There are plenty of thin and light laptops available in the market these days, but most of them don't offer a dedicated GPU. Of course, you'll find some exceptions, such as the HP Omen Transcend 14 (Review) or the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14, but the options aren't too many. Cue the all-new Lenovo Yoga Pro 7i, which has been updated with the Intel Core Ultra CPUs and Nvidia GeForce RTX 40 series GPUs. You get an ultrabook-like design but enough power to run games and other creative tasks.
I got to try out the Lenovo Yoga Pro 7i for about a week where I tried out the laptop for work as well as some light gaming. Is it a good portable workstation that can also double as a gaming machine? Read on to find out.
Lenovo Yoga Pro 7i price in India
The Lenovo Yoga Pro 7i is available at a price tag of around Rs. 1,50,000 for the variant with an Intel Core Ultra 7 155H CPU, Nvidia GeForce RTX 4050 GPU, 16GB RAM, 1TB storage, and a 14.5-inch 2.8K resolution display with 120Hz refresh rate. This is the unit that Lenovo sent us for review (model number 14IMH9), but with 32GB RAM, and the company stated that more variants should be available soon.
The laptop offers MIL-STD-810H military test certification for durability
However, you'll find more variants on the Lenovo India website with the Intel Core Ultra 5 125H and the Core Ultra 9 185H CPUs. The RAM can also be upgraded to up to 32GB. Unfortunately, we don't have the pricing for these variants yet. The laptop is available in Tidal Teal and Luna Grey colour options. We received the Tidal Teal option. The packaging is minimal and Lenovo did talk about how they've managed to not use any plastic and opted for recycled materials. You get a 140W USB Type-C charger in the box, along with some paperwork.
Lenovo Yoga Pro 7i Review: Design and display
When it comes to design, the Yoga Pro 7i looks similar to last year's model. You get curved edges, which makes it easy to carry the device. The laptop features an aluminium chassis that has been tested to MIL-STD-810H standards, as per Lenovo. This means that you can expect the laptop to withstand small drops and not take any damage. The lid and the bottom are made from aluminium and they didn't have much flex. The lid has minimal branding with the bottom only housing grilles for the intake, two speakers, and rubber feet. The laptop weighs around 1.6 kgs.
The laptop features a 180-degree hinge that lets you place the laptop flat on the table. The hinge feels sturdy, but it doesn't provide any kind of lift. Opening the lid reveals a glossy 14.5-inch display with slim side bezels and relatively thicker top and bottom bezels. There's an inverted notch at the top that houses a web camera, IR sensor, and microphones. It's very easy to open the lid with one hand.
Below the display is a keyboard that is lined on both sides by two more speakers. The laptop has a total of four speakers. A large trackpad sits under the keyboard and it's a nice one. There's an etched Lenovo logo on the bottom right corner.
There are enough ports available on the laptop, but a card slot would've been welcome
The right edge houses a USB Type-A port (3.2 Gen 1), a combo 3.5mm audio jack, a power button, and a toggle for the web camera e-shutter. On the left edge, you'll find two USB Type-C (3.2 Gen 2) ports and an HDMI 2.1 port. It does miss out on a card slot, though.
Lenovo offers a really nice display on the Yoga Pro 7i. It is a glossy panel, which means that you can't really use it well outdoors, but the panel is excellent indoors while offering good brightness levels. Our review unit came with a 14.5-inch OLED display that offers 2.8K (2,880 x 1,800) resolution, 120Hz refresh rate, and 400 nits brightness. The display supports Dolby Vision, HDR, True Black 500 and covers a 100 percent DCI-P3 colour gamut. The colours are vivid and blacks deep. In a room with no harsh lighting, watching content on this display was a delight.
Lenovo Yoga Pro 7i Review: Keyboard, Touchpad, Speakers, and Camera
The keyboard on the Yoga Pro 7i has keys with good spacing and enough travel to make typing comfortable. There's no number key here, though, but you do get the new Copilot key that can be used to invoke the Microsoft chatbot. The keyboard is backlit, and you can either control the brightness manually or leave it in adaptive mode.
Moving down, you'll find a large touchpad that offers great response, is smooth to touch thanks to the glass surface, and offers multi-touch support. The feedback on clicks is also good. I had no issues with the touchpad or the keyboard during my time with the laptop.
The speakers' onboard support Dolby Atmos
You'll find two speakers placed on either side of the keyboard and two at the bottom of the laptop. However, despite offering a quad-speaker setup, two woofers and two tweeters, the sound doesn't get super loud. The audio does have some bass to it, but honestly, these speakers aren't amazing. You also get Dolby Atmos support, which enhances the audio experience when watching content.
The Yoga Pro 7i has a 1080p full-HD web camera that is better than most Windows laptops. The video output looks decent in good lighting conditions, however, it is grainy in lowlight scenarios. The web camera also supports an e-shutter and is paired with an IR and TOF sensor for Windows Hello biometric authentication, which works very well. As soon as you open the lid, the sensor recognises you, even when it's dark around. The sensors also wake up the screen and initiate login when you approach it, which is pretty neat.
Lenovo Yoga Pro 7i Review: Specifications and software
Coming to the specifications, the Lenovo Yoga Pro 7i is, by all means, an Ultrabook. It's got enough performance to run most tasks with ease, and you also get the discrete GPU for some light gaming. The laptop is equipped with the latest Intel Core Ultra 7 155H processor, which is paired with the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4050 GPU with 6GB GDDR6 video RAM. You get up to 32GB of RAM, but unfortunately this is soldered to the mainboard and not upgradeable. For storage, there's 1TB of M.2 storage available on the laptop.
For connectivity, you get Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3. The laptop houses a 73Wh battery as well, which supports fast charging.
The laptop comes with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4050 GPU with 6GB DDR6 RAM
As for software, our unit came with Windows 11 Pro out-of-the-box, along with Office Home and Student 2021. There's also some built-in software from Lenovo and McAfee anti-virus. The laptop comes with some AI enhancements in the form of the Lenovo AI Engine+. This engine is said to help improve performance and battery life based on the creative app that you're using. There's also a Creator Zone tool that lets you convert text to images.
Lenovo Yoga Pro 7i Review: Performance and gaming
In terms of performance, I did not face any issues when running apps such as Chrome, Adobe Lightroom, Slack, and a few others. Most of the time, there's no lag, but that changes when you start editing videos and playing games. I did notice lag on some rare occasions, such as when editing a 4K video in Davinci Resolve. Although you get an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4050 GPU, it doesn't offer a high TGP, hence you will face some lag if you try to play demanding games in anything higher than 1080p and max graphics settings. I played Alan Wake 2 and Hogwarts Legacy on the system, but it wasn't very enjoyable unless I dialled the settings down.
Since this is a thin and light laptop, there is some heating as well, especially when gaming. The laptop did get quite hot during a half-hour session of Alan Wake 2, even with the fans at full blast. However, you can play other less demanding titles with ease, but do expect the laptop to heat up when playing games or editing videos.
Lenovo Yoga Pro 7i Review: Battery life
Battery life on the Lenovo Yoga Pro 7i is not bad at all. In Balanced mode, I was able to squeeze out a full day (around 9 hours) of work, which also included some YouTube. As for streaming videos non-stop or binge-watching a short series on Netflix, the laptop will be your companion till the last episode. Of course, I achieved these numbers with the display set to 60Hz, so that also matters.
When the charge gets low, you can quickly charge the laptop thanks to the 140W USB Type-C charger. It took about 1 hour and 40 mins to fully charge the laptop from 10 percent. Overall, the laptop offers good battery life for a system with discrete graphics card.
Lenovo Yoga Pro 7i Review: Verdict
If you're in the market for a new slim and powerful ultrabook, the Lenovo Yoga Pro 7i should be on your list. The laptop is stylish and has a very good display and keyboard, and you get discrete graphics and decent battery life as well. While you can't play AAA titles at full graphical prowess, you can still run plenty of less demanding games without any issues. This is a good laptop for the money and is easy to recommend.
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