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At a glanceExpert`s Rating Pros Tiny and portable Incredibly focused writing Easy-to-read screen Cons Far too expensive Cramped, cheap keyboard Transferring text is cumbersome SD card slot is picky Our Verdict While the Pomera is stylish, portable, and extremely focused for writers, it’s dragged down by a poor keyboard and cumbersome text transfer options. It’s simply far too expensive for what you get. Price When Reviewed This value will show the geolocated pricing text for product undefined Best Pricing Today Best Prices Today: Pomera DM250 US word processor Retailer Price Pomera $499 View Deal Check Price comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwide Product Price Price comparison from Backmarket Best Prices Today: Check today’s prices I wrote a novel ten years ago. I’ve been trying to write a second one ever since. I started about half a dozen times, and never got much further than halfway through the first draft. Obviously things are a lot different in 2025 than in 2015. Both for me personally and [gestures at everything]. Like a lot of you reading this, my attention span has been absolutely shattered by modern video and social media. Even when I’m not on my massive, triple-screen desktop, I’m parallel processing between work, media, and personal stuff. I often find myself playing video games and watching videos at the same time, and I know that I’m not alone — there’s a whole range of videos out there that are now designed to be “second screen content,” and I don’t just mean music with those little visualizers thrown on top of them. KingJim In an attempt to kick myself in the ass and actually get back to fiction writing, I’ve been looking for something that will facilitate more focused, long-form text input. My first idea was a super minimal laptop. Something like ye olde netbooks, where the smaller size and limited capability would minimize my trips to YouTube or email checking. The problem is that even a cheap laptop can run a browser these days, and a handful of browser tabs is all I need to get off on a mental tangent. I needed something like netbooks used to be, designed for doing one thing at a time, and that one thing couldn’t be particularly taxing from a technical standpoint. Foundry A tablet plus a Bluetooth keyboard is closer. I’ve tried this before, but found it less than ideal, if only because that setup has a lot of stuff to carry and wasn’t particularly easy to use unless there was a standard chair and table around — it was hard to use in a laptop form factor. Ditto for the keyboard plus a phone; my Galaxy Fold is better for portability, but even the super-tiny Logitech Keys to Go 2 doesn’t solve the usability issues, and, if anything, my intense familiarity with my phone makes me even more likely to multitask on it than on a tablet. I thought back to some of the devices I’ve used in the past, and those I merely admired from afar. The Sony Vaio P, a teeny, tiny netbook design that skewed a little more premium while remaining super-portable, kept popping up in my head. This 2009 design was super-portable, stylish, and its footprint was barely bigger than its keyboard thanks to a shrunken-down pointer mechanism and a super-wide screen. It wasn’t amazing by the standards of the day, perhaps because it had a less-than-optimal combination of a premium price and low power. People wanted it to be a lot more capable than it was, especially considering that it ran Windows Vista, and perhaps that made it seem like a poor value. But in terms of form factor, it seemed retroactively perfect for my needs: laptop-shaped with a hinge for using on, well, a lap, and with a small screen that could only really handle one window at a time. Pondering on these devices made me go even further back in my memory. I recalled that in the group writing sessions for NaNoWriMo I attended in Colorado Springs, a couple of people had unique little gadgets, bridging the gap between a full laptop and something like an old-fashioned word processor. Word processor in the hardware sense, not the software sense — essentially electronic keyboards with a tiny screen and a bit of memory for storing text files, and that was it. The spirit of these gadgets lives on in the “focused writer,” which you might have seen from Freewrite. These gadgets are interesting, and theoretically exactly what I’m looking for. But I haven’t bought any of the Freewrite models. Something about them feels so performative to me, to say nothing of the huge price for the hardware. The purposefully tiny screens and retro embellishments don’t appeal, nor does the relatively large size — if I’m lugging around something that big I’d feel really dumb for not just using a laptop. To summarize months of vague poking around the internet, especially on places like Reddit’s /r/writerdeck community, I found a little digital typewriter called the Pomera. More specifically, the KingJim Pomera DM250. This thing looked like exactly what I had been craving: a tiny, portable form factor essentially the same size as a small keyboard, and a super-focused custom software setup that does anything you want to, as long as you only want to write text. The screen is a little small, and I feel like a much wider one could easily fit in there, but it makes more sense in the legacy of this device family from the Japanese design company. A previous version of the Pomera looks like an evolution of the old Palm Pilot keyboards. I imagine that at least some of the parts in this most recent model are the same, explaining the large bezels around the 7-inch LCD screen. And yes, it is LCD, not e-ink as you might think from the photos, and is the case for the Freewrite. That gives it a little distinction. One, it’s much faster than a typical e-ink screen, which is advantageous for writing, if only because you don’t need to wait for a slow refresh for each letter to appear. It’s also a color screen, though so far the only color I’ve seen is the Word-style red squiggly lines under any word that the built-in dictionary doesn’t recognize. Michael Crider/Foundry It also has some downsides. The screen is a little more reflective than I’d expect from e-ink, though with high contrast and a bright backlight, it’s not that big of a deal in regular use. The battery life is also a lot lower than I’d expect from a device using an e-ink screen… though at 20 hours, and with easy USB-C recharging, you’re unlikely to get range anxiety unless you’re using this thing on a multi-day camping trip. The screen isn’t the most crucial hardware component of the Pomera. In fact, I’d say for the highly specialized target audience, it might be the least important. Pride of place must go to the keyboard for something where typing and writing is the main focus. And I have to say, it could be a lot better. Michael Crider/Foundry For context, I’m a PCWorld’s designated mechanical keyboard nut, and I’m a big fan of ThinkPad laptops for their focus on a comfortable, practical typing experience. Obviously you’re not going to get mechanical keys in a device this small and focused on portability. But there are laptop keyboards, and then there are laptop keyboards. And the Pomera’s is much closer to a budget laptop, something like a Chromebook sold by the thousand to schools, than to a high-end ThinkPad or Surface. In a word, it feels cheap. Not bad, per se, but nowhere near as nice as even something like Logitech’s MX Keys Mini (which is about the same size as a the keyboard here, if a little wider and thinner). I wasn’t expecting a miracle here — I don’t mind the lack of backlighting, for example, as anyone interested in buying a Pomera is almost certainly a rapid touch-typer. But the small keys and wide spacing takes some getting used to, even with my average (American AMAB-sized) hands. The layout is great. In fact, when I build 60 percent boards for myself, I use a near-identical setup for the bottom row, preserving dedicated arrow keys on the left side. I appreciate how there’s a full-sized right Shift key, something that’s not guaranteed, especially when something is designed in a non-ANSI country. But the full-length layout is about an inch narrower than a standard 60 percent keyboard, so you’re still going to have to get used to the slightly shrunken chiclet keys, like many tablet or phone keyboards. It’s not insurmountable, but it’s disappointing for a device so focused on text input. And your mileage may vary for how well and how quickly you’ll be able to adjust. The Pomera’s keyboard is just small enough to throw off my touch typing, about an inch more narrow than a standard 60% layout.Michael Crider/Foundry I also wish that the designers had included adjustable feet in the plastic case, and think they could have done so without sacrificing any size or battery capacity. I resorted to my usual adjustment for keyboards without a comfy angle option (looking at you, Keychron Q series): some little rubber feet from Amazon. It’s not an ideal solution, as it makes this thing about half an inch thicker than it needs to be, but it already fits in my little 60 percent keyboard case with my portable battery, so I think it’s a worthy sacrifice on the altar of the angle. Again, the typing experience isn’t terrible. I’m typing up this very review on the device now, and only getting a little less than my usual (and not all that impressive) typing speed. But for a device so singularly focused on text input, and which is far less technically capable than many other things in its price range, I can’t help but find it a very disappointing. The small keyboard is too mushy and cheap for a premium, single-purpose device. Michael Crider/Foundry The Pomera runs a completely custom operating system, not an Android derivative or Linux (at least not any form of Linux I recognize). And as a descendant of devices like the Alphasmart, it does feel very dated, without any touchscreen or even an option for mouse input. You open the horizontal menu with the Menu button (where the Windows/OS key is on a standard keyboard), and it only has seven items with nested tools and settings. I won’t bore you with a breakdown of every option, but it has a bunch of basic settings you’d expect if you’re familiar with these devices from back in the 80s and 90s. Font sizes, outlines, text spacing, that sort of thing. There are only two font options, serif and sans serif, and the option for black text on white or vice versa. One thing I changed immediately was the fullscreen view — “fullscreen” being a relative term for such a small window — and the status bar that shows the current word count and time (in 24-hour clock only) can be brought back by hitting menu. I’m most interested in just inputting a bunch of text, so the outline view doesn’t really interest me. But you can open two text documents at once in a splitscreen, with each side being VERY small, about the size of the original iPhone screen. I can see how that would be helpful if you’re revising and editing, though I think I’d prefer to do that on a full computer. I was pleased to see that you switch sides to the other text document with the familiar alt-tab command. Michael Crider/Foundry You might notice that there’s a full function row on the Pomera, or at least F1-F10, plus Escape on the left and Insert and Delete on the right in very natural spots. This gives you a lot of options for things like text size and backlight adjustment without diving into the menus, though I didn’t know that at first. I had to dive into a very old-fashioned manual, frustratingly provided in PDF-only format and not included in the box. An insert for the most common keyboard shortcuts would have been appreciated, as would some basic labeling on the Function keys, as is mostly standard on laptops now. Well, I suppose that’s one of the foibles of using such a deliberately retro device. I eventually found an on-device menu that shows you the shortcuts, and allows you to modify them. Other software tools include a rudimentary find-and-replace function, text and time markers, unicode input and customization, and a few more ways to customize the display and type experience. I was surprised to find that I could exclude certain words from the spell check function (great if you happen to be writing a genre novel) or turn the red squiggly lines on or off at will, but there’s no way to actually run a spell check function on the whole document and let you go through it to check your work. Michael Crider/Foundry Again, the Pomera is very much intended for WRITING, not editing. (Incidentally, you also can’t set any particular text as bold or italicized — I had to do that in editing.) And yes, this is actually a color screen, though the only hint of that I’ve seen at all is the red lines for misspelled words. There’s one last trick up the Pomera’s sleeve: a Bluetooth connection. But I was surprised to find that this isn’t for transferring files over to the phone app, which would have been a lot easier than using Wi-Fi, since I’m often using my phone’s Wi-Fi for, well, my phone’s internet. No, the Bluetooth is intended to let you use the Pomera as a Bluetooth keyboard for a phone or a tablet. Which is neat, and very slightly extends the functionality of the device. However, as I’ve already said, the keyboard of the Pomera isn’t that great in and of itself. The only real advantage it has over a regular travel keyboard is that the top half of the gadget works as a phone stand. The Pomera makes a functional, but extremely expensive, phone keyboard and stand. Michael Crider/Foundry If you’re intending to write on your phone, there are easier, less bulky ways to do so, and they don’t require digging into a text-based menu. This only makes sense if you want to carry ONLY your phone and your Pomera, switching over to the former to, say, type with friends or coworkers for a lengthy conversation. So once you’ve banged out ten or twenty thousand words of your screenplay on the Pomera, how do you get it into, say, Google Docs? Unsurprisingly, it’s not as seamless as it would be on a laptop or even a phone. But considering its limitations, the Pomera does give you a lot of options. Email is probably easiest. The Pomera can connect to Wi-Fi networks, though it doesn’t maintain a constant connection. The idea is that you connect to the network, email yourself (or someone else?) a text file, and then switch to a more powerful device. This was tricky, requiring a lot of trial and error to get these basic attachment messages to both authenticate in my Gmail account and send to myself. There are easier ways to do it. Michael Crider/Foundry Like using the official app, for example, which only has 5,000 downloads on the Google Play Store right now. This lets you transfer text files to your phone… using Wi-Fi. Which is a bit of a chore, but doable. The QR code function might be faster. It’s a fascinating little tool that converts a document into QR form so the app can scan it in visually. At first I thought this might be too limiting, because in order to get a large amount of text across it has to split it into multiple codes — a 2,500-word document needed eight separate codes, for example. But the app is surprisingly smooth at handling this. You point your phone at the Pomera’s screen, generate the codes, then cycle through them with the arrow keys. The app can immediately tell how many codes and in what sequence it needs, and shows you in the UI if you skipped any. Those eight codes were able to get the text into the app in less than 30 seconds, even with a couple of skips. From there it was easy to get the text into another app with Android’s Share function. Michael Crider/Foundry There are more old-fashioned options, including manually moving (or directly writing) onto an SD card that fits into the Pomera’s open slot. This is, again, a little more complex than it seems at first, because the apparently ancient slot could not read the 128GB SD card I use in my digital camera. I had to track down an antiquated 8GB card, using far older standards, to test out this function. But it’s easily doable, and might be a more straightforward method if you have a PC with an SD card. The least complex method was simply plugging the Pomera into a USB port. With a few button presses you can put it into a PC connection mode, at which point it essentially turns into a USB flash drive (just 1.3GB, but that should be big enough for millions and millions of words in text). There you can simply copy the text files onto your PC, and it also worked with a USB-C cable going to my Android phone. There’s an SD card slot, but you’ll need an older, slower one — it didn’t work with my newer 128GB card. Michael Crider/Foundry Aesthetically, I do like the Pomera a lot. When closed it shows no logos or branding from the top. It looks a lot like a chunkier version of the Logitech Keys-to-Go 2. When open, the only logo you see is “Pomera” in subtle off-grey on the hinge. Carrying around this super-light doohickey that’s essentially a chunk of gray plastic with a small screen and a keyboard makes me feel like John Conner, whipping out his Atari palmtop in Terminator 2. (I have yet to hack into any ATMs, if you’re wondering.) The soft-touch plastic is rather prone to fingerprints, if not so much as something like glass, but as a ThinkPad fan I’m pretty used to that. I doubt that the cheap printing on the keys will hold up more than two or three years, which is disappointing, especially when I’m used to high-quality dye sublimation or double-shot keycaps on mechanical keyboards. But again, that shouldn’t be a huge problem for anyone who’s used to touch typing, and by that time a user should be extremely comfortable with the device. Michael Crider/Foundry I like the Pomera. I like its focus, I like its simplicity, I like its deliberate evocation of a time from before everything from a phone to a monitor to a refrigerator was a convergence device. And I think that in the extremely limited field of modern-ish word processors, it’s probably at the head of the pack. That said, $400 USD when I bought it, $500 now thanks to Trump’s import taxes, is a lot for a single-use device. Especially when you can find a tablet or a Chromebook that will handle everything it does and more. If you’re spending money on the Pomera, you need to be absolutely sure it’s what you want, especially considering some of its less-than-premium components like the budget keyboard. If you’re thinking about it, I might almost suggest spending $50 or so on an old Alphasmart first. See if you like the ultra-focused experience and the limited capability. If you really connect with that, and you want something that’s easier to charge up and sync or transfer text, then you can upgrade to the Pomera DM250 or a Freewrite model. Just remember that it’s a lot like buying a treadmill — spending the money won’t actually make you do the work. The Pomera DM250 US next to a 14-inch Asus laptop.Michael Crider/Foundry Eventually I gave up my minimalist writing quest, and just went back to my laptop (this lightweight Asus, on sale for $650) with the Wi-Fi turned off. It’s only a little more expensive, and far more capable and practical. I’ll probably sell the Pomera to another aspiring novelist…who I hope will get a lot more use out of it. Read...

What’s your malware tally? I’ve had plenty stopped by my antivirus and antimalware software but the number I’ve had actually infect my PC is, I’m proud to say, a big fat donut (zero). What’s more, it’s been that way for more than 10 years. So, what’s my secret? Here’s what I do to prevent malware from infecting my PC. 1. Dodgy websites are a no-go for me Hackers tend to infect websites that people flock to in droves or where people go to download programs for free. Because of that I stay well clear of torrent sites, unverified download sites and adult websites, some of which are the worst offenders and teeming with malware. Also, if I get a banner or ad pop up that I just can’t close, instead of trying to click my way out of it, that can end up with me accidentally downloading malware, I’ll often just shut the whole PC down to prevent infection. If possible, you can also simply close the tab in your browser — but that’s not always an available option. Do not click on anything interacting with potential rogue ads! 2. I always use reputable antivirus and antimalware software Every year I purchase an annual subscription to a reputable antivirus and antimalware software program and have the program running in the background on my PC. It runs regular daily scans for malware, provides me with a safe search browser that scans all and every website I go to and, it also checks every file I download to stop malware from reaching my PC. PCWorld’s go-to recommendation is Norton 360 Deluxe, which offers strong protection against malware and Internet scams alike while barely making an impact on your PC’s performance. Pexels: Cottonbro Studio 3. My Windows Firewall is always active With Windows Defender Firewall always active I can rest assured that I have a strong line of defense that prevents malicious actors and malicious software or viruses and malware from accessing my PC or my network from the internet. 4. I keep everything updated I always keep all my software patched and updated. That includes all my apps but also my Windows OS and security software. That way my PC is armed with the latest virus definitions and security intelligence updates to deal with the latest malicious code circulating at any given time. But it also means that I’m closing down any vulnerabilities in the apps and programs themselves as developers patch and update their software. Foundry 5. I read emails with a sceptical mind I’d say 90 percent of the emails I get are spam which makes it easy to bring a sceptical mind to their contents. But I’ll bring that same attitude to reading emails that look legitimate too. That means I never click on any links or download any attachments and look out for the obvious warning signs, like dodgy spelling mistakes that are giveaways that emails are phishing attempts. If your bank or another critical account emails you about potential concerns, navigate to the website for that account, log in and check your status — do not click on links in emails that supposedly come from crucial accounts. 6. I avoid public networks and use a VPN Public Wi-Fi is a favorite way many hackers like to spread malware. For that reason, I mostly don’t use it. I say mostly, because I very infrequently use it when I travel and have no other option. When I must, I have my security firmly tied down with a bunch of Windows settings tweaks that involve switching off things like my PC’s network visibility and file sharing to reduce the access hackers on the same network might have to my PC. I’m also very careful to use a VPN (Virtual Private Network), which encrypts my network traffic and prevents hackers from intercepting it. Our comprehensive guide to the best VPNs available has Nord VPN as the best option, with ExpressVPN coming in a close second. Pexels: Stefan Coders 7. I use strong passwords and multi-factor authentication Where possible I’ll use long passphrases with special characters rather than just short easy-to-hack passwords for my accounts. Activating multi-factor authentication on my accounts also means logging into them requires multiple points of verification, making it a lot harder for hackers to gain access. That keeps a lid on hackers either infecting my files or else stealing my data or credentials for use in phishing or identify theft scams. Read...

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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...

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