Lenovo Slim 7i review

this Lenovo Ultra Thin 7i It’s a machine that offers advanced features in a notebook-style slim body at an affordable price. Affordability and versatility should be the two main selling points of this laptop.

While its mid-range status puts it in the affordable category, its processor doesn’t offer enough power for me to recommend it at its current price of $1,000. It’s impressive in almost every other area, but needs to be available at a cheaper price to make it worth the investment.

Lenovo Slim 7i design

Very slim and fairly strong, but not light

At only 0.59 inches thick, the Slim 7i lives up to its name.It’s even thinner than 0.01 inches Lenovo ThinkPad X1we praised its extreme slimness.

However, it’s not as light as you would want from an ultra-thin laptop. When I saw “slim” in the name, I got excited and thought it could compete with some of the slimmest machines on the market. However, at 3.06 pounds, that’s not the case. A truly lightweight laptop should be at least under three pounds. The ThinkPad X1 weighs 2.8 pounds, and when I held both laptops side by side, the weight difference was noticeable.

I would say it feels very solid physically. The all-aluminum body exudes durability and feels better than the plastic one on the ThinkPad X1. It’s a case of give-and-take; in exchange for increased weight comes a solid, reliable build. Lenovo claims that the Slim 7i features a military-grade design that has passed MIL-STD 810H certification and Lenovo’s own internal reliability testing. I can’t verify this claim, but I know this laptop would be comfortable to store in a suitcase when traveling.

The metal body also looks better than the plastic one. I love the moonlight gray color and matte look. It gives a clean, premium look. If we talk about design, $1000 is reasonable for a well-made machine like this.

Lenovo Slim 7i keyboard and trackpad

Keyboard is tight, touchpad is not too tight

After running multiple Monkeytype typing tests on the Slim 7i and my personal laptop, the MacBook Air, and with the Slim 7i performing so poorly, I realized it would take some getting used to its hard, tight keys. Don’t get me wrong; they’re not bad at all. They’re just tighter and take a while to get used to. In fact, I like the snappy, loud, tactile feel of them, and actually prefer it. The 1.5mm of travel also feels great since I’m used to less than 1mm of travel on the MacBook Air. There is no backlight brightness option on the keyboard, only on or off.

I like the size of the keyboard. There’s plenty of space for each key; not even the punctuation or arrow keys are trimmed. Even with the keyboard’s generous dimensions, there’s room on the sides for upward-firing Dolby Atmos speaker grilles.

photo: Dua Rashid/Gizmodo

you may have heard New passenger key A new Windows keyboard is coming.this Ultra-thin 7i Also sports one; you can use it to quickly access AI (Copilot) for daily activities. Pressing it instantly launches the chatbot on the side, which contains a field to ask anything you want and some tips to get you started.

The trackpad on this laptop is almost the opposite of the keyboard. It’s so loose and feels like it’s been overused to the point of permanent depression. If you can get over the feeling of it being too baggy, you may like how it responds to you. The travel distance is impressive, and the overall feel is pretty bouncy. It feels like there’s a giant spring inside that enthusiastically returns your clicks to you.

Lenovo Slim 7i performance

Core Ultra 7 is not very ultra

Intel recently renamed its legacy “i” series to Core and Core Ultra. Core Ultra is aimed at high-end users, while Core is aimed at mainstream users. The Slim 7i is equipped with a 14th generation Intel Core Ultra 7 155H processor and integrated Intel Arc graphics. You get Thunderbolt 4, Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4, and PCIe 5.0. The configuration sent to us had 32GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD.

Like every product released recently, this laptop offers some AI features. Its Core Ultra processor is divided into three independent engines: CPU, GPU and NPU. The NPU handles the complex mathematical calculations required for AI-related tasks. It’s designed for features like object detection and natural language processing, and is being marketed as the next big thing. Lenovo promises that the NPU on the Slim 7i enables high performance while consuming as little power as possible.

I was impressed by the GPU testing on this laptop, although I didn’t have high expectations considering it didn’t have a dedicated graphics card.I ran as usual. paradise university GPU benchmarks and achieved excellent results. It has an average FPS of 61 and a maximum FPS of 145. Core i5 on HP act of envyWith 21 and 47 FPS (average and maximum respectively), these scores put us to shame.

I can’t say the same for the CPU results. The Core Ultra 7 has always been mediocre. I got 2100 on the single-core Geekbench CPU test. That’s not much higher than the 2064 I got on the i5 Envy Move. While this laptop is billed as an everyday machine suitable for light use, I still expected more from it, especially considering how heavily touted the Core Ultra 7 processor is. Also, considering its $1,000 price tag puts it in the mid-range category, one can expect it to come with more features.

There’s an infrared sensor next to the FHD 1080p camera, making logging in easier and faster. This also means you save battery as it detects your presence and turns off the display as soon as you leave. You also get physical privacy shutters with switches on the side of the laptop with all the ports.

The port specs are very good. The right side houses a USB 3.2 Type-A port, a 3.5mm jack, a power button, and a privacy shutter switch. The left side houses an HDMI 2.1 port and two USB Type-C ports with Thunderbolt 4 technology. Aside from unusual ports like Ethernet and a Kensington lock, the Slim 7i has just about everything you need.

Battery life is pretty average. It can last for about eight hours after being fully charged. But charging is fast. In just 20 minutes, it went from dead to 33% charged.

Lenovo ultra-thin 7i display

Who doesn’t love touch screens?

The Slim 7i comes in two display options: touch and non-touch. We received the configuration with a glass touchscreen display. You get a 14-inch OLED display with WUXGA (1920×1200) resolution and 16:10 aspect ratio. Like most other modern laptops, this one is TUV Rheinland Low Blue Light certified, which means it won’t harm your eyes.

Both display options come with Dolby Vision technology, which Lenovo claims makes the viewing experience more immersive and lifelike. I do think the display is very clear and has rich colors, but calling it lifelike is a bit of a stretch in my opinion. It didn’t blow me away the way the ThinkPad X1’s display did. The Slim 7i has a maximum brightness of 400 nits and a refresh rate of 60Hz.

Lenovo Slim 7i Verdict

In addition to some horsepower, Ultra-thin 7i not special Lack anything. Sure, its trackpad could be a little tighter and the weight could be a few grams lighter, but those aren’t issues. The real disappointment is the below-average CPU performance, despite some claiming that the Core Ultra 7 is a super-competitive chip. For a $1000 product, I wouldn’t recommend the Slim 7i unless it comes down significantly in price (which is typical of Lenovo), in which case it’s probably not a bad deal if you just want to do basic daily tasks s Choice.