Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5i 16 Gen 9 Review (2024)

The IdeaPad Slim 5i 16 Gen 9 isn't Lenovo's absolute cheapest consumer laptop—you can pick up a 15.6-inch IdeaPad 1 for 400 bucks—but no one would call it expensive, starting at $603.20 and $699.99 as tested. The system cuts a few corners to reach that price, with Wi-Fi 6 instead of Wi-Fi 6E or 7 and USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports instead of USB4 or Thunderbolt 4, but it's a reasonably attractive option if you're seeking a slim desktop replacement on a budget. For a better deal in either direction regarding price, we recommend either the Acer Swift Go 16 for a few more dollars or the Acer Aspire 3 to save even more cash.

Configurations and Design: Act Now for the Best Price

The IdeaPad Slim 5i has a 16-inch IPS screen with a 1,920-by-1,200-pixel resolution; Lenovo's spec sheet lists a 2,048-by-1,280 OLED option, but I couldn't find it for sale at this writing. The $603.20 base model combines a non-touch display with an Intel Core 5 120U processor, 8GB of memory, a 512GB solid-state drive, and Windows 11 Home.

Our test unit (model 83FW0001US) is upgraded with a Core 7 150U chip, 16GB of memory, 1TB of storage, and a touch screen. Its price at Costco is $899.99, marked down to $699.99 through August 25, 2024. A matching, non-time-limited system at Lenovo.com is $749.99.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

You'll feel a bit of flex if you grasp the screen corners or mash the keyboard, but—surprisingly for a bargain notebook—the Abyss Blue aluminum IdeaPad has passed the same MIL-STD 810H tests as Lenovo's deluxe ThinkPads for travel hazards such as shock, vibration, and extreme temperatures and humidity. The laptop measures 0.67 by 14 by 9.9 inches and weighs 4 pounds, a bit bulkier than the Acer Swift Go 16 (0.59 by 14 by 9.6 inches, 3.53 pounds) though lighter than comparable convertibles like the Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 (4.4 pounds).

The bezels flanking the 16:10 aspect ratio display are thin, with thicker ones above and below. A lip at the top of the lid holds the webcam (with a sliding privacy shutter), making it easier to open the laptop one-handed. The camera doesn't do face recognition, but a fingerprint reader in the palm rest lets you skip passwords with Windows Hello.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

For penny-pinching purposes, the IdeaPad Slim's four USB ports are limited to 5Gbps transfer speeds, not the 10Gbps to 40Gbps of faster interfaces. Two Type-C ports flank an HDMI 1.4 port on the left edge, which also houses an audio jack. The HDMI port is limited to 1080p output; if you want to plug in a 4K monitor, you'll have to use a USB-C (leaving one for the AC adapter). Two USB Type-A ports, the rearmost always on, join a microSD card slot on the right side. Lenovo included Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2 radios to provide wireless connectivity.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

Using the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5i 16 Gen 9: An Arrowing Experience

The keyboard is brightly backlit and incorporates a numeric keypad, which is ideal because we recommend using its Home, End, Page Up, Page Down, and cursor arrow keys (with Num Lock off) instead of those keys on the main layout—the latter are arranged in a clumsy HP-style row instead of the correct inverted T, with hard-to-hit, half-height up and down arrow keys stacked between full-size left and right. They also make you pair the Fn key with cursor arrows for the Home/End/et cetera foursome.

On the positive side, the keyboard's typing feel is comfortable and shallow, but with decent feedback. Lenovo's large, buttonless touchpad glides and taps smoothly and takes just the right amount of pressure for a discreet click.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

The laptop's 1080p webcam doesn't support Windows' new Studio Effects, such as auto framing and background blur, but it captures relatively well-lit and colorful images with minimal noise or static. Sound from the speaker grille above the keyboard is loud enough for solo listening but too soft for a conference room and slightly hollow. Played music sounds decent, though free of bass, and you can dimly make out overlapping tracks. Lenovo included Dolby Access software to provide music, movie, game, and voice presets—and an equalizer with minimal effect.

Speaking of "dimly," the 1,920-by-1,200-pixel touch screen provides only fair brightness and dull, subdued colors, though its contrast is decent and finer details are sufficiently sharp. You'll see no pixelation around the edges of letters and white backgrounds are clean—or would be clean with a little more brightness—instead of grayish or dingy, helped by the ability to tilt the screen all the way back to flat. The screen's viewing angles are wide.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

Lenovo's familiar Vantage software control panel centralizes system settings, updates, and Wi-Fi security. This IdeaPad has a one-year warranty.

Testing the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5i 16 Gen 9: Affordable 16-Inch Systems Square Off

We've reviewed numerous 16-inch desktop replacements that aim higher than the IdeaPad, with creative-app-worthy OLED displays and four-figure price tags. Sticking to economy-class tickets, we began our benchmark comparison charts with two systems in the same price range, the Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 convertible and the Acer Aspire Vero clamshell. Another Acer, the Swift Go 16, and another convertible, Lenovo's own Yoga 7i 16 Gen 9, cost a bit more (about $900 each as tested).

Productivity Tests

We run the same general productivity benchmarks across both mobile and desktop systems. Our first test is UL's PCMark 10, which simulates a variety of real-world productivity and office workflows to measure overall system performance and also includes a storage subtest for the primary drive.

Our other three benchmarks focus on the CPU, using all available cores and threads, to rate a PC's suitability for processor-intensive workloads. Maxon's Cinebench R23 uses that company's Cinema 4D engine to render a complex scene, while Geekbench 5.4 Pro from Primate Labs simulates popular apps ranging from PDF rendering and speech recognition to machine learning. Finally, we use the open-source video transcoder HandBrake 1.4 to convert a 12-minute video clip from 4K to 1080p resolution (lower times are better).

At last, we run PugetBench for Photoshop by workstation maker Puget Systems, which uses the Creative Cloud version 22 of Adobe's famous image editor to rate a PC's performance for content creation and multimedia applications. It's an automated extension that executes a variety of general and GPU-accelerated Photoshop tasks ranging from opening, rotating, resizing, and saving an image to applying masks, gradient fills, and filters.

The Slim 5i finished in the middle of the pack, posting respectable if not dazzling results, while the Swift lived up to its name by winning every event. Most important for affordable systems, all five laptops cleared the 5,000 points that indicate acceptable everyday productivity in PCMark 10.

Graphics Tests

We test the graphics inside all laptops and desktops with two DirectX 12 gaming simulations from UL's 3DMark, Night Raid (more modest, suitable for laptops with integrated graphics) and Time Spy (more demanding, suitable for gaming rigs with discrete GPUs).

To further measure GPUs, we also run two tests from the cross-platform GPU benchmark GFXBench 5, which stresses both low-level routines like texturing and high-level, game-like image rendering. The 1440p Aztec Ruins and 1080p Car Chase tests, rendered offscreen to accommodate different display resolutions, exercise graphics and compute shaders using the OpenGL programming interface and hardware tessellation respectively. The more frames per second (fps), the better.

The IdeaPad's Core 7 150U CPU labels its integrated graphics as merely Intel Graphics, not even trying to spiff them up with the Arc or Iris Xe branding of slightly faster silicon. They languished in 3DMark, performed OK in GFXBench Car Chase, and are nowhere near able to play the latest games. You'll be sticking to solitaire and video streaming with this laptop.

Battery and Display Tests

We test each laptop and tablet's battery life by playing a locally stored 720p video file (the open-source Blender movie Tears of Steel) with display brightness at 50% and audio volume at 100%. We make sure the battery is fully charged before the test, with Wi-Fi and keyboard backlighting turned off.

To gauge display performance, we also use a Datacolor SpyderX Elite monitor calibration sensor and its Windows software to measure a laptop screen's color saturation—what percentage of the sRGB, Adobe RGB, and DCI-P3 color gamuts or palettes the display can show—and its 50% and peak brightness in nits (candelas per square meter).

These low-cost laptops excelled in our battery rundown; even the next-to-last-place Slim 5i lasted more than 17 hours. A full day of work or school plus an evening's streaming entertainment will be no problem. The Aspire Vero had the shortest battery time but the brightest, most colorful display, while the two Lenovos' screens barely qualified as economy models.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

Verdict: Decent at Costco's Sale, Less So Elsewhere

The Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5i 16 Gen 9 is a decent-looking, well-enough-performing, and less-than-$800 desktop replacement. Its shortcomings, mostly a mediocre screen and awkward cursor control keys, keep it from competing for Editors' Choice honors, but it's worth a look if Costco or another favorite retailer puts up a discount. Again, we have two similarly big-screen Acer laptops to recommend instead, the Acer Swift Go 16 or the Acer Aspire 3, for either a bit more cash or a lot less, respectively.