Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Aura Edition review: an Intel laptop that delivers
There aren’t a lot of them left, but if your workflow still depends on Intel chips, this laptop from Lenovo is surprisingly good in a lot of different ways
🏆 Review score: 3.5/5
Pros
💻 A big, pretty screen
🏎️ Snappy performance
🔋 Reliable battery life (rare on Intel)
📐 A solid design that’s plenty portable
⌨️ Lovely keyboard
🔌 Plenty of ports
Cons
🩼 Not as snappy as a four-year-old MacBook Pro M1
🥔 Potato-quality “Full HD” webcam
🌗 Lacks high-screen brightness for outdoor usage
✨ Aura-branded features also available on Lenovo ThinkBook X1… and don’t amount to much
Shortcut review
The Yoga Slim 7i Aura Edition from Lenovo might be one of the best Intel laptops kicking around. It pairs Intel’s latest Core Ultra Series 2 processors with a beautiful 15-inch display, excellent keyboard, and battery life that lasts longer than you think. For the $1,300 price, this is a shockingly good option if your workflow still depends on Intel chips.
We’re officially in the age where you don’t need an Intel chip to have a great experience with a Windows laptop. Qualcomm’s ARM-based Snapdragon X platform can deliver great performance, cool temperatures, amazing battery life, and a boatload of fancy Copilot+ AI features in great machines like the Microsoft Surface Laptop 7 and Lenovo’s own Slim 7x.
But these fancy new ARM processors can’t handle certain apps or third-party software like printer drivers, whereas Intel chips can run everything just fine. If you still enjoy using Intel chips and aren’t ready to make the jump to Windows on ARM, the Yoga Slim 7i Aura Edition is a solid choice.
Full review
📐 Handsome design… but I’ve seen slimmer. The Yoga Slim 7i looks a lot like other Lenovo laptops I’ve tested in the past. Lenovo’s design language often strikes a balance between utilitarian and mass-market mesmeric, and the Slim 7i is no exception. From its Lunar Gray finish to the curved corners on the screen, there’s some blend between the past and present on this machine that’s accented by Lenovo’s updated logo on the lid. My only real issue with it is the fact it’s not as slim as its name suggests; at more than half an inch thick, so it’s by no means the thinnest laptop I’ve ever used, nor is it the lightest at 3.2 pounds. It’s still plenty portable, but you’ll definitely notice it in your backpack.
💻 A pretty display that’s spacious and sharp. Open the Slim 7i, and you’ll be greeted with a 15.3-inch 2.8K display. For an LCD screen, it’s not too shabby. Lenovo included a vivid, colorful panel that has enough resolution to keep everything from videos to tiny text pin-sharp. My favorite feature of the spacious screen is the 120Hz refresh rate, which makes this laptop feel extra responsive and snappy. A great screen is one of my requisite specs to be included on my list of the best laptops, and the Slim 7i made sure to include it.
💡 It’s a little dim. The biggest issue with the laptop’s screen is the brightness. It can only reach 500 nits, which is enough for indoor usage but not for using your laptop outside. It gets hard to see what you’re looking at very quickly, even at max brightness. I hope Lenovo starts including higher brightness levels on its future laptops because of this.
⌨️ Incredible keyboard, menzamenz trackpad. Below the screen sits one of the most comfortable keyboards I’ve ever used on a laptop. Lenovo always surprises me with the amount of travel it packs into its laptop keyboards, and the Slim 7i falls right in line with that expectation. The keys come with 1.5mm of travel, which is noticeably more than most other laptops. It’s certainly more than my MacBook Pro, which has around 1mm of travel. The extra depth makes the keyboard super comfortable and satisfying to type on, something I specifically look for in a laptop, given it’s my job to type all day. I just wish the trackpad was equally as good; it feels like using a trackpad on a cheap Chromebook thanks to its unimpressive responsiveness and deep-diving-board design. It’s not awful, but it’s not good either. It’s menzamenz, in other words (Italian slang for “half a half”).
🌊 Lunar Lake for the win. It’s been a long time since I’ve actually enjoyed using an Intel laptop, but that changed with the Yoga Slim 7i. Intel’s new Lunar Lake processors are really impressive and a meaningful upgrade over its Meteor Lake chips. The Core Ultra 7 chip that Lenovo included in this laptop is a solid performer in a variety of ways; whether I’m juggling a dozen Chrome tabs with Spotify in the background or editing photos in Lightroom on the go, it’s rare to run into a serious slowdown with this machine. While it doesn’t feel quite as snappy as my four-year-old M1 Pro-equipped MacBook Pro, it’s fast enough for most people.
🤖 AI and graphics users rejoice. The Intel Core Ultra 7 boasts really impressive graphics performance, at least for an integrated GPU. I’ve run a few benchmarks and heard from my fellow reviewers, and the consensus is an obvious one: this laptop is equipped to handle graphics-heavy tasks you wouldn’t expect a laptop of this caliber could handle. From gaming to editing 4K video, most users won’t have an issue with performance. Obviously, if you’re a professional and need extra horsepower, you’ll need to shop for a laptop with a discrete GPU. For everyone else, the Slim 7i will suffice.
The same can be said for AI tasks. There’s a dedicated neural processing unit (NPU) in this laptop that handles anything involving artificial intelligence. That also means the Slim 7i meets Microsoft’s Copilot+ criteria, which gets you features like Recall, Live Captions, image generators, Windows Studio Effects for video calls, and more. Whether you use all this AI is up to you, but it’s cool it’s there nonetheless since this is an Intel PC, and all the rest of the Copilot+ laptops out there run on ARM chips.
🦾 Regular users should still consider ARM. The Intel chip in this laptop is very good, don’t get me wrong. But if you don’t need special software that relies on the Intel architecture, I still think it’s a good time to switch to ARM. The Snapdragon X Elite in the Yoga Slim 7x is one of the best processors I’ve ever used in a Windows laptop, going head-to-head with the best of Apple’s M series processors in terms of performance and battery life. You’ll get a similar experience with Lunar Lake, but for a vast majority of people who just need a laptop that performs reliably well every day, ARM is quickly becoming the way to go. Plus, you can often get them for cheaper than the Slim 7i.
🪄 “Aura Edition” doesn’t mean much. Lenovo and Intel worked together to include a suite of features that rely on AI and special processing to help improve your life. The flashiest is a new Intel Unison companion app that can pair with your phone and make transferring files between devices easy, answer messages, check notifications, and more. It not only works with Android phones but with iPhones as well, which is a first for Windows laptops. I tested the feature with both types of phone and it worked surprisingly well; files popped up in the Files app on my iPhone and I could respond to iMessages (albeit to took a beat to actually send). It wasn’t quite as nice as the native experience of my Mac, but it worked well enough.
“Aura Edition” also means new Smart Modes, which can enhance your privacy, improve your posture with reminders to sit upright (it uses your camera to do this, by the way), and minimize distractions when you’re trying to work. You also get access to Lenovo service specialists whenever you need them to help answer questions about your laptop.
Here’s the thing: while all of this is nice, it’s not worth naming the laptop after it. All these features are also available on a special edition ThinkPad X1 Carbon, and they don’t improve the experience of that laptop to the level the “Aura Edition” name would allude to, either. It feels more like a marketing ploy for features that are this close to being bloatware, assuming you never use any of them. They work fine, but I wouldn’t categorize them as huge draws to this laptop.
🔋 Battery life actually delivers. Lenovo included a 70Whr battery in the Yoga Slim 7i that, combined with the improved efficiency of Lunar Lake, translates to reliable all-day battery life. It was rare for the battery to dip so low by the end of the day that I’d have to plug it in, which isn’t something I experience with most Intel-based PCs. I can easily get through 12-16 hours of usage (depending on the workload) before it dies – exactly what I want from a work laptop. There’s a 65W charger in the box that can juice the machine back up fairly quickly.
🔌 All the ports you need. The Yoga Slim 7i’s port selection is pretty diverse. There are two Thunderbolt 4 USB-C ports, a high-speed USB-A port, an HDMI 2.1 port, and a headphone jack. The only thing missing is an SD card reader, which I use regularly, but you can always pick up an external reader if you need it. You’ll find the power button on the right side of the laptop next to a couple of ports, as well as a switch to kill the webcam.
🗑️ The webcam is garbage. Speaking of which, the webcam in the reverse notch at the top of the laptop is terrible. Lenovo calls it a Full HD camera, but it’s very blurry and makes you look like a potato when you use it. You’re better off buying a separate webcam if you plan to make a lot of video calls with this thing.
🔊 Solid speakers and good wireless performance. I enjoyed the speaker quality on the Yoga Slim 7i. Lenovo includes big drivers flanking the keyboard that delivers punchy bass and solid clarity regardless of the music you play, whether it be the new Kendrick Lamar album GNX or classic jazz like Dean Martin’s “On an Evening in Roma.” Podcasts and YouTube videos also sounded great, and if you want a more personal listening experience, you can connect a pair of headphones to the audio jack on the left. You also have Bluetooth 5.4 for Bluetooth headphones, which enhances the wireless experience alongside the inclusion of Wi-Fi 7. Both of these specs help future-proof the Yoga Slim 7i so you can keep using it well into the future and take advantage of the latest wireless technology.
Should you buy the Yoga Slim 7i Aura Edition?
Yes, if…
✅ You don’t want to spend more than $1,500 on a laptop
✅ You want a spacious screen that looks good
✅ You need reliably fast performance
✅ You want all-day battery life
✅ You need plenty of ports
✅ You still rely on Intel chips to get work done
No, if…
❌ You need more performance and battery life (get the MacBook Pro M4 instead)
❌ You’re ready to make the leap to Snapdragon ARM chips (get the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x instead)
❌ You don’t want to lug around a three-pound laptop (get the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x instead)
❌ You want a webcam that won’t make you look bad (get the Microsoft Surface Laptop instead)
❌ None of the “Aura Edition” features appeal to you (get the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x instead)
Max Buondonno is a writer at The Shortcut. He’s been reporting on the latest consumer technology since 2015, with his work featured on CNN Underscored, ZDNET, How-To Geek, XDA, TheStreet, and more. Follow him on X @LegendaryScoop.
This laptop is advertised as a Copilot+ PC, but it does NOT have Windows Studio Effects (as of today).
This piece really made me think; Intel still delivers for developpers needing compatiblity, even if that webcam feels a bit last-gen.