Lenovo’s latest laptops focus on trimming the fat without tossing the fast.
Nobody likes to use a slow computer. Having to wait for applications to launch and files to load can be incredibly tedious, especially when you’re in a rush to get work done. That said, nobody likes to lug around a heavy “desktop replacement” laptop either, whether it’s a mobile workstation or gaming system. Well, Lenovo ‘s here to say “get you a girl who does both,” or in this case, a laptop that offers solid performance without the hefty body weight. Enter the Lenovo Slim series, known as “Yoga Slim” outside of the US. They’re exactly what it says on the tin: thin & light laptops, except without the meager performance sometimes offered by svelte mobile PCs. Once upon a time, they might have been called “ultrabooks.”Starting from the top, we have the Lenovo Slim 9i. This is a 14” laptop with a sub-15mm-thick chassis encased in what Lenovo calls “3D glass.” This is the crown jewel of the Lenovo Slim line, and it offers your choice of Core i5 or Core i7 processors from the 12th-generation “P” series. For those unaware, these fall in-between the ultra-low-power “U” processors and the full-power “H” processors, with TDP ratings of 28W. The Slim 9i can be had with up to 32 GB of dual-channel LPDDR5 at up to a scorching 5600 MT/s. PCIe 4.0 SSD options top out at 1 TB, and graphics duties are handled by the Intel processor’s potent integrated graphics. Said graphics connect to your choice of touch-capable PureSight OLEDs in either 2880×1800 or 3840×2400 resolution. The lower-resolution display supports 90 Hz refresh, and both are DisplayHDR 500 True Black certified. Lenovo says that the 75-Whr battery can handle up to 15 hours of 1080p video playback, although it doesn’t specify which model that applies to. Perhaps more impressively, a 15 minute charge can apparently prepare you for another 2 hours of usage. All three of the machine’s USB Type-C ports are fully Thunderbolt 4-capable, and while there’s no Ethernet connection, you do get Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.1 as standard. If you really need high performance including discrete graphics, then the Lenovo Slim 7 Pro X and Slim 7i Pro X have you covered. These very-slightly-larger 14.5″ machines come with full-fat “H”-series processors from AMD and Intel respectively. On the AMD side, that gets you Ryzen 5,7, and 9 models from the 6000 series with up to 8 cores, while your Intel options include 12th-gen Core i5 and i7 processors with up to 14 cores. Whichever you choose, you get your pick of either 16GB of 32GB of LPDDR5 memory, running at 6 GT/s on the Intel machines and 6.
