Comparison between HP Specter x360 13.5 and Lenovo Yoga 9i Gen 7

The convertible 2-in-1 laptop market has two obvious leaders. There’s the HP Specter x360 13.5 and the Lenovo Yoga 9i Gen 7, both of which made our list of best laptops overall for their incredible build quality, great looks, and solid performance.

Although they are similar machines, they are not identical. It’s hard to pick a winner between the two, and in the end you can’t go wrong with either.

specifications

price and configurations

The cheapest HP Specter x360 13.5 you can buy is $1,000, with a 15-watt 10-core/12-thread Intel Core i5-1235U CPU, 8GB LPDDR4 RAM, a 512GB -PCIe Gen4 SSD and a 13.5-inch 3:2 WXUGA+ (1920 x 1280) IPS display. On the high end, you’re giving $1,770 for a Core i7-1255U (clocks faster than the Core i5), 32GB of LPDDR4 RAM, a 2TB PCIe Gen4 SSD, and a 13.5-inch 3: 2-3K2K (3,000 x 2,000) resolution from ) OLED display.

The Yoga 9i Gen 7 starts at $1,160 for a 28-watt, 12-core/16-thread Core i7-1260P, 8GB of LPDDR5 RAM, a 256GB PCIe Gen4 SSD, and a 14-inch 16 :10-WUXGA (1920×1200). ) IPS display. You’ll spend at most $1,850 for the Core i7, 16GB of LPDDR5 RAM, a 1TB PCIe Gen4 SSD, and a 14-inch 16:10 WQUXGA (3840 x 2400) OLED display.

That makes the Lenovo slightly more expensive than the HP, but both are solid in premium 2-in-1 territory.

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Both machines have been fundamentally revised in their last generations. The Specter x360 13.5 rounded out the sharp edges and flat sides of the Specter x360 14 while retaining its overall gem-cut design and sleek good looks. The Lenovo Yoga 9i Gen 7 underwent an even more significant aesthetic upgrade, morphing from a more pedestrian-friendly 2-in-1 with a minimalist design into one that rounded off the edges and created an amazingly cohesive new look. Both laptops are head-turners, and what’s more attractive comes down to personal taste.

In terms of their build quality, it’s another draw. Each is machined from CNC machined aluminum and is rock solid with no flexing, bending or twisting. These are two of the best built 2-in-1s you can buy.

The Specter x360 13.5 has an excellent keyboard with large and comfortable keycaps and plenty of key spacing. The switches offer plenty of travel with snappy response and a confident bottoming out. It’s one of the best keyboards on a Windows laptop. The Yoga 9i Gen 7’s keyboard, on the other hand, is fairly flat with a soft bottom. That offsets the large, sculpted keycaps and wide key spacing, resulting in a lesser experience.

Every laptop’s touchpad is large and comfortable, with precise Windows 11 multi-touch gestures and quiet, secure clicks. And of course both 2-in-1 sports touch displays with active pen support. Both include a pen in the box.

Connectivity favors the Specter x360 13.5 slightly, mostly because it has a microSD card reader. Both support Thunderbolt 4 and both use the latest Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2.

Privacy, security and webcam

The Specter x360 13.5 has a 5-megapixel webcam with the usual low-light and brightness tools, plus a feature that keeps the user’s face centered in the video image. The Yoga 9i Gen 7 has a 1080p webcam with similar capabilities. Both laptops have infrared cameras for passwordless login with Windows 11 Hello, as well as fingerprint readers. You can turn off the webcam on both 2-in-1s for privacy reasons.

Lenovo has integrated several Smart Assist utilities that further enhance privacy and security. Zero Touch Lock puts the Yoga 9i Gen 7 to sleep when the user walks away, and Zero Touch Login wakes it up and logs it in when the user returns. The features worked well and are a real convenience.

Both laptops offer excellent video conferencing quality, and the Yoga 9i Gen 7 offers more privacy and security features.

perfomance

One area of ​​divergence lies in the choice of CPU. HP opted for the 15-watt, 10-core/12-thread Intel Core i5-1235U and the faster-clocked Core i7-1255U. This CPU promises better battery life while giving up some performance. Lenovo chose the 28-watt 12-core/16-thread Core i5-1240P and the faster 14-core/20-thread Core i7-1260P and Core i7-1280P.

According to our benchmarks, the Yoga 9i Gen 7 was by far the faster laptop. The biggest difference was in Geekbench 5, but the Lenovo was also faster in our Handbrake test, which encodes a 420MB video as H.265, and in Cinebench R23. Both 2-in-1s performed well in the PCMark 10 Complete benchmark, although the Yoga 9i was again faster.

Technically, that’s a win for the Yoga 9i Gen 7. In real-world use, the difference probably wouldn’t be obvious to the demanding productivity users that both 2-in-1s are aimed at. Neither are designed for creative tasks, and the Lenovo wasn’t much faster in the two benchmarks that best indicate this type of performance. This was especially true when both laptops were running in their respective performance modes.

display and sound

We tested the Specter x360 13.5 with its 13.5-inch 3:2 3K2K OLED display and the Yoga 9i Gen 7 with its 14-inch 16:10 WQHD+ panel. In terms of overall quality, both were excellent, with the HP having slightly wider and more accurate colors and the Lenovo being slightly brighter. HP also offers a WQXGA+ (1920 x 1280) IPS display and privacy option with the same resolution, while Lenovo offers a WQXGA (1920 x 1200) IPS display and a UHD+ (3840 x 2400) OLED panel.

The significant difference was the higher aspect ratio of 3:2 and the higher resolution of the Specter x360 13.5. While 16:10 is a nice jump over old-school 16:9 displays, 3:2 is preferable as it shows even more vertical content and works best in tablet mode by accurately fitting a physical sheet of paper . Both 2-in-1s have excellent displays, but the Specter x360 13.5 wins.

The Yoga 9i Gen 7 integrates Lenovo’s soundbar into its hinge, which houses two tweeters and two woofers to produce loads of volume and real bass. However, the setup produced some distortions. The Specter x360 13.5 uses a more conventional four-speaker downward-firing system that also produced enough volume, but lacked bass.

portability

Thanks to its smaller display, the Specter x360 13.5 is slightly narrower in width and depth than the Yoga 9i Gen 7. However, the latter is 0.67 inches thinner at 0.6 inches, while slightly heavier at 3.09 pounds versus 3.01 pounds is. Each 2-in-1 is easy to slip into a backpack and carry around.

Despite having less battery capacity, the Specter x360 13.5 lasted about an hour longer in both our web browsing and video battery tests. The HP lasted nearly two and a half hours longer in the PCMark Applications battery test, the best indicator of productivity longevity.

Both 2-in-1s last a full work day, but the Specter x360 13.5 lasts longer. The difference roughly corresponds to the performance delta, showing that HP has done a respectable job of balancing the efficiency and performance of its chosen CPU.

Two excellent 2-in-1 models, it’s hard to pick a winner

There is no doubt that both the Specter x360 13.5 and the Yoga 9i Gen 7 are excellent laptops and the best convertible 2-in-1s out there. Each has its advantages, like the Yoga’s higher performance and the Specter’s longer battery life. Both are extremely well built, attractive and offer spectacular displays.

In the end, it’s the little things that count, like the Specter x360 13.5’s much better keyboard and higher webcam resolution. We give the victory to the HP, but it’s very close.

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