Lenovo Slender 7 Professional X Evaluation

The arena of transportable 13- and 14-inch laptops is hyper-competitive in 2022, however the Lenovo Slender 7 Professional X (begins at $1,254.99; $1,599.99 as examined) manages to face out. A blistering Ryzen 9 processor leads the best way in our style, supported through 32GB of RAM, a 1TB SSD, or even an Nvidia RTX 3050 GPU. The latter is unusual at this dimension, offering professional graphics chops in a 14-inch frame, which competition lack. A few state-of-the-art options is also lacking, however realistically the Slender 7 Professional X is a greater price than lots of the possible choices, incomes an Editors’ Selection award amongst ultraportables.

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Slender, Cast, and Able for the Highway

The design right here delivers precisely what you’d be expecting to look from the machine’s identify. It is a trim, compact pc that simply appears adore it’s in a position to be picked up and brought at the highway. That’s particularly fascinating taking into consideration its fairly spectacular interior elements, however we’ll get to these a bit of later.

(Credit score: Kyle Cobian)

To stay with the point of interest at the construct, it measures 0.63 through 12.92 through 8.72 inches—narrow certainly! It additionally measures 3.2 kilos, that may be a slightly greater than you’d be expecting when having a look at its footprint, however elements in the ones extra severe elements and their considered necessary thermals. It’s nonetheless super-portable total, and normally feels neatly constructed. The design is possibly a bit of simple when put next to a few top class possible choices just like the Dell XPS 13 Plus or the HP Spectre x360 13.5, however the aluminum construct remains to be forged.

(Credit score: Kyle Cobian)

Along with the trim dimension, the show is one in all this pc’s hero options. It measures 14.5 inches diagonally, specified by a 16:10 side ratio. The “3K” solution is thus an unusual 3,072 through 1,920 pixels, which appears nice in individual.

(Credit score: Kyle Cobian)

It’s an IPS panel, contact enabled, or even boasts a 120Hz refresh charge. This sort of function has been usually reserved for gaming machines (excessive refresh charges can display extra in-game frames in line with 2d, which makes gameplay appear and feel smoother), but it surely’s starting to seem on extra non-gaming programs. As with smartphones, that have additionally long gone past the usual 60Hz, higher-refresh monitors nonetheless make on a regular basis computing use (equivalent to internet surfing and media) glance smoother, too.

Lenovo has a protracted observe document of cushty keyboards, and that holds true right here. It’s no longer reasonably at the degree of the soft ThinkPad keys, however the in a similar fashion scalloped keys with cushioned but gratifying comments are provide. They’re additionally backlit with white lights. The touchpad, in the meantime, is a large, simple design, and it purposes completely neatly. If the rest, it’s reasonably huge for the chassis dimension, which is just a plus.

(Credit score: Kyle Cobian)

The elements are a large draw for efficiency, and we’ll get to these in a second, however the supporting function set could also be certain for day by day use. The webcam is complete HD and contains an IR sensor for Home windows Hi, plus an digital privateness shutter. The 1080p digital camera is a boon, and despite the fact that that digital camera solution is turning into extra not unusual previously yr because of the emphasis on far off paintings, we nonetheless see numerous 720p webcams. The adaptation is notable, and the Slender 7 Professional X’s digital camera produces transparent video.

(Credit score: Kyle Cobian)

Bodily connectivity contains two USB Sort-C ports, two USB Sort-A ports, a three.5mm headphone jack, and an HDMI connection. This is not an Intel-CPU machine, so the ports lack Thunderbolt 4 enhance, which maximum Intel-based competition will be offering. The pc additionally helps Wi-Fi 6 (no longer 6E) and Bluetooth. All advised, it’s reasonably a completely featured pc regardless of its compact dimension. Let’s take a look at the elements, after which see how the machine plays.

(Credit score: Kyle Cobian)

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Trying out the Slender 7 Professional X: Ryzen 9 Pace, Plus Actual Graphics Chops

I’ve alluded to the rapid elements, so let’s take a better have a look at what’s inside of. Our $1,599.99 unit comes with an AMD Ryzen 9 6900HS processor, 32GB of reminiscence, a 1TB SSD, and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 GPU. Our SKU is to be had from Costco, which would possibly probably restrict availability of this excellent worth for some, however you’ll be able to customise up the bottom style on Lenovo’s website online. The $1,254.99 beginning style gives a much less tough Ryzen 6800HS CPU and 16GB of reminiscence.

(Credit score: Kyle Cobian)

In particular when taking into consideration the pc’s dimension, our style represents a in point of fact spectacular loadout, and if the rest a really perfect deal for the fee. The RTX 3050 received’t exchange higher GPUs for gaming, but it surely is far better than built-in graphics (as we’ll display under), and a large plus in a pc of this sort. There’s copious reminiscence and garage to head round, too, and maximum of all, the processor will have to be lightning rapid.

We put the program via our same old suite of benchmark checks to gauge the efficiency of those portions, and pitted it towards the next programs…

There’s moderately of a range within the kinds of laptops those are, however they fall inside of the similar normal class. The Dell XPS 13 Plus ($1,949 as examined) and HP Spectre x360 13.5 ($1,749.99 as examined) are competing super-portable laptops, the latter being a convertible choice. The Lenovo ThinkPad Z13 ($1,851.85 as examined) is one in all our favourite ultraportables.

After all, the Lenovo IdeaPad Slender 7 Professional is a sibling of the Slender 7 Professional X, however significantly greater with a 16-inch display. It’s going to spotlight simply how succesful the Professional X is for its dimension, as will the truth that a lot of these programs are costlier than Professional X. The Slender 7 Professional could also be the one different pc with a devoted GPU, one more reason it’s integrated—this highlights how unusual a real GPU just like the RTX 3050 is at this dimension. Those competition, and lots of different 13- and 14-inch programs I may just’ve selected from as comparisons, use built-in graphics.

Productiveness Exams

The principle benchmark of UL’s PCMark 10 simulates plenty of real-world productiveness and content-creation workflows to measure total efficiency for office-centric duties equivalent to phrase processing, spreadsheet paintings, internet surfing, and videoconferencing. We additionally run PCMark 10’s Complete Machine Pressure take a look at to evaluate the weight time and throughput of a pc’s boot pressure.

3 different benchmarks center of attention at the CPU, the use of all to be had cores and threads, to charge a PC’s suitability for processor-intensive workloads. Maxon’s Cinebench R23 makes use of that corporate’s Cinema 4D engine to render a posh scene, whilst Primate Labs’ Geekbench 5.4 Professional simulates widespread apps starting from PDF rendering and speech reputation to system finding out. After all, we use the open-source video transcoder HandBrake 1.4 to transform a 12-minute video clip from 4K to 1080p solution (decrease instances are higher).

Our ultimate productiveness take a look at is workstation maker Puget Programs’ PugetBench for Photoshop, which makes use of the Ingenious Cloud model 22 of Adobe’s well-known symbol editor to charge a PC’s efficiency for content material advent and multimedia packages. It is an automatic extension that executes plenty of normal and GPU-accelerated Photoshop duties starting from opening, rotating, resizing, and saving a picture to making use of mask, gradient fills, and filters.

For essentially the most phase, and unsurprisingly whilst you have a look at the opposite CPUs right here, the Professional X’s Ryzen 9 wins out. The Intel competition listed here are much less tough i7 variants supposed for skinny programs, so Ryzen 9—already confirmed—has much more of an edge.

It isn’t an unfair comparability as a result of those are normally the precise kinds of processors utilized in laptops on this class, so it’s simply otherwise the Slender 7 Professional X sticks out. This pc can simply maintain on a regular basis paintings, and media enhancing or advent that you just throw its manner, higher than maximum equal-sized competition.

Graphics and Gaming Exams

We take a look at Home windows PCs’ graphics with two DirectX 12 gaming simulations from UL’s 3DMark: Night time Raid (extra modest, appropriate for laptops with built-in graphics) and Time Secret agent (extra hard, appropriate for gaming rigs with discrete GPUs). We additionally check out two OpenGL benchmarks from the cross-platform GFXBench, run offscreen to deal with other show resolutions.

Those effects are not any marvel in case you learn the increase: The Slender 7 Professional X’s RTX 3050 GPU is awesome to all possible choices on this class. Built-in graphics can’t stay up, despite the fact that trendy answers supply a modest degree for some mild gaming, and it is a genuine get advantages to choosing the Professional X.

Most effective the Slender 7 Professional and its personal RTX 3050 may just higher those effects, because of its greater chassis with extra cooling capacity than the Professional X. For average graphics-reliant paintings and gaming at low-to-medium settings, the Professional X is the simple winner amongst those 14-inch-and-under laptops.

Battery and Show Exams

We take a look at laptops’ battery existence through taking part in a in the community saved 720p video report with show brightness at 50% and audio quantity at 100% till the machine quits. We ensure the battery is totally charged sooner than the take a look at, with Wi-Fi and keyboard backlighting grew to become off.

We additionally use a Datacolor SpyderX Elite observe calibration sensor and its Home windows tool to measure a pc display’s colour saturation—what share of the sRGB, Adobe RGB, and DCI-P3 colour gamuts or palettes the show can display—and its 50% and top brightness in nits (candelas in line with sq. meter).

The battery existence is forged, despite the fact that it’s no longer impressive and there are longer-lasting choices. It’s going to ultimate you via lots of the day, and you’ll be able to employ its portability through taking it at the move with out being worried about discovering the following outlet quickly. As for the panel, the colour protection for the content-creator-minded Adobe RGB and DCI-P3 colour areas is a smidge underwhelming in comparison to the others, however sRGB is okay, and the brightness is true in keeping with the remaining.

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The Verdict: It is a Uncommon Ryzen 9 Price

In a good box, the Slender 7 Professional X sticks out thank you no longer simplest to its nice efficiency and contours, however nice price proposition. The choices are in large part a lot more pricey for much less pace, and whilst there are some benefits on a few of the ones fashions, like OLED monitors, the Professional X’s core function set and elements are as excellent or higher. You’ll be able to in finding lighter and smaller laptops, however even amongst pricier choices, few be offering this mix of efficiency and dimension. Probably the most perfect 14-inch laptops in any class, this conveniently earns itself our Editors’ Selection award.