The new Tandem-OLED panel in Lenovo's Yoga Pro 9i is currently the best notebook display
Mini-LED panels were the benchmark for laptops in terms of brightness. The current Apple MacBook Pro is a great example with brightness values of up to 1600 nits HDR and 1000 nits SDR. We have seen improvements for OLED panels this year as well, but the peak brightness levels were still capped at around 700 nits for SDR and 1,100 nits for HDR contents. This brings us to the new tandem OLED technology, where two illumination layers are put on top of each other. In addition to brighter images and richer colors, the panel technology also improves efficiency.
Lenovo's Yoga Pro 9i 16 is the first notebook we reviewed with such a tandem OLED screen. With a resolution of 3200 x 2000 pixels and a refresh rate of 120 Hz it offers excellent image quality and it even covers the AdobeRGB color gamut. It is also comparable to Apple's Mini-LED screen in terms of brightness, because we measure almost 1,000 nits in SDR and up to 1,600 nits in HDR. There is PWM flickering at brightness levels of 60 % and less, but the frequency is more than 1 kHz and the amplitude is small, so there should not be any issues. Compared to the Mini-LED panel (where a traditional IPS screen is combined with Mini-LED background illumination), the response times of the OLED screen are far superior and there are less issues with blooming. This might actually be a good preview of what the OLED screen of an upcoming MacBook Pro might look like.
| Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 RTX 5070 ATNA60KA01-0, OLED, 3200x2000, 16", 120 Hz | Lenovo Yoga Pro 9 16IAH G10 RTX 5060 ATNA60HR04-0, OLED, 2880x1800, 16", 120 Hz | Apple MacBook Pro 16 2024 M4 Pro Mini-LED, 3456x2234, 16.2", 120 Hz | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Display | -2% | -2% | |
| Display P3 Coverage (%) | 97.4 | 99 2% | 99.7 2% |
| sRGB Coverage (%) | 100 | 100 0% | 100 0% |
| AdobeRGB 1998 Coverage (%) | 96.8 | 89.6 -7% | 88.8 -8% |
| Response Times | -175% | -9057% | |
| Response Time Grey 50% / Grey 80% * (ms) | 0.27 ? | 1.47 ? -444% | 43 ? -15826% |
| Response Time Black / White * (ms) | 0.37 ? | 0.42 ? -14% | 41.2 ? -11035% |
| PWM Frequency (Hz) | 1200 | 1200 ? | 14880 |
| PWM Amplitude * (%) | 22 | 37 -68% | 90 -309% |
| Screen | -22% | 4% | |
| Brightness middle (cd/m²) | 974 | 475 -51% | 632 -35% |
| Brightness (cd/m²) | 979 | 474 -52% | 616 -37% |
| Brightness Distribution (%) | 98 | 97 -1% | 95 -3% |
| Black Level * (cd/m²) | |||
| Colorchecker dE 2000 * | 0.9 | 1 -11% | 0.6 33% |
| Colorchecker dE 2000 max. * | 1.7 | 2 -18% | 1.2 29% |
| Greyscale dE 2000 * | 1.3 | 1.3 -0% | 0.8 38% |
| Gamma | 2.21 100% | 2.24 98% | 2.21 100% |
| CCT | 6751 96% | 6672 97% | 6450 101% |
| Total Average (Program / Settings) | -66% /
-55% | -3018% /
-2263% |
* ... smaller is better
The comparison with the 2.8K OLED screen of the Yoga Pro 9i 16, which we already reviewed, is also interesting. It also offers excellent image quality with high brightness values (up to 1,100 nits) and is already one of the best panels you can get right now. However, the 3.2K screen is a worthy upgrade if you have plenty of HDR contents (games, movies) or you can use the extended color gamut. The new tandem OLED screen is also more efficient at the same brightness levels, because we determine slightly longer battery runtimes in our Wi-Fi test compared to the 2.8K OLED. Please see our review of the Yoga Pro 9i 16 for all information about the new tandem OLED screen.
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