Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 Review: Sleek and Powerful

The Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 is one of the latest entries in Lenovo’s premium Yoga lineup. Like previous contenders in the range, the Yoga Slim 7 comes with a clean and portable design while its internals have now been upgraded to the Intel 10^th Generation Ice Lake platform paired with an NVIDIA GeForce MX350.

Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 (14IIL05)

Display and Design

The Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 packs a slim 14.0-inch 1920 x 1080 IPS display with 100% sRGB coverage and Lenovo claims can produce up to 300nits of brightness. Bezels take a backseat like with the brand’ previous design allowing the display to take more of the screen real estate as well as minimize the notebook’s footprint.

Colors produced by its display are fairly saturated without being too much so. Everything is detailed and reproduced enough to deliver an enjoyable experience. There is going to be some amount of reflection on the display since there is close to no anti-glare coating. As an IPS panel, the display also provides a large amount of viewing area without the colors shifting.

At the top of the display is an IR camera with support for Windows Hello. The added layer of security for logging in is a welcome addition to the notebook, however, it does lack the privacy filter found on other Lenovo notebooks like the Legion 5i.

In terms of aesthetics, the Yoga Slim 7 shares most of the design philosophy found on other Yoga notebooks. The whole chassis itself is made out of anodized aluminum in three different variants: Slate Grey, Orchid, and Dark Moss. The one we have on review is the Orchid version and we must say that it stands out among the silver, gray, and black ultrabooks in the market without drawing too much attention to itself.

Its pretty looks are also backed by a seemingly tough design. Everything seems to be sturdy while still being lightweight at around 1.4kg. Nothing appears to flex while typing or in general usage. The chassis, however, will attract some oil spots on longer usage but they can be easily removed by a quick wipe.

Keyboard and Touch Pad

The Yoga Slim 7 has a bog-standard 70% chicklet-style keyboard with white backlight and 2 levels of brightness. It offers a fairly level of typing experience with a slight bit of tactility but you will inevitably bottom out since it has a short key travel. It does avoid being mushy, which provides a better typing experience especially if you write on your laptop continuously.

All the secondary controls on the function keys – like volume and brightness – are turned on by default on the Slim 7. If you want to use the as regular F keys, you will need to press the Fn key at the bottom left or you can switch them through the BIOS or the Lenovo Vantage software.

Its touch pad is not particularly large compared to others in the market but it is wide and smooth enough to allow you to make precise movements with your fingers. Its left and right buttons are tactile for average use and are clearly defined from each other.

Input and Output Ports

The notebook employs the use of a more traditional assortment of ports for you to use instead of relegating everything to a couple of USB Type-C ports. You do get two USB 3.2 Type-C ports at the left-hand side with one supporting Power Delivery 3.0. The other one has additional support for DisplayPort and Thunderbolt 3.0 alongside charging capabilities. In between them is a single HDMI port while at the edge is a single 3.5mm audio jack.

At the right-hand side are two USB 3.2 Gen1 Type-A ports, a MicroSD card reader, its power button, and an LED activity light. The addition of two Type-A ports are a welcome sight as most people have not completely replaced this standard. We do prefer having a standard SD card reader instead since most cameras use this storage option.

Software

The Yoga Slim 7’s hardware, programs, and updates can be easily controlled via the Lenovo Vantage software. Power options, hardware information, and battery capacity are up for your perusal in just a few clicks. System critical updates can also be done through Lenovo Vantage.

For the uninitiated in the Windows 10 and Lenovo ecosystem, there are some helpful FAQs such as how to backup and restore your files and other basic tutorials for added functionality. You can even check the notebook’s warranty given that you registered it on your account through Lenovo’s website.

Performance and Benchmarks

The unit we received from Lenovo was specifically the Yoga Slim 7 14IIL05. It packs an Intel 10^th Generation Core i7-1065G7 processor with 16GB of DDR4 RAM. While Intel’s CPU does have Intel Iris Xe GPU cores, Lenovo is adding an NVIDIA GeForce MX350 2GB for additional GPU performance.

It comes with a 512GB NVMe SSD from SK Hynix with the model code HFS512GD9TNG-L3A0B. While it is an OEM drive supplied by SK hynix to laptop brands, it can still be ordered through relatively easy means. Running a quick CrystalDiskMark benchmark with a 4GiB workload produces good numbers with sequential read and writes reaching 3,300MB/s and 2,100MB/s, respectively. Random 4KiB workloads are decent breaching the 300MB/s mark for 32 queues and 1 thread loads.

With the storage benchmarks done, we move on to the meat of our benchmark section. In this part, we will be putting the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 in various workloads including synthetic, rendering, and light gaming.

Synthetic Benchmarks

CPU-Z Benchmark 17.01.64

7-Zip 16.04

wPrime v2.10

Cinebench R15

Cinebench R20

Blender 2.82a

Even though the Intel Core i7-1065G7 only has a TDP of up to 25W (depending on the manufacturer), it is still able pump out decent numbers just below the bulkier and, arguably, more powerful gaming notebooks. This means that even though the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 has been geared more for portability, it doesn’t lose out on the processing power that larger notebooks offer.

Gaming Benchmarks

3DMark Fire Strike

3DMark Time Spy

Rainbow Six Siege

The Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 was not design in any way to be a gaming laptop but it can be used a such especially in less graphically intensive games. It marks all the way down on the charts when it comes to heavier loads but – surprisingly – is able to pump out more than the recommended 60fps in Rainbow Six Siege in both 720p and 1080p at the game’s lowest preset.

Temperature and Battery Life

Most slim notebooks do trade design and portability with thermal performance, and that does not change with the Yoga Slim 7. Though it can settle into a relaxing 64°c average while idle, kicking up the performance can lead temperatures to expectedly rise. Repeated rendering loops on Blender reached a peak of 97°c that ultimately came to rest at a more comfortable 80°c.

As far as battery goes, Lenovo claims that the notebook can reach up to 14 hours on its 65Whr battery. On our testing, however, using the notebook through out the day for work and occasionally watching online content at medium brightness can yield around 9 – 10 hours of usage, which is still pretty decent for a slim notebook.

Instead of a typical DC-input, Lenovo is embracing the Type-C charging standard on the Yoga Slim 7. One of its Type-C ports are compatible with their 95W Rapid Charge Pro that can fill its battery reserves from 0 to 100% in around 2 and a half hours. Those who are away from a plug can rest easy knowing that its Type-C ports are also compatible with USB Power Delivery 3.0, which means that it can be charged with a compatible power bank.

Conclusion

Like most entries in the Yoga lineup, the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 offers a nearly flawless computing experience to the average user. It isn’t the fastest ultrabook in the block nor the most premium, but it blends decent performance and fantastic aesthetics in a worthwhile package.

One of the only real minger in the notebook’s feature set is its glossy display. The display itself is fantastic offering good color reproduction but the lack of any anti-glare coating means that you will often see reflections on your screen. The omission of the webcam’s privacy filter is also a bit questionable given that other notebooks below its price range gets the additional benefit of physically blocking the webcam for unwanted intruders.

At PhP 69,995, the the Intel 10^th Generation-powered Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 virtually covers all fronts of a sleek and powerful notebook. Performance-wise, its CPU will allow you to do most tasks with ease while its GPU can easily run well-optimized competitive games if you really need it to. Battery life is also a non-issue for most people as it will last nearly a workday. If you’re looking for a want a brawny notebook with the portability to match, then the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 is well worth a look.