Lenovo’s IdeaPad Slim 7 is a showcase for AMD’s exceptional new processor

AMD has started a laptop revolution, so, it is safe to say that Lenovo’s IdeaPad Slim 7, which shows off the eight-core Ryzen 7 4800U, to be good. The Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 7 is not just good, it is exceptional. The Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 7 is not a perfect laptop and likely will not be a bargain, but the combination of performance and power efficiency that the 4800U offers is unlike anything we have ever seen.

You can not buy the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 7 in the United States at this time. The IdeaPad Slim 7 is currently planned for the Netherlands, Germany, and Australia, and Lenovo has not announced pricing yet. So, if you are in those countries, or can ship one from abroad, keep an eye out. If you are elsewhere, the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 7 is a proof of concept for the moment.

Intel system in this category with eight cores and sixteen threads are usually over $1,000. And the 15-watt 4800U delivered better performance than any ultrabook or other ultraportable this year. Not only was there no slowdown, but you could not even hear the fans spinning unless you put your ear to the deck. The center of the keyboard only got hot under heavy loads like gaming, and the bottom of the chassis was occasionally warm but never uncomfortable.

The touchpad and wrist rests were always cold.

You can also play real games on Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 7. Of course, you will not be running AAA titles on Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 7’s highest settings. But Overwatch ran at an average of 70fps on high and 46fps on ultra, the best performance seen from integrated graphics. For context, the Dell XPS 13 with Intel’s Iris Plus graphics ran the same game in the low 40s on ultra and low 50s on medium, and last year’s Razer Blade Stealth 13 with an MX150 discrete graphics card averaged mid-60s at medium.

Obviously, you would not buy the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 7 as a serious gaming laptop, but running around the practice arena and blasting training bots was a great time, without a stutter in sight. The Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 7 has been blowing Intel systems out of the water and coming close to Intel’s H-series Core i9 in multi-threaded performance. The one area the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 7 ran into trouble was video editing.

This is one AMD system that has not played nice with Adobe Premiere Pro. Hopefully Lenovo will fix this issue at some point. Running the Adobe test without hardware acceleration took 51 minutes, which is faster than it took the six-core HP Envy x360 to complete the task, but it is obviously too slow for practical use. The dim 1080p screen will likely rule the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 7 out for creative professionals anyway.

The most impressive feature of the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 7, though, is not even the performance.

The most impressive feature of the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 7 is the battery life. Running through the multitasking load in battery saver mode at 200 nits of brightness, the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 7 lasted 13 and a half hours. On the Better Battery profile, it lasted over 11 and a half hours. The results were a game-changer. The results were miles better than running the same load on the HP Envy x360, the Dell XPS 13, the Asus Zephyrus G14, and even low-power stuff like Lenovo’s Chromebook Duet for which battery life is a major selling point.

This is the longest battery life ever seen from a laptop. It is astonishing. You can bring Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 7 on road trips, you can bring it on trains and planes, you can carry it around campus for a full day of classes, you can lounge around the office, you can fully embrace the single primary use case for a laptop of this form factor without bringing the 65-watt brick with you.

Since the Slim 7 charges with USB-C, you can use a charger for an Apple MacBook, Nintendo Switch, or any number of modern devices in an emergency. What is impressive is not these metrics in a vacuum, though, it is the small package they come in. The Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 7 is, as the name implies, slim, at 0.58 inches thick. The Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 7 weighs 3.1 pounds, which means it is slightly heftier than other 14-inch ultraportables like the IdeaPad 5 and the IdeaPad S940, not to mention thin 13-inchers like the HP Envy x360, the Apple MacBook Air, and the Dell XPS 13.

Of course, the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 7 is still far from a heavy device, and it is no problem to carry around in a backpack or briefcase.

It is remarkable to see such a combination of performance, cooling, and efficiency in this form factor. Design-wise, the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 7 is a step up from some of the clunkier ThinkPads, but a non-enthusiast might struggle to pick it out of a line of Lenovo’s other offerings. The Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 7 is an IdeaPad through and through. The Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 7 is dark gray, it is sturdy, and there is a nice backlit keyboard.

The Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 7 is not beautiful, but it has got a refined and professional aesthetic. The Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 7 feels well-made. If the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 7 has a noteworthy weakness, it is the display. The 14-inch, 1920 x 1080 IPS panel is rated for 300 nits of brightness. The Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 7 is quite glossy and kicked back a glare.

Lenovo is not offering any higher-resolution configurations, so you will need to look elsewhere if you are doing creative work. What did hinder The Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 7 was the 16:9 aspect ratio, which just feels really cramped for multitasking, especially if you have used a 16:10 or 3:2 display before. You can also scale everything out in settings which makes everything a lot smaller.

In every other area, the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 7 is largely acceptable.

The speakers are not terrible. The speakers have a nice surround quality to them and you could actually hear the bass in songs. The Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 7 also comes loaded with Dolby Atmos software, which allows you to shift between various presets. The changes are subtle. The port selection leaves little to be desired. On the left are two USB-C ports, one HDMI, and one audio jack.

On the right, two USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 and a microSD card slot. There is no Thunderbolt 3. Both USB-C ports are on the same side, which gives you a bit less freedom when deciding where and how to plug it in. That sounds nitpicky, but it can be a nuisance when you are using the thing every day. The keyboard is certainly fine. It is on the shallow side, but it has a decent click and it is not too loud.

One hiccup was that a couple of the keys, including space and backspace, were actually squeaky. Again, that may not be the biggest deal for some, but it is worth considering how many times per day you press space and backspace and how many squeaks that means you will be hearing. The touchpad, which measured at about 4.18 x 2.5 inches, is solid and gets the job done, but it requires a firmer press than some.

The Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 7 comes with some crapware, so you may spend a couple minutes uninstalling stuff when you first pop it open.

One preloaded program, Glance by Mirametrix, is kind of interesting. Glance keeps an eye on where you are looking and can do things like blur your display when you look away and warn you when someone is peeking at your screen. Glance also sends you periodic reminders to rest your eyes. There is a world in which I give the IdeaPad Slim 7 a middling score.

There are certainly some complaints, but at the end of the day, what is inside the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 7 is a story that has never been told before. With integrated graphics, it can run Overwatch better than an entry-level GPU, and it does not cost $2,000. The IdeaPad Slim 7 goes beyond one laptop. The IdeaPad Slim 7 is proof of what an ultraportable can be.

Of course, other laptop makers will need to put in the work. The laptop makers will need to figure out how to cool these chips, but now we know it can be done.