I've found the best new laptop for designers, and it's a Lenovo Legion 9i
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission.
Sometimes you can't use a gaming laptop for content creation and design, but in most cases, you can, and sometimes going the gaming route will get you a better deal.
But other times, you find a gaming laptop that feels more like a design laptop; that's the case with Lenovo's 10th Generation Legion 9i.
At the Lenovo Tech World conference in Shanghai, Lenovo announced the newest generation of Legion 9i laptops, now in an 18-inch chassis.
The Legion 9i 18 Gen 10 has four slots of RAM, supporting up to 192GB, and four slots for SSD storage, supporting up to 8TB.
The Legion's Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX processor and up to NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 GPU operate at a combined total of up to 280W for maximum performance. And to keep the system cool under pressure, Lenovo has packed the Legion Coldfront vapor chamber and quad fan system into the Legion 9i.
The Legion 9i has solid gaming props, but the most interesting piece of the new Legion is its display. Lenovo offers two different display panel options, a 2D only, 3840 x 2400, LCD or a 2D/3D display that has a max 2400p resolution in 2D, and drops down to 1920 x 1200 when in 3D mode.
We have seen some recent strides in 3D gaming courtesy of Acer's SpatialLabs displays and Samsung's recent Odyssey 3D gaming monitor. But 3D displays are often more useful for designers as many games don't fully support 3D.
Lenovo has positioned the Legion 9i Gen 10 as a device for game developers, visual artists, and 3D professionals which helps explains the 2D/3D display.
Like many 3D displays, the Legion 9i uses eye-tracking and a lenticular lens array to provide a 3D experience without glasses.
The 2D/3D and 2D displays support dual-mode functionality to get a smooth, classic gaming experience in 4K at 240Hz while dropping down the resolution to 1920 x 1200p with a 400Hz refresh rate when you need a faster reaction time.
But the display isn't the only design tool added to the Legion 9i. The Lenovo 3D Studio software supports 3D viewing for a myriad of video, image, and streaming formats in both side-by-side and top-bottom arrangements. Lenovo Studio also supports 3D in 30 games and multiple creation apps.
And for added AI integration, the Legion 9i features Lenovo's AI Core chipset and AI Engine+ to dynamically adjust settings based on use, maximizing performance between gaming and rendering time.
You do still get the classic gaming features like Lenovo Legion Space to sync the laptop's RGB to in-game sound and whatever is being displayed, for deeper immersion and ambiance. The Legion Space software also features Game Coach, Game Clip Master, and Game Companion to help gamers improve their skills and quickly create shareable gaming content.
The top cover of each Lenovo Legion 9i (18', 10) is as unique as the design work being done on it. Made of eight layers of aviation-grade carbon fiber hand hand-applied and forged together, the resulting Forged Carbon laptop lid is lighter and stronger than aluminum, and thanks to the handcrafted manufacturing process, each top cover is one-of-a-kind. HDMI and DC in ports are located on the rear of the laptop, and a bevy of ports on both sides, including a pair of Thunderbolt 5 ports on the left side for high-speed devices, storage, and displays.
If you're psyched for the new Legion, either as your new gaming rig, design device, or all-around powerhouse you will have a bit of a wait.
Lenovo will be launching the Legion 9i Gen 10 in China with availability coming in North America this fall.
Thanks to the volatile US foreign manufacturing tariffs and the Legion 9i's ship date being a few months out, pricing for North America is still being determined. Lenovo will announce full pricing information closer to the ship date.
Are bigger gaming laptops really better? Here's how an RTX 5080 beat an RTX 5090.
Nvidia's affordable RTX 5060 is coming soon, but that's not the GPU I have my eyes on
Microsoft's new Surface Pro could solve our biggest issue with the previous gen
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Crashed lander looks back at Earth from the moon
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Resilience, a lunar lander built and operated by the Japanese company ispace, was part of the Hakuto-R Mission to deploy a "Moonhouse," a tiny colorful art piece, on the moon, while also exploring its surface features using its Tenacious rover. After launching on Jan. 15 from Florida's Space Coast on Hakuto-R Mission 2, ispace's Resilience lander arrived in lunar orbit on May 6. The lander then deftly shifted its path to an orbit just 62 miles (100 kilometers) above the moon's surface. On May 27, Resilience took this photo, with a view of Japan being blocked by the clouds on Earth's surface, according to an ispace tweet. Resilience hovers over the moon in its lunar orbit, aiming for the Mare Frigoris ("Sea of Cold") on the moon's near side, as a landing site. With Resilience, the Japanese company ispace hoped to be one of the first to land a private spacecraft on the moon. Unfortunately, its first mission, in April 2023, ended in failure as the crashed during its touchdown attempt. Undeterred, ispace — in collaboration with other agencies like NASA and JAXA — designed and tested Resilience as part of the Hakuto-R Mission 2 (the R stands for "reboot"). Resilience carried five payloads, including a small 11-pound (5 kilograms) rover named Tenacious, which would have been used to collect lunar samples, according to NASA. Unfortunately, the landing for Resilience, scheduled on June 5, 2025, came to an abrupt halt when telemetry data from the lander stopped coming in right before the soft landing, leaving the world wondering what happened to Resilience. A few hours later, ispace announced that Resilience likely crashed on the moon, bringing an end to the mission. You can read more about Resilience and ispace's other missions as the company tries to return to the moon.
Yahoo
8 hours ago
- Yahoo
WWDC 2025 LIVE: Apple reveals its new iOS design
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. And just like that, the opening WWDC keynote is over for another year. As ever, many of the rumours turned out to be true. Apple revealed a new, glassy software design (one that's already raising eyebrows), switched to a new yearly naming system (goodbye iOS 18, hello iOS 26), and announced a smattering of updates for poor old Apple Intelligence. Despite the rumours of a dramatic new design turned out to be somewhat unfounded – while it features translucent new elements, Liquid Glass doesn't completely flip the script on iOS design. But while it was indeed an event filled with iterative updates, WWDC has left users plenty to unpack. Here are the main announcements: Liquid Glass: a new universal design across all platforms. The aesthetic is translucent and behaves like glass in the real world. Its colour is informed by surrounding content and intelligently adapts between light and dark environments. iOS 26, featuring new Apple Intelligence capabilities, redesigned Phone and Messages apps, and updates to CarPlay, Apple Music, Maps, and Wallet iPadOS 26, featuring a brand new windowing system for better multitasking macOS Tahoe 26, featuring the new Liquid Glass design and an overhaul of Spotlight search with new Browse views You can watch the WWDC keynote right here in the video below, and check out our blog updates below for our thoughts as it happened. Hello and welcome to Creative Bloq's annual WWDC live blog! And what better to kick things off than WWDC bingo, lovingly created as ever by Basic Apple Guy. While Apple Intelligence was launched to great fanfare last year, the whole thing has proven rather embarrassing for the company, with headline features including long overdue Siri upgrades long delayed. The situation is apparently so dire that it's causing internal tension at Apple. What comes after iOS 18? Possibly not iOS 19. If rumours are to be believed, Apple could be switching to a year-based naming convention this year. But is that enough to make the iPhone feel exciting again after last year's underwhelming iOS 16 launch? As for what iOS 26 might look like, rumour has it we're in store for a VisionOS-inspired redesign. Think transparent object and glassy textures, and perhaps even circular icons. Fans have been searching for hints of the future of Apple's iOS design language in beta updates over the last year, but this might be one of the most legitimate examples we've seen.... We can probably expect some software updates to AirPods, with new camera controls rumoured to be hitting Apple's earbuds. But what I really to know is if we're ever going to see those rumoured teeth controls. Of course, we can probably expect another California-inspired name for the next iteration of macOS. Previous names have included Big Sur, Monterey, Ventura, Sonoma, and Sequoia, and this year, Apple is rumoured to be calling the new macOS "Tahoe", after Lake Tahoe of course. One rumour that was doing the rounds last month is that WWDC 2025 will see the announcement of a new Apple gaming app. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman says the app would work across the Apple ecosystem – so iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple TV – replacing the dated Game Center (above) as a central hub for gaming with a storefront, highlights, leaderboards, achievements and multiplayer options and integration of the Apple Arcade subscription service. It sounds like it would be inspired by Microsoft's approach with Xbox, and Apple's also reportedly looking at connecting the app with FaceTime and iMessage. While the app wouldn't be released in September, it's been noted how close the timing would be to Nintendo's launch of the new Switch (see our Switch 2 review just in). We've mentioned the rumours about an expected iOS design inspired by VisionOS. We'll surely also see some news about VisionOS itself at WWDC. It's been suggested that visionOS 3, or visionOS 26, will add a new eye-scrolling feature for Vision Pro, which will use the built-in eye tracking features. That sounds like a logical extension of the existing mechanism that allows navigation by looking at something on the display and then gesturing with your hand to tap it. Going back to gaming, we recently learned that Apple's Vision Pro team is working on a VisionOS plugin for Godot Engine in a bid to lower the barrier to XR game development for the device. For iPadOS 26, one intriguing feature that we're hoping to hear about at WWDC is Apple Pencil reed calligraphy. A galam, or reed pen, is a traditional Arabic writing tool used in calligraphy to create flowing strokes that vary in thickness. It's rumoured that Apple will introduce new software that takes advantage of Apple Pencil Pro hardware features, such as its squeeze gestures, barrel roll detection and haptic feedback, to create a digital equivalent. Apple's main aim would be to support expansion in countries like the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, but it sounds like something that could be popular with calligraphy artists everywhere. There are just three hours to go until the keynote. As in recent years, we expect it will be a mix of pre-recorded segments rather than an all-live event. You'll be able to watch in the video above from 10am PDT / 1pm EDT / 6pm in the UK. We'll be posting on context and responses throughout. Severance fans are hoping that WWDC might tease something about what's next for what's become Apple TV's biggest draw. It's too early to expect a Severance season 3 teaser but I wouldn't be surprised if we get some kind of confirmation that filming has started or will start soon. Over on X, regular Apple tipster Ming-Chi Kuo is suggesting that despite the criticised roll our, Apple's AI strategy is going to take centre stage at WWDC today, with UI and OS updates playing only a secondary role. He suggest that there won't be big new announcements in this area but that Apple will focus on clearly explaining how its AI features work and clarifying its development timeline. And he suggests that this might include rebranding Apple Intelligence and Siri and integrating AI at the OS level to improve the user experience. The former Apple QuickTime dev Maynard Handley has some strong words for Apple in response to Ming-Chi Kuo's predictions, and reminds us what WWDC is supposed to be about. "This is a DEVELOPER conference! The single most important thing that matters is an AI assistant in XCode that can analyze and write Swift. If they have that, other things can wait a year, they're at least in the game. If they don't have that, it's time to conclude that they just don't understand the stakes. And expect big drama at the next board meeting." With a brand new design language rumoured to be launching today, we're wondering if the next generation of iOS could be the biggest visual refresh since 2013. That was when iOS 7, which heralded Apple's wholehearted embrace of flat design, hit the iPhone. But with liquid and glassy textures rumoured to be arriving today, perhaps things are finally coming full circle – all the way back to skeuomorphism. This being a software-focussed event, we're not expecting to see much, if anything, in the way of hardware. The iPhone 17 line up, for example, probably won't materialise until September. That said, with rumours that Apple is planning to shake up its release cycle, and the iPhone 16e debuting in February, it seems the company might be a little more open to shaking up its usually rigid calendar. Maybe we could get a glimpse at one of the rumoured models, like the polarising iPhone 17 Air? Now here's a simple but effective concept we'd love to see become a reality in iOS. With all that AI under the hood, couldn't Apple show us how long it'll take for the iPhone to fully charge? Actually, judging by the current state of Apple Intelligence, possibly not. With only 30 minutes to go, let's take a look back at one of the best fan-made iOS 19 concepts we've seen, complete with those rumoured VisionOS-inspired rounded icons. It's time! You can watch Apple's live stream right here - the above video is also embedded at the top of this page. Apple honours its new F1 movie by turning the top of its circular HQ into a race track. Not a bad idea. Here it is, iOS's new look, featuring Apple's brand new 'Liquid Glass' design language, which "brings a new level of vitality" to the software. App icons now feature "multiple layers" – farewell, flat design! You had a good run. As ever, the rumours were true – Apple has rebranded its entire operating system suite, naming them all after the coming year. iOS 19 is dead, long live iOS 26. As well as Light Mode and Dark Mode, there's a new translucent mode that makes icons, er, translucent. Is it weird that the most exciting new feature I've seen so far is Hold Assist, which lets you silence annoying hold music during a call? Uh oh... judging by the response on Twitter, sorry, X, it looks like iOS 26's Liquid Glass is giving people major Windows Vista vibes. It's 2007 all over again! After several attempts, has Apple finally cracked multitasking on iPad? The new windowing system in iPadOS 26 certainly looks more intuitive and, dare we say, Mac-like.
Yahoo
8 hours ago
- Yahoo
Apple's new transparent iOS design is already getting roasted
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. As ever, when it came to today's Apple WWDC event, most of the rumours turned out to be true. Apple changed its naming conventions to adopt a yearly approach, replacing iOS 18 with... iOS 26. The company also revealed new features for the beleaguered Apple Intelligence. But it's Apple's new design language, Liquid Glass, that appears to be raising eyebrows. Inspired by VisionOS, iOS 26 features tons of translucent UI elements designed to take advantage of the iPhone display's rounded edges. Apple says the new look "brings a new level of vitality" to iOS, but some users are drawing comparisons with another software – one that's older than the iPhone itself. Perhaps the clearest (pun intended) representation of the new Liquid Glass design language is the iPhone's new transparent mode, which joins Light Mode and Dark Mode as visual setting for icons and interfaces. As the name suggests, rather than light or dark, it makes elements transparent. Which all looks rather a lot like 2007's Windows Vista. Of course, iOS 26's visuals aren't only about transparent icons. The update includes a redesigned Phone app, simplified camera controls and a customisable Messages app. But even this early on, it seems clear that, at a glance, folk are going to remember this one as "the glassy one". Let's just hope that doesn't become "the Windows one".
