Lenovo Ideapad 7i Slim Pro device came with an Intel Core i7-11370H CPU, Intel Iris Xe graphics card, 16GB of RAM, and a 1TB SSD. The same setup would cost around $1,099 if purchased directly from Lenovo. However, availability looks to be limited at the time of publishing. However, it is available via third-party retailers, generally at a reduced price. For example, at the time of writing. The exact setup that we examined can be purchased from Costco for $999.
What will you see here?
Design
The Lenovo IdeaPad 7i Slim Pro sports a slate grey chassis with a smooth and shiny metal surface. A little Lenovo logo covered in a chrome rectangle may be found in the upper right corner. When you open the laptop, you’re greeted with a fantastic touchscreen display. The bezels on both sides are narrow, with a little extra height at the top to allow the webcam while also making it easier to open the laptop. That’s quite cool.
The slate grey tone is carried over to the deck and the keys. These have a dome-like design. Despite the fact that the keys are similarly slate grey, the strong brightness makes it easy to navigate. The touchpad has a smooth, glass-like appearance and is simple and easy to operate.
Ports
What happens to all the ports, Lenovo? The IdeaPad 7i has almost none, which is annoying. The laptop has two Thunderbolt4/USB4 Type-C ports on the left side, one of which may be used for charging. Below the power button on the right side is an always-on USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 port (which can charge devices even while the laptop is closed) as well as a headphone jack. That’s all; if you want to pull photos from an SD card or output to a second display through HDMI, you’ll need to buy adapters and other accessories.
Display
Colors seem beautiful and vivid on the Lenovo IdeaPad 7i’s 14-inch (2,880 x 1,800 pixel) touchscreen display. Unlike the camera (more on that later), it’s high-resolution, and when viewing the Uncharted video, we were immediately captivated by the city’s crystal-clear beauty. As the film proceeded into darker situations, the color and depth made me feel as though I were there with the characters. Close-ups of a person revealed fine wrinkles across his brow and the faint stubble of a barely visible 5 o’clock shadow, as well as some of his nose’s pores.
The Lenovo IdeaPad 7i produces 123.4 percent of the sRGB color range, according to our colorimeter. This is much better than the Dell Inspiron 14 (which could only generate 65.8 percent of the sRGB color spectrum) and somewhat better than Lenovo’s Think book 14s Yoga. It’s worth noting that 100 percent is considered the most accurate, but higher numbers often make colors appear more brilliant, which explains why the IdeaPad 7i Slim Pro’s display is so colorful.
The brightness created by the IdeaPad 7i was also quite excellent, reaching an average of 387.4 nits in our tests. That outperforms several business-class laptops.
Keyboard and touchpad
The dome-shaped key design of the IdeaPad 7i differs from earlier models: The buttons have a smooth surface at the top and round out at the bottom, a little change that Lenovo claims provide a more pleasant typing experience.
In my opinion, writing on this laptop is rather quiet because the keys have a delicate impact and a smooth touch. However, I found the keyboard to be a little harder to operate and had difficulty completely pushing down on the keys. Because of the gentle tap, the keyboard of the IdeaPad 79 Slim Pro seems less reactive to type on than other, spicier keyboards. When I used this laptop to type on 10fastfingers.com, I got 42 words per minute, which is fewer than my 53 WPM average, and I made several grammar mistakes to boot.
The slate grey color of the keypad makes the letters. Fortunately, the backlight nicely emphasizes the text, making it a must-have. The trackpad beneath the keyboard spans 2.9 x 4.7 inches, which Lenovo claims are 25% bigger than the previous model’s touchpad. This touchpad has a wonderful and smooth glass-like feel to it, and it’s easy and accurate to use in my experience.
Audio
The sound quality produced by the IdeaPad 7i’s Harman Kardon loudspeakers, which support Dolby Atmos, disappointed me. When listening to songs, they seemed muffled and muted, even when cranked all the way up to maximum volume.
I was able to reduce the muffled quality and hear the song a little better after modifying the sound a little with the Dolby Atmos software. However, I was disappointed with the background music and how it contrasted with the tempo. I generally listen to through my headphones. When compared to the other sounds and noises, the drums in the back were hardly audible.
Performance
The Lenovo IdeaPad 7i has an Intel Core i7-11370H CPU and 16GB of RAM which is enough for most day-to-day work duties. The laptop was able to handle roughly 30 tabs open at once. Along with a few YouTube videos streaming in the background, before slowing down.
It took 14 minutes and 39 seconds for the IdeaPad 7i to convert a 4K movie to 1080p using our Handbrake test. This isn’t ideal, especially when compared to the Dell Inspiron, which took only 8 minutes and 38 seconds. It is, however, quicker than the 14s Yoga.
We also tested the SSD in the IdeaPad 7i Slim Pro to see how quickly it can copy 25 GB of multimedia content. The IdeaPad 7i featured an amazing transfer rate of 1,030 megabytes per second. For instance, the Dell Inspiron could only transmit 413.6 MBps, whilst the 14s Yoga managed a more reasonable 886.35 MBps.
Graphics
Depending on your graphics choices. The frame rate for playing games on the Lenovo IdeaPad 7i Slim’s Intel Iris Xe Graphics processor isn’t too awful. The IdeaPad 7i was able to run Sid Meier’s Civilization VI: Gathering Storm test at 1080p at 30 frames per second which is just over the minimal playability for gaming. However, increasing the quality to 2,880 x 1,800 reduced the graphics performance to 22 frames per second. T
Battery life
The Lenovo IdeaPad beats the Thinkbook 14s Yoga, which only lasted 9 hours and 27 minutes. Both, however, fall short of the Dell Inspiron, which lasts approximately 40 minutes longer than the IdeaPad 7i Slim Pro, lasting 12 hours and 37 minutes.
Webcam
The 720p webcam on the IdeaPad 7i Slim Pro does not impress me in the least. Everything was fuzzy in my test photographs, and there was no difference between my face and the surroundings. It was almost as though the camera couldn’t focus. The color of my green eyes and rosy cheeks was nonexistent.
I’m not impressed with the 720p camera on the IdeaPad 7i Slim Pro. Everything was unclear and I couldn’t tell my face from the background. It was almost as though the camera was unable to focus. My face and hair merged into the backdrop with the walls. The hue of my green eyes and rosy cheeks was nonexistent.
Heat
The Lenovo IdeaPad 7i remained rather cool under pressure, and after 15 minutes of streaming a high-resolution movie. We swept a heat gun over it to test how cool it was. The touchpad remained the coolest, reaching 75.6 degrees Fahrenheit, while the keyboard’s center hit 88 degrees. The underside of the IdeaPad became the warmest, reaching 92.1 degrees, although it stayed within our 95-degree comfort threshold.
Software
The Lenovo Vantage app has everything you need, including the most recent BIOS and driver updates, information on the IdeaPad 7i, system settings, and warranty information. The Vantage app also allows you to set up Lenovo features like Smart Assist. This allows you to configure the webcam to do things like log in along with your smile or immediately log out when you walk away from the laptop.
Otherwise, the IdeaPad 7i comes preinstalled with a selection of Windows 11 apps, but nothing that you can’t easily delete.
Conclusion
The Lenovo IdeaPad 7i Slim Pro is a really solid ultraportable for not a lot of money. Thanks to its beautiful display, great battery life, and decent performance. If you can overlook the lack of port variety, poor camera performance, and mediocre speaker performance. It should serve you well as a daily vehicle for work.
You want something that can give you a bit more. There’s always the Dell Inspiron 14, which has the extra benefit of being a 2-in-1. So you can flip the keyboard over to make it into a tablet. If you don’t mind a lower resolution, the Dell XPS 13 is one of our favorite ultraportables. If you don’t want to splurge on the OLED display option, you can purchase an XPS 13 for around the same price as Lenovo’s IdeaPad 7i Slim Pro.
