say an nvme drive as well as you want the ability to output
you know 4k 60 or just you need that throughput in general is what i should be saying the yoga’s the more powerful machine in that regard because you have two thunderbolt 3 ports and that is critical so while this may have the micro sd card slot i actually think having the two thunderbolt 3 ports is more important and the yoga has that i already mentioned the kill switch for the camera here that is a big difference over that physical plastic switch both of these can be opened with a single hand both of them are really solid in terms of uh their actual axis staying in position however you have them set up you can see eventually they they don’t lift you might think they would but they don’t um and build quality is excellent on both of these although i will say the yoga is a more solid overall product it’s just the build quality there’s less flex there’s actually almost basically zero flex on this and not that there is on the hp but the hp has a little bit more of a hollow feel but it is the lighter machine of the two so keep that in mind now let’s take a walk around the body of each of these machines so i mentioned we already know the yoga’s got that sound bar which the audio is you know far and away better than basically anything on the market forget the hp but uh and when it comes to the rest of the body very clean design you can see the power button right there we’ve got a type a usb port here is the pen now the garage pen is a great concept it keeps it stored it recharges but take a
look at that pen and take a look at the standard hp pen and you start to realize that while it’s great to have it garaged it’s not great that it is so small so that’s a very big difference right there uh putting that on the wrong machine in itself that you should be aware of that while it’s great to have that garaged pen the performance of the garage pen is also good but the ergonomics of having that stylus that reminds me of the late 90s is not ideal this pen is definitely superior hp now has a tilt refresh which i have not gotten my hands on i have the original tilt this is not it they don’t sell the original tilt anymore it was a few years old so it was time for a refresh so i can’t speak to the performance of that pen but any n-trig pen is going to work here any wacom pen is going to work here so keep that in mind but still important to know there is a pretty big difference between these two pens all right whereas there isn’t a huge difference between their actual performance but uh there is a place to slot this on the case that comes with the hp no case comes with the yoga so be aware of that but i didn’t finish the tour of the yoga’s body so you can slot this back in it charges up really quickly that’s a big benefit besides the audio quality build quality some yoga branding right here on the lid hopefully that’s in focus for you right now yoga 9 series and then on the left side we’ve got of course our proprietary uh charging port for that 135 watt supply we have two thunderbolt 3 ports as i mentioned now thunderbolt 4 is becoming standard in new machines this is likely going to be the last revision of this machine with thunderbolt 3 and then the microphone headphone combo jack
nothing else on this except for ventilation and as you already know the ability of course to go 360 degrees which is a given with these machines portrait landscape whatever you want you’ve got it tablet mode now i don’t think tablet mode is ideal but it is still completely usable there are no feet on this keyboard for those of you wondering when it is placed on a table nothing to buffer uh the actual keyboard itself which is another difference between this and the hp so be aware of that but incredibly well made and it’s more expensive than the hp go figure i’m not sure why anymore but the sale now on the hp kind of makes it a no-brainer and that really is where i’m headed is that i love both of these but the pricing on the hp even if it runs a little bit hotter makes it the more attractive buy because it’s also more versatile the only thing the hp has against it personally i like the styling of the yoga better but the only thing where the yoga really shines besides thermals against the hp is the audio quality that’s it so keep that in mind now on the right side of the machine well this is another place one thunderbolt 3 port the other one is just a type c so we do not have two thunderbolt 3 ports that’s another area where the yoga 9i excels type a then the camera kill switch again love that we have a kill switch and then you can see micro sd card slot now a lot of people think this is to supplement storage for me it’s not i switched over to using micro sd cards for
photography and videography as much as possible for the very reason that you see right here manufacturers have just moved away from giving us full-size sd card slots that’s something i wish both of these machines had and then something that this machine has that the yoga doesn’t that i think a lot of people are going to appreciate but you don’t really need is a full-size hdmi port now because the yoga has those thunderbolt 3 ports those of course can be used with a thunderbolt 3 basically a type c to hdmi so you’ll just have to pick up a cable and not a big deal but if you are in you know search looking for a full-size hdmi port you have it here and then you have your proprietary uh pin charger for the included 135 watt uh charging brick and of course that headphone microphone combo jack ventilation ventilation and some more ventilation and some more ventilation but even at the end of the day it’s still not enough to necessarily keep this as cool as i’ve stated as the lenovo runs but that’s pretty much it power button is right here on the edge uh this is a matter i think more of uh personal preference when it comes to the style of this machine uh i think that this is i feel like a look and feel that’s gonna be more universal where this is going to be either you’re going to love it or hate it sort of relationship i’ve grown to really like the look of the gem cut design from hp that the spectre sports but i do prefer it in the silver color as opposed to the nightfall black that you’re seeing here i think it’s nightfall or yeah i think it’s nightfall but again you can’t go wrong with either of these it’s really a matter of matching what your specific personal needs are to each machine so i know a lot of people out there unlike myself don’t care about the 4k amoled display they’re going to be prone to this 1080p panel and you’re going to be really satisfied with color reproduction regardless of what things look like in this
video color accuracy is close on these but again the hp has a little bit more versatility because of the amoled it’s inherent brightness also similar i think the hp is around 400 nits i think the yoga’s a little over 400 nits of brightness it is hdr 400 rated so keep that in mind uh so it really comes down to which you prefer but you will not be uh upset with either of these that’s my way of putting it you know occasionally i get a comment about the hp that it runs really hot but the majority of people that purchase this machine are happy with its performance and they understand that there is no two in one like these two machines really to compare to other than these two and you can’t get too critical you know to the point of not enjoying using it i mean these are fantastic machines i easily can recommend both of them my next purchase is likely going to be one of these uh once we get a tiger lake refresh that really delivers performance that’s above and beyond what i currently can do now i say that because i’m happily served by my 13t right now which is a smaller version of this no dedicated gpu and of course nowhere near the processing power but it’s still not worlds apart and that’s why i say when tiger lake drops which is just about here it’s already happening that’s when i’m going to be very curious to see how much of a performance jump we get i also would like to see a refresh of the nvidia gpus believe it or not a lot of people are you know going to be completely satisfied with what is inside both of these machines but for me personally again i’m waiting for something a little bit more powerful i know it’s coming uh nvidia mentioned that we’re gonna see uh you know next gen basically 3000 series uh mobile gpus in 2021 that’s what i want to see make its way into something like this i’m not saying that it’s going to ever be in the spectre or the yoga 9 series because we don’t know that it will but if it is a possibility i’m holding out but until then if i had to pick one of these machines today i would pick the hp solely because as i just mentioned before most users i think will be prone to 1080p it’s less expensive and they don’t they can’t justify the 4k i as a content creator need that 4k and the
15.6 inch display is preferable to my 13t in terms of weight you know i said 4.2 something versus 4.4 something it’s a wash they have the same footprint pretty much so it really comes down to your budget and your priorities card reader for me is pretty much a must-have but i can tell you right now if lenovo put an amoled display on the yoga i would forget about the card reader i would forget about the keyboard performance i would forget about the keyboard you know the led notifications i forget about windows hello so that tells you a lot about how hp has won me over with the amoled display every consumer is different every person’s preferences and priorities are going to be different and i’m going to reiterate that because it’s not a cut and dry comparison for anyone trying to figure out which one is right for them i’ve already stated pretty much everything you need to know display performance battery life processor gpu performance is again the edge goes to the yoga because thermals are better in other words throttling is going to kick in less often with the yoga under load but for the majority of users out there throttling isn’t going to be a huge issue even gaming even video editing you know it’s really do you leave your laptop on a bed or something where it can’t breathe properly do you keep it lifted do you put it on a stand so that airflow is optimized in those situations it’s not going to matter how hot the machine gets and we are in a pandemic so you’re not you shouldn’t really be traveling anywhere for your own and for your family safety of
course i’m not telling you what to do you want to live by the seat of your pants it’s up to you you’ll also you know find the edge uh that way as well so it’s all a matter of personal preference but again uh for not taking these out on the road and if you do have them on a stand or something then heat isn’t going to be an issue and throttling is going to be so close that that also shouldn’t be making your decision because they are that close in performance so ultimately as i stated for me the display plus the keyboard plus the windows hello capability uh it makes me want the hp but then again as a power user having the two thunderbolt three ports that creates an ability in my workflow that i just i can’t get out of the hp so i would need to use a hub with the thunderbolt 3 single port on this machine and then there are those of you that will want the hp because of the hdmi port which i actually don’t even care about years ago i would have said no no hdmi on a 15.6 inch desktop replacement style machine uh you’re not going to get my business now that’s just not the case so again i’m going to reiterate you can’t go wrong with either of these it’s really a matter of i would say if anything uh decide based on style how about that because when it comes to performance and pricing because when it comes to performance they’re pretty much a wash so if you just pick and it’s ironic you know i’m just about at 30 minutes if you just pick based on which one you think is nicer looking okay and is more palatable to your budget you’re not going to go wrong because at the end of the day as i’ve described performance is that close that they’re just they’re both best in class when it comes to two and ones here at the end of 2020.
if you can wait wait because tiger lake is upon us uh and as i mentioned i’ll be waiting to see what we get in the form of uh new dedicated gpus in the mobile space from nvidia amd is also doing a lot of promising stuff i’ll probably get some comments about where the amd machines hey if they send them to me i’m reviewing them amd is doing great stuff uh here but intel is answering back with tiger lake in a big way that doesn’t mean amd doesn’t still have some tricks up its sleeve it doesn’t mean any that intel doesn’t have some as well but again uh both of these i would be happy with uh as a video editing gaming uh and photo editing station they really do serve in every possible way but as i’ve mentioned for me the hp is the winner i like that it’s lighter i like the display is better i like the keyboard is better those are important things to me but as i already mentioned if lenovo gave us an oled uh it would be game over so lenovo please listen to me listen to somebody put an oled in this or the 14-inch model you will be happy that you did but that rounds it out again two fantastic notebooks they’re not perfect both have thermal issues both will get hot under load both don’t have amazing battery life but they do in context of being desktop replacements that are two-in-ones both have very solid pen input that ultimately ends up being limited by the quality of the software that exists inside of windows for inking and uh really it’s a matter again of budget and personal taste either way you cannot go wrong with either of these and i hope that i helped you through the course of this video because that’s all i really ever aim to do on this channel and that’s based on of course my own opinion and experience with the products uh no sponsorship no payment never have taken a dollar don’t plan on it that’s the way you keep journalism honest and true any questions or comments please feel free to post them hit that like button and as usual please feel free to subscribe and please stay safe later
Read More: UPERFECT 17.3 Inch FHD Portable Monitor
