Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 Review: A Good Laptop With Lackluster AI Capabilities

Smarter chatbots, improved coding capabilities, and slicker video conferences and streams – for amended oregon worse, 2024 is the twelvemonth of artificial intelligence, and everyone’s hopping connected the bandwagon. What started arsenic a chill small demo a twelvemonth agone has exploded to the constituent wherever astir each laptop that’s travel crossed my table this twelvemonth has the Copilot fastener squeezed betwixt the alt and arrow keys. Microsoft is showing nary signs of letting its ft disconnected the state arsenic it launches its adjacent signifier of AI domination, its Copilot + laptops. I got to acquisition a small illustration of the aboriginal with the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7, 1 of the archetypal laptops featuring 1 of the caller Snapdragon X Elite chips.

My $1,199 reappraisal portion is simply a knockout successful presumption of its chassis, which is ace light, durable, and elegant. It’s got an OLED show that’s agleam and vivid successful adjacent parts. And for once, Qualcomm is putting successful immoderate enactment performance-wise, coming wrong striking region of immoderate of the much almighty Intel-based systems retired there.

The Yoga Slim 7 is simply a large mid-tier laptop with serviceable performance, decent artillery life, and a beauteous show successful a sleek chassis. It besides has a heaping helping of Microsoft’s AI peculiar sauce, which, astatine this point, feels earnestly undercooked. However, if you’re anxious to dive into the artificial quality pool, the Slim 7 is simply a large choice.

However, I was thoroughly disappointed with the artillery life. And portion the laptop lasted much than 8 hours, it’s obscurity adjacent the all-day endurance Lenovo and Qualcomm claim. Plus, with the Yoga Slim 7 moving connected ARM architecture, immoderate apps can’t tally contempt the Prism emulator. But what’s adjacent much annoying is that the AI acquisition isn’t each that antithetic than what you’d find connected regular laptops. For an AI-first laptop, I expected much than the emblematic representation instauration and video conferencing effects we’ve seen everywhere.

Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 Design

A laptop that’s arsenic durable arsenic it is pretty

As overmuch arsenic I emotion a big, beefy desktop replacement. I volition ne'er footwear thing arsenic lissome and elegant arsenic the Yoga Slim 7. It’s an perfectly beauteous instrumentality with a Cosmic Blue, sandblasted anodized aluminum chassis sporting Lenovo’s Comfort Edge plan – a fancy mode to accidental the edges and corners are rounded. And arsenic beauteous arsenic the laptop is successful acheronian blue, it makes maine yearn for the days erstwhile Lenovo made laptops successful Clementine Orange, a chaotic clip erstwhile laptop OEMs weren’t acrophobic to overgarment with each the colors of the wind. But I digress.

Whether a purse, briefcase, publication bag, oregon messenger bag, the 2.8-pound, 12.8 x 8.9 x 0.51-inch Yoga Slim 7 tin acceptable into astir anything. My ample Telfar container practically enveloped the laptop, and I hardly felt it arsenic I traveled to a friend’s house. It’s perfect for mobile professionals. Despite its waif-like dimensions, the laptop is pugnacious with MIL-STD-810H certification, meaning the Slim 7 tin instrumentality a fewer bumps and dings.

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But with a laptop that is truthful slender, there’s bound to beryllium a sacrifice oregon two. For the Slim 7, it comes successful the ports. The notebook lone has 3 USB-C Gen 3 ports and a carnal camera shutter switch. That’s it. If you’re inactive utilizing wired headphones, this isn’t the laptop for you, oregon it’s clip to put successful a brace of wireless headphones oregon earbuds.

Lenovo makes immoderate of the champion keyboards successful the game, and the Slim 7 is nary different. With their 1.5-millimeter cardinal travel, the smile-shaped keys are similar tiny trampolines, propelling my fingers to the adjacent key. The LED backlighting is fine; you tin spot the keys successful a acheronian room.

With laptops this slim, it tin beryllium hard to support things cool. Lenovo is trying to remedy this occupation by installing a brace of fans. They bash an good occupation arsenic the touchpad, halfway of the keyboard, and bottommost of the notebook measured 87, 99, and 105 degrees Fahrenheit, respectively.

Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 Display, Webcam, and Audio

You won’t privation to instrumentality your eyes disconnected the gorgeous display

If you’re going to springiness maine a glossy display, delight marque it OLED oregon Mini-LED. I privation to sear my eyeballs with bright, vibrant colors. Lenovo obliged maine with the Slim 7’s 14.5-inch, 2944 x 1840 OLED interaction panel. It’s simply stunning to look at, and with its 16:10 facet ratio, there’s much surface existent estate. The 90Hz refresh complaint makes for smoother results erstwhile watching movies oregon speechmaking text. It besides makes for a decent gaming experience.

The colour successful the “Neptune Frost” trailer was impressive, delivering beauteous shades of yellow, red, blue, and green. Fine details, specified arsenic the tiny bumps connected histrion Cheryl Isheja’s forehead and the bladed enactment of Sunflower Yellow eyeliner, were casual to see. Averaging 865 nits, the sheet is plentifulness agleam and suitable for usage successful nonstop sunlight. The 10-point capacitive interaction surface is speedy and responsive, though I don’t spot the constituent if you don’t person a stylus.

The 1080p webcam is good. It had nary occupation reproducing the nonstop shadiness of pinkish of the garment I was wearing, with item crisp capable to amusement disconnected the small beading. Zooming successful connected my look revealed a blurry mosaic effect that wasn’t excessively appealing. Still, it’s good for video conferencing oregon snapping a speedy selfie.

Don’t expect overmuch from the Slim 7’s 2W quad speakers (two tweeters, 2 woofers). Even with the Dolby Atmos software, the apical and bottom-mounted stereo speakers don’t person capable oomph to marque a difference. The strategy struggled to reproduce the bass connected Flau’jae’s “Came Out A Beast” with brassy, tinny trumpets, French horns, and an astir non-existent precocious hat. However, some Flau’jae and Lil Wanye’s vocals were good.

Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 Performance

Qualcomm makes a play to beryllium a competitor.

Lenovo hooked the Yoga Slim 7 up with a 3.42-GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite X1E-78-100 Oryon processor with 16GB of LPDDR5X 8448MHz dual transmission RAM, a 512GB PCIe M.2 Gen 4 PCIe SSD, a Hexygon NPU, and an integrated Qualcomm Adreno GPU. The CPU is the lowest rung connected Qualcomm’s X Elite ladder, lacking a dual-core boost mode. That means it’s suited for your emblematic productivity enactment (i.e., connection processing, spreadsheets, presentations, etc.), but immoderate of those loftier gaming claims? Not truthful much.

The different wrinkle to this setup is that the Snapdragon chips are ARM64 SoCs. As such, galore of your favourite apps and bundle don’t play bully with ARM, which requires utilizing the Prism x64-x86 emulator. But since ARM has been the proverbial fetch that wasn’t going to hap (Remember Windows RT?), determination are inactive rather a fewer apps that won’t tally connected the Snapdragon SoC. But those that bash tally beauteous well.

In practice, the Yoga Slim 7 is simply a peppy performer. I didn’t acquisition immoderate signs of slowdown portion penning this review. It plugged along, though I had 55 tabs unfastened successful Google Chrome and my accustomed premix of G-Suite apps, YouTube videos, news, and societal media sites.

© Sherri L. Smith

I wasn’t expecting large show from the Slim 7 connected the synthetic benchmarks, arsenic show hasn’t ever been Qualcomm CPUs’ beardown suit. The laptop performed amended than expected, with results connected par with a U-series Intel Core i7 processor. There were a fewer moments erstwhile the Slim 7 came adjacent to matching an H-series spot but fell short. For instance, the laptop repeatedly took implicit 4 minutes to render images connected the CPU and GPU, portion different Intel-powered systems completed the task faster. I saw akin results connected some the Geekbench 6 and Cinebench R23. The Slim 7 had the worst show connected the Handbrake test, taking much than 7 minutes to transcode a 4K video to 1080p.

Qualcomm stated that their integrated chips aren’t truly for gaming. However, I’ve successfully played taxing titles specified arsenic God of War and Control connected a top-tier Snapdragon Elite X1E-84-100 CPU system. And portion that notebook has the aforesaid integrated GPU arsenic the Slim 7, the erstwhile has much TFLOPs than the latter, 4.6 to 3.8. The quality is palpable. After a fewer accommodation adjustments connected the higher-end notebook, it was creaseless sailing, and I handed retired beatdowns without a hint of stutter. This wasn’t the lawsuit with the Slim 7. While I handed Chronos his ass successful Hades II, God of War was a stuttering mess, arsenic was Control.

Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 AI

AI isn’t acceptable for its close-up yet

AI this, AI that. Call maine unimpressed. At the aforesaid time, I recovered immoderate things helpful, specified arsenic removing the inheritance successful Adobe Photoshop and editing it successful CapCut. I’m inactive not convinced this warranted a full enactment of AI-first laptops. Take Copilot +, for example. Cocreator, which allows you to make an AI-assisted representation via substance prompts, is absorbing but unnecessary. Windows Studio Effects smooths retired your video conferencing experience, blurring oregon enhancing backgrounds and car framing truthful you’re ever successful the shot.

Again, it’s bully to person but not needfully necessary, particularly since rather a fewer programs tin bash the same. Live Translate is the astir utile of the Copilot + arsenic it translates successful real-time. However, I recovered accelerated speakers easy tripped up the translation. It’s an unimpressive commencement to specified a highly-hyped launch. But AI is inactive a comparatively young technology, truthful it’s bound to get amended arsenic clip passes (I hope).

Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 Battery

I expected more

I’m truthful utilized to Qualcomm laptops delivering all-day artillery beingness astatine the disbursal of performance. I was taken aback erstwhile the inverse happened connected the Slim 7. Don’t get maine wrong, I utilized the laptop daily, lasting implicit 10 hours. I expected a shorter clip connected the archetypal time arsenic I ran benchmarks. However, aft that, I was often amazed erstwhile the debased artillery informing popped up portion penning the review, listening to music, browsing societal media, streaming episodes of Supacell connected Netflix, and taking video meetings. I volition springiness the caveat that if I had the brightness turned up to 100%, it wouldn’t person that large a difference.

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Verdict

Score: 3.5/5

I privation the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 were a regular/schmegular Windows 11 laptop due to the fact that it has a batch of bully things going for it. Number 1 is the design. It’s incredibly airy yet durable, and I emotion the color. Next, you’ve got the OLED surface that is simply a sumptuous feast for the eyes, though I tin bash without a penless interaction panel. Even though it’s a lower-tier Snapdragon X Elite chip, I’m impressed astatine however good it performed, putting up numbers comparable to those of an Intel U-series laptop and making it perfect for astir productivity tasks. And if I got 10 hours of artillery beingness connected an Intel laptop, I’d beryllium comparatively happy.

But this isn’t an Intel oregon adjacent an AMD laptop. In an effort to get connected the frontlines of this AI craze, Qualcomm has enactment its eggs successful ARM’s basket, and portion it’s worked for Apple, I’m not definite it volition enactment retired for these Snapdragon chips. Yes, the show is good, but utilizing an ARM-based processor means you volition beryllium constricted successful what apps you tin use. While immoderate volition enactment with the emulator, others won’t implicit with mistake messages. But, the bigger misdeed is the artillery life, acold abbreviated of the all-day longevity that’s touted.

All of this is successful pursuit of these AI-first laptops, which, successful the expansive strategy of things, AI is inactive precise overmuch successful its infancy. While astir radical won’t accidental nary to an NPU taking the dense lifting connected AI processes, with the existent harvest of AI-boosted apps and features, it doesn’t warrant a full caller enactment of chips—at slightest not yet. I mean, some Intel and AMD person NPUs. They’re adjacent sporting Copilot buttons—like the Yoga Slim 7 and their ilk.

While $1,199 is tenable for a mid-tier machine, I wouldn’t urge the Slim 7 to conscionable anyone. This is simply a laptop for archetypal adopters who privation to research everything that AI, notably Microsoft’s marque of artificial intelligence, has to offer. Everyone other tin get amended show and longer artillery beingness with an Intel oregon AMD device.