Lenovo Yoga 9n 2-in-1 Review: RTX Spark Laptop Wins on Pen

Lenovo's Yoga 9n 2-in-1 is one of the first laptops built on Nvidia's Arm-based RTX Spark N1X chip. It is not the fastest machine with that silicon, but its standout feature is a stylus that works on both the display and the trackpad.

Pricing and configurations

The base model, with the lower N1X variant (18 CPU cores, 5,120 CUDA cores), starts at $3,000. The tested unit was the top configuration: 20 CPU cores, 6,144 CUDA cores, 64GB of unified memory and 1TB of storage, priced at $4,000. Lenovo has not announced Japanese pricing or availability.

The 16-inch OLED panel is the highlight. It supports Dolby Vision, reaches 1,100 nits peak in HDR and offers 30 to 120Hz variable refresh. Resolution tops out at 2,880 x 1,800, so there is no 4K option, unlike the Surface Laptop Ultra or ASUS ProArt P16. Six speakers sit in the central hinge, so they stay unblocked in laptop, flat or tent mode. The 9.2-megapixel webcam looks soft, and there is no Windows Hello face login. The full-size number pad cramps the keyboard.

The pen

The second-generation Yoga Pen feels close to Apple Pencil Pro, with tilt detection and 8,192 pressure levels. On the trackpad it acts as a small drawing tablet with hover detection and near one-to-one mapping to the screen. Switching targets can take about a second. The pen has little storage: a magnetic rubber holder on the lid back, and a replacement costs over $60.

Performance

In Cinebench 2026 the Yoga 9n beat Lenovo's Pro 9i 16 G11 with Core Ultra 9 386H by about 21%, but trailed an M5 Max MacBook Pro by about 19%. A Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme ASUS Zenbook A16 finished a Blender test about 20 seconds faster for less than half the price.

The Yoga's 70W maximum TDP, against 110W on the Surface Laptop Ultra, costs it graphics performance: about 13% lower in 3DMark Speed Way and 19% in Port Royal. Cyberpunk 2077 ran at about 44fps on High versus over 52fps on the Surface. Raising GPU memory from 32GB to 48GB changed little.

The trade-offs are quiet fans and strong performance on battery. Testing gave just over eight hours in light use, 6 to 7 hours under heavier work and roughly three hours of gaming. A 14-inch M5 Max MacBook Pro starts at $4,100 and a comparable Surface Laptop Ultra costs $4,300, so the Yoga's price is not out of line.