The Lenovo Slim Pro 7 is the company’s latest shot at a laptop for content creators, so it looks and feels very similar to last year’s Slim 7 Pro X. It does come with upgraded hardware, including an AMD Ryzen 7000 series processor, though it also cuts back in some ways, specifically the display.
Overall, though, I quite like the Lenovo Slim Pro 7. Performance has been bumped up overall, and the sleek and relatively lightweight design makes this a great laptop to carry with you when you need to get work done. It also has solid battery life considering its specs.
As a creator laptop, the color coverage of the display isn’t particularly impressive, but it still looks good for the most part. Another problem I’ve had has to do with the USB-C ports, but this could be something Lenovo will address with a firmware update at some point.
Source: Lenovo
Lenovo Slim Pro 7
Recommended
$1000 $1200 Save $200
The Lenovo Slim Pro 7 is a sleek creator laptop powered by an AMD Ryzen 7 7735HS processor and Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 graphics. It also has a 14.5-inch 2.5K display with rounded corners.
- Brand
- Lenovo
- Color
- Storm Grey
- Storage
- 512GB PCIe 4.0 SSD
- CPU
- AMD Ryzen 7 7735HS
- Memory
- 16GB LPDDR5 6400MHz dual-channel
- Operating System
- Windows 11 Home
- Battery
- 73Wh
- Ports
- 1x USB4 40Gbps, 1x USB-C 3.2 Gen 2, 1x USB Type-A 3.2 Gen 1, 1x HDMI, 1x 3.5mm headphone jack
- Camera
- Full HD 1080p + IR
- Display (Size, Resolution)
- 14.5-inch IPS, 2560×1600 resolution, 90Hz refresh rate, 100% sRGB, touch
- Weight
- 3.5 pounds (1.59kg)
- GPU
- Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 6GB
- Dimension
- 325.5×226.49×15.6mm (12.81×8.92×0.61 inches)
- Network
- Wi-Fi 6E 2×2 + Bluetooth 5.1
- Speakers
- Four 2W speakers with Dolby Atmos
- Price
- $1,199
- Model
- Slim Pro 7
- Power
- 140W power adapter, supports Rapid Charge Express
Pros
- Performance is pretty good considering the specs
- Display is sharp, smooth, and decently vibrant
- Lenovo is still great at making laptop keyboards
Cons
- Outdoor visibility isn’t great
- Poor palm rejection on the touchpad
- USB-C docking stations cause problems
Lenovo Slim Pro 7: Pricing and availability
The Lenovo Slim Pro 7 launched earlier this year for $1,200, and it’s currently available in a single configuration (512GB SSD with a 2.5K display), which is the same one we received for our review. At writing time, this model is actually discounted to $1,000.
According to Lenovo’s documentation, other models should be available at some point, with more storage and a better display. It’s not clear though when they’ll launch or how much they’ll cost.
Lenovo Slim Pro 7: A familiar, sleek design
When I first took the Lenovo Slim Pro 7 out of the box, I immediately thought this was the exact same laptop I reviewed last year, the Slim 7 Pro X, but in actuality, there are some differences. The Slim Pro 7 has more of a single-color design (the Slim 7 Pro X had a dual-tone look to it), so it’s a little less unique, but I still find this darker shade of gray fairly appealing and much better than the typical silver. It looks sleek and subdued.
Otherwise, there isn’t much to say about the design. I like the curved edges, and I also like the “reverse notch” at the top, which makes it easier to open the lid. As far as ease of use goes, I prefer this approach to the typical indentation on the base of the laptop.
Unfortunately, for a 14-inch laptop, it isn’t that light, coming in at 3.5 pounds, but that does make sense considering it has a 35W processor and discrete graphics. It’s still thin, though, and that helps this feel like a portable machine overall.
There’s a solid supply of ports here, too. It comes with a USB4 40Gbps port, which we don’t have enough of in AMD laptops yet, and it’s great to see. While there are some differences, USB4 laptops are pretty close to Thunderbolt 4 laptops, which are almost always powered by Intel CPUs. There’s also a more standard USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 port, along with HDMI on the left side.
A big problem I’ve had with this laptop, however, is that you can’t use a docking station with it right now. When connected to a USB-C docking station (or even a monitor with a built-in USB hub and power delivery), the laptop runs into constant connection issues. It will often reset the connection to anything connected to the USB hub, interrupting my workflow and potentially crashing apps like Adobe Lightroom or Fortnite. Lenovo has confirmed to me that it’s able to replicate this issue, but at writing time, it still persists. I’ve found that I can work around it by charging through one port while using the other for docking. Here’s hoping this is fixed in a future firmware update.
On the right side of the laptop, there’s a USB Type-A port and a headphone jack, wrapping up its decent port selection. The Slim 7 Pro X had the same number of ports, but it had two USB Type-A ports instead of HDMI. It also lacked USB4 support, so this is a definite step up.
Lenovo Slim Pro 7: A great keyboard, as usual
It should come as no surprise that the Lenovo Slim Pro 7 has a pretty great keyboard. Lenovo has nailed this for a while now, and almost any laptop the company makes is at least competent here. The keys are comfortable to type on, with just the right amount of tension and travel distance.
The keyboard is also backlit, and the laptop has an ambient light sensor to determine when the backlight should turn on. You can also manually switch between two levels of brightness. There isn’t much more to this keyboard, since there are no special features here.
The touchpad is more of a mixed bag, though. It’s huge for a laptop of this size, and that’s great to see. However, there doesn’t seem to be any kind of palm rejection, and I often found myself clicking things by accident because my palm was resting on the bottom edge of the touchpad. It’s caused me problems a few too many times.
Lenovo Slim Pro 7: The display is sharp and smooth
Most laptops that are advertised as 14-inch laptops come with displays that are exactly 14 inches diagonally, but the Lenovo Slim Pro 7 actually comes with a slightly larger 14.5-inch panel. It makes sense to have a bigger screen on a creator laptop, though, and it’s great to work on. I also like that it has rounded corners, even though it causes some weird moments when moving the mouse to the corners of the screen since it just disappears from view. It comes in 2.5K resolution (2560×1600), and it has a smooth 90Hz refresh rate. The Slim 7 Pro X had a 3K 120Hz panel, but I don’t necessarily think this is a huge step down for this kind of screen.
If you do feel that way, there’s supposed to be a higher-end model of the Slim Pro 7 with a 3K (3072×1920) resolution and 120Hz refresh rate incoming. More importantly, though, that panel option is also brighter and it covers 100% of DCI-P3, an upgrade that’s likely much more important for creators.
Indeed, the display in my review unit touts 100% coverage of sRGB, and to be fair, it looks absolutely fine for day-to-day use. Colors are vibrant and they look quite good. However, content creators would probably appreciate having at least 100% coverage of DCI-P3, since that kind of work tends to be color-sensitive. My tests showed 99% coverage of sRGB, 81% of DCI-P3, and 79% of Adobe RGB. Solid, but not mind-blowing.
The same goes for the display, with Lenovo advertising 350 nits of brightness for this panel. In my tests, it actually surpassed that somewhat, so outdoor visibility should be good enough, as long as there isn’t very intense sunlight directly on the screen. It also reached a contrast ratio of 1340:1 at max brightness, which is solid. It’s worth noting that I tested two units, however, and another one fell significantly behind these results, so your mileage may vary.
Source: XDA
This is a minor nitpick, but Lenovo’s brightness adjustment doesn’t align at all with the brightness slider in Windows. The display reaches just under 360 nits at 100% brightness, but it falls over 120 nits at 75%. You’ll be turning the brightness slider further up than on most other laptops, even if the actual brightness is the same. This is the case for every Lenovo laptop I’ve reviewed.
The Lenovo Slim Pro 7 also comes with a 1080p webcam with Windows Hello facial recognition, which is fine for video calls and meetings. I’m very glad 1080p has become the standard for even semi-premium laptops, and while this one isn’t all that sharp, it adapts to bright lighting fairly well.
Lenovo Slim Pro 7: Performance is surprisingly good
Inside the Lenovo Slim Pro 7 is an AMD Ryzen 7 7735HS processor, which has 8 cores and 16 threads, and boost speeds up to 4.75GHz. Like many of AMD’s Ryzen 7000 series laptop processors, this one is a very minor refresh from the previous generation — in this case, the Ryzen 7 6800HS. It has just slightly faster boost speeds, but it’s the same otherwise. This laptop also comes with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050, but it has a variant of that card that I didn’t even know existed, featuring 6GB of GDDR6 memory instead of 4GB. That’s a huge improvement, and even the RTX 3050 Ti Laptop GPU only has 4GB.
While things on paper don’t seem that much better than the Slim 7 Pro X I reviewed last year, the Lenovo Slim Pro 7 pulled significantly ahead of the Slim 7 Pro X in just about every benchmark I ran, and not by a small margin, either. However, you can tell that these AMD processors aren’t quite on par with Intel’s 13th-generation processors, especially for single-core performance.
| Lenovo Slim Pro 7 Ryzen 7 7735HS, RTX 3050 6GB | Lenovo Slim 7 Pro X Ryzen 9 6900HS, RTX 3050 Ti | MSI Prestige 14 Evo Intel Core i7-123700H | Lenovo Yoga 9i Intel Core i7-1360P | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PCMark 10 | 6,804 | 5,658 | 6,176 | 6,115 |
| 3DMark Time Spy | 4,686 | 4,091 | 2,073 | 1,748 |
| Geekbench 5 (single/multi) | 1,561 / 8,808 | 1,341 / 8,296 | 1,857 / 12,928 | — |
| Geekebnch 6 (single/multi) | 1,986 / 8,889 | — | 2,515 / 12,570 | 2,464 / 10,859 |
| Cinebench R23 (single/multi) | 1,533 / 12,188 | 1,293 / 10,581 | 1,906 / 13,093 | 1,810 / 7,869 |
In real-life usage, performance is good, as you’d expect. Day-to-day tasks run completely fine without any major issues, though apps like Adobe Photoshop still take a long time to open. I did notice some slowdowns while multitasking more heavily, especially if Photoshop was involved, but that’s not totally surprising for a laptop in this class. That being said, it doesn’t look like the SSD is to blame, as CrystalDiskMark indicated very fast PCIe 4.0 speeds, surpassing 7,000MB/s (sequential).
The battery life was also solid. At most, I got just over seven hours (422 minutes, to be more precise), and at minimum, 4 hours and 18 minutes. However, I noticed that the lowest scores seem to be caused by having the SteelSeries System Monitor app running in the background, so life improved once I stopped it from running at startup. I consistently got over five hours of battery life otherwise, with brightness set to 40% and battery saver kicking in at 20% battery. I also got 11 hours and 37 minutes of 720p YouTube video playback (50% brightness, battery saver disabled), which is a very good result for a laptop with discrete graphics.
Should you buy the Lenovo Slim Pro 7?
You should buy the Lenovo Slim Pro 7 if:
- You want a powerful laptop for content creation
- You’re looking for a laptop that’s relatively easy to carry
- You want a sharp display with a smooth refresh rate
You should NOT buy the Lenovo Slim Pro 7 if:
- You need things like 100% coverage of DCI-P3 for better color reproduction
- You plan to use this under harsh lighting
- You want to use it with a docking station
My two biggest issues with the Lenovo Slim Pro 7 are potentially fixable via software or firmware updates. First, there’s the poor palm rejection on the touchpad, which has caused me trouble one too many times. Then there are the problems I’ve had with docking stations, which make the laptop almost impossible to use for anything demanding. Lenovo could definitely fix these problems with updates, but as I’m writing this, they still exist.
Aside from that, though, this is a solid content-creator laptop. Performance is a surprisingly big upgrade compared to the Slim 7 Pro X, and the display is sharp and vibrant, even though color coverage isn’t the best, and you’ll definitely want something brighter if you plan to use it outdoors. But considering the price, everything comes together quite nicely here. If Lenovo can just issue an update to fix the problems I’ve run into, that will make this an even easier laptop to recommend.
Source: Lenovo
Lenovo Slim Pro 7
$1000 $1200 Save $200
The Lenovo Slim Pro 7 is a sleek creator laptop powered by an AMD Ryzen 7 7735HS processor and Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 graphics. It also has a 14.5-inch 2.5K display with rounded corners.