Review Of Lenovo Slim 7i Pro X 14 Laptop Leave a comment
Lenovo Slim 7i Pro X 14 Laptops are frequently among the greatest options available in a particular market, so any new model from the company must be impressive to keep its high standing. Is the Lenovo Slim 7i Pro X too hot to handle? It packs a potent Intel H-series CPU and a discrete Nvidia GPU inside a thin, 14-inch compact machine. There seems to be a lot to like, at least on paper, so let’s find out.
This Lenovo seeks to be a portable computer that weighs only 3.3 pounds while maintaining a powerful Intel processor and an appropriate Nvidia graphics core. Additionally, there’s a high-resolution display. Thanks to memory and storage upgrades, the system we reviewed comes in at $1,760 instead of the $1,595 starting price for the Intel model. In comparison to products like the Apple MacBook Pro 14, which has a starting price of $1,999, that is a reasonable price.
Features and Design
The Lenovo Slim 7i Pro X 14 Laptop’s attractive appearance is a result of the combination of glass, aluminum, and a small amount of plastic. Lenovo’s laptops are typically made of straight lines, but the new Yoga is curved. Nowadays, rounded edges are more common than straight ones surrounding the notebook. As a result, the notebook’s sides seem supple and feel nice. Even so, you can still identify where the laptop came from. The display cover’s color differs slightly from the base unit’s, with the display cover’s darker blue-gray tone perfectly complementing the base’s metallic light gray hue.
The Yoga Slim 7i Pro X’s robust stability and haptically pleasing design are both results of the material combination. Seldom does the screen yield.
The Display
The Lenovo Slim 7i Pro X 14 Laptop’s 3K resolution (3072 × 1920 pixels) and nearly 100% coverage of the sRGB color space are found on an IPS panel located behind the glass. The brightness of the screen is 408 cd/m². However, the screen’s response times are a little slow, and its 1483:1 contrast ratio is not as good as an OLED’s.
Even so, it’s difficult to tell the difference between this and an OLED with the unaided eye, particularly when using the sRGB color space exclusively. The Huawei MateBook is the only device that surpasses the screen’s brightness in the comparison field. When the screen is dimmed, there is no flicker. It appears that the backlight in this case is unaffected by the ambient light sensor.
This means that no uneven illumination can be seen on the Yoga laptop’s screen. Only the reflections in the display glass are annoying here; there is also a display option with a matte screen surface. Another option is a touchscreen. All three screen options are specified by Lenovo as having the same values for resolution, color space coverage, technology and brightness.
Input and Connectivity.
The Lenovo’s right-hand edge has a headphone jack, a full-size USB 3.2 Gen 1 port, and the power button and webcam privacy switch. A full-size USB port is something that many competitors don’t offer, so that’s a nice feature.
The Lenovo features two Thunderbolt 4 ports and an HDMI 2.0 output on its left side; competitors frequently omit this feature. There is a 1080p webcam with Windows Hello support above the screen. That’s good, but there are a few noteworthy things missing. Creatives will be displeased that there is no card reader and no fingerprint reader included.
Internally, there’s dual-band 802.11ax Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.1, but there’s no wired Ethernet and you’ll find newer Bluetooth versions supported by the MacBook and many other notebooks.
Also consider those Thunderbolt ports – because if you buy the cheaper AMD version of this laptop, they’re replaced by USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C connections. Those retain DisplayPort 1.4 support and 5V/3A power delivery, but they transfer data at 10Gbps – a long way short of Thunderbolt’s 40Gbps peak.
The chiclet keyboard’s buttons feel excellent—they’re fast and consistent, and they have a pleasing bounce back to the keys once you push past their speed control point. Each button is slightly concave, which enhances comfort and grip.
Their 1mm of travel and lack of a numeric keypad are typical for this type of device, so they won’t interfere with your daily use. There’s little to choose between this typing unit and the similar keyboard on the MacBook Pro, which only beats the Lenovo thanks to its full-size function keys. The trackpad is a mixed bag. The 140 x 80mm unit is large and its surface is smooth, but the buttons are a bit soft. It’s not a huge issue, but you’ll want to use a USB mouse for gaming and precise work.
The trackpad is a mixed bag. The 140 x 80mm unit is large and its surface is smooth, but the buttons are a bit soft. It’s not a huge issue, but you’ll want to use a USB mouse for gaming and precise work.
Performance – Intel Alder Lake and Nvidia GeForce perfectly matched.
This review device has an excellent configuration. Here, the combination of the Intel Core i7-12700H and Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 makes the laptop a potent all-arounder. Thus, you can use the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Pro for professional photo and video editing as well as gaming. Furthermore, the ability to install Nvidia Studio drivers—a full list of which can be found at Nvidia—allows many programs to operate at a faster pace.
Testing Conditions
Windows Power Management and the Lenovo Vantage program both allow you to adjust a number of parameters that control the laptop’s performance limitations. When operating in Lenovo Vantage’s maximum performance mode, the combined power consumption of the CPU and GPU is 70 watts when running continuously.
Up to 50 watts are allotted to the Nvidia GeForce 3050, depending on how much strain it is under. With Intelligent Cooling in balanced mode, both chips retain a maximum power of 50 watts. A review of the log files reveals that the combined power consumption when running on batteries and when using an external power supply in energy-saving mode is 35 watts. We calculated the boost power of the processor to be approximately 85 watts.
If the Intel Core i7-12700H works alone, it can operate with around 65 watts for long periods of time, depending on the performance mode. In medium and low performance mode, the processor can still use 40 and 35 watts, respectively, for longer tasks.
The various processor and graphics chip benchmarks were run in performance mode. We measured volume and power consumption in different performance settings that correspond to the load. We determined the stamina of the battery in battery-saving mode, except in the stress test.
Processor
Installed in the Lenovo Slim 7i Pro X 14 Laptop is a potent processor, the Intel Core i7-12700H. There are up to 20 threads available to the computing core because of its six P-cores and eight E-cores. It should come as no surprise that the processor is present in a wide range of capable laptops; our database indicates that it is primarily found in powerful gaming laptops. The i7 can only run the Yoga at up to 65 watts of continuous power and 85 watts of boost power because the Yoga looks a little small for the processor. This places it significantly above the mean of competitors’ multimedia laptops that have the same processor. Nevertheless, more powerful gaming laptops, like the Lenovo Legion 5, can draw a significant amount of power from the processor. In battery mode, the i7-12700H works with a maximum of 35 watts, significantly reducing the available computing power.
The results in the various processor benchmarks confirm this picture. The Intel processor in the Yoga Slim 7i Pro X gives consistently high scores. AMD processors, such as in the Yoga Slim 7 Pro, no longer offer a performance advantage here.
Thermals and Battery Life.
Because of its premium components and small form factor, you might think that the Slim 7i Pro X was a hot and noisy laptop, but Lenovo has done a respectable job of thermal management here. The fan noise is low when operating in Adaptive Performance mode. The sound levels are so low that, if you’re in an office or have the speakers on, you won’t even notice them even if you’re blasting through games or demanding processing tasks.
The temperature is also reasonable. The metal above the keyboard has a little bit of excess heat, but you won’t notice it in normal use. Furthermore, even though the bottom panel warms up a little, this won’t be a problem unless you’re using the laptop to overtax its CPU.
It’s a similar story in Extreme Performance mode. There’s no real difference to external temperatures. And while the fan noise is noticeably increased with the performance option deployed, the Slim 7i Pro X still isn’t that loud – it’s not going to cause any issues or interruptions. Indeed, sub-50db noise levels in every stress test are good, and in the vast majority of situations the Lenovo doesn’t approach that figure.
The 70Wh battery isn’t quite as accomplished, but that’s no shock when the Slim 7i Pro deploys an H-series CPU and discrete graphics core.
In an everyday work benchmark with the display at half brightness, the Slim 7i Pro X lasted for 7 hours and 26 minutes, but that figure dropped by just over an hour with the screen at full brightness.
Tests for media playback yielded the best results. The Lenovo Slim 7i Pro X 14 Laptop lasted slightly longer than ten hours with brightness turned down and the Battery Saver mode activated. When media is playing and the display is fully bright, this device will last eight hours. Conversely, if you push the components in games, expect about two hours from the Slim 7i Pro X.
Tests for media playback yielded the best results. The Lenovo Slim 7i Pro X 14 Laptop lasted slightly longer than ten hours with brightness turned down and the Battery Saver mode activated. When media is playing and the display is fully bright, this device will last eight hours. Conversely, if you push the components in games, expect about two hours from the Slim 7i Pro X.
Wrap Up.
Lenovo has balanced the different features of the Slim 7i Pro X fairly well. Although the battery life could be improved, given the parts, the mediocre results are not shocking. Even though the internal components of the Core i7-12700H and Nvidia RTX 3050 aren’t operating at their best, they still provide more performance than almost any other laptop of this size.
The Slim 7i Pro X has real content creation and gaming potential if you set reasonable expectations, as it is one of the few small notebooks to outperform the MacBook Pro 14.
The Slim 7i Pro X may not have the screen quality of those laptops or the battery life of the MacBook, but it does deliver huge power inside a compact, robust and manageable package – and that makes it one of the best small work laptops on the market.
