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Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Carbon Review – Reliable Featherweight
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Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Carbon Review – Reliable Featherweight

by January 14, 2021
Overview
Highlights

Designed as a featherweight laptop with reliable performance, the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 Carbon is the laptop for those who want something easy to bring around. Is it worth your money? Let's find out.

Warranty

2-year Premium Care

Price

RM5,159

Positives

+ Solid build quality
+ Reliable performance
+ 2.5K resolution display
+ Comfortable keyboard
+ RAM and storage is more than adequate
+ Thunderbolt 4
+ Good battery life
+ USB-C charging
+ Very light and easy to bring around

Negatives

- No touchscreen support
- Choice of ports may be surprising for some
- Looks rather plain
- Screen is a little dim
- Pricey

Pokde Scoreboard
Pokde Rating
Appearance
7.0
Efficiency
8.0
Features
7.5
Materials
8.5
Performance
7.0
Portability
9.0
User Experience
8.0
Value
7.0
Bottom Line

The Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 Carbon is a good productivity laptop if you really need a machine that is very light to bring around.

7.8
Pokde Rating
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Unboxing the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Carbon

Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 Carbon Review

Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Carbon Review – Box

Let’s kick off our Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Carbon review with the unboxing. Inside the box, you will be able to find the following items:

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Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Carbon Review – Box content

  • 65W power adapter
  • USB-C cable
  • User guide and warranty
  • The Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Carbon laptop itself

Appearance

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Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Carbon Review – Lid

The Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Carbon is an ultraportable productivity laptop. It has a rather simple design in this white colour scheme, with only the Yoga logo on the top-left corner and the usual Lenovo logo on the bottom-right corner taking up a smaller space. It is said to be made up of high-strength carbon fiber for the lid and magnesium-aluminum alloy for the bottom, but the lid feels kinda plasticky, albeit a more solid one.

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Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Carbon Review – Open up the lid

Open up the lid and you’ll see the 13.3-inch 2.5K IPS display with slim bezels on 3 sides, with the bottom bezel being the thickest. The top bezel has a slight bump in the centre, which is most likely needed to fit the webcam in. You also get a white-backlit chiclet keyboard sans Numpad, a trackpad, and some product labels.

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Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Carbon Review – Ports

On the left side, you have two USB-C ports and an LED indicator in between them. As for the right side, you have another USB-C port, a 3.5mm combo audio jack, and the power button. There’s nothing on the rear except for a good view of the hinge.

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Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Carbon Review – Bottom

Moving to the bottom of the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Carbon, you will see more product labels, three rubberized stands to give the laptop a bit of a lift from the surface, air vent, and two speaker grilles. There are six exposed screws here, but there may be a screw hidden under one of these labels, which may result in warranty being voided if torn.

Overall, the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Carbon has a simple, modern design that can easily fit in for working adults and students looking for something very light to bring around. At first, you might not be confident with how the lid feels because of how thin the carbon fiber material being used. After a while, you start to realize that it’s a lot more solid than you might think.

Specifications

CPU Intel Core i7-1165G7 @ 2.4 GHz (up to 4.7 GHz Boost), 4C/8T, 10nm SuperFin, 28W TDP
RAM 16GB LPDDR4X 4266MHz
GPU Intel Iris Xe Graphics
Storage 1TB SSD, M.2 2280, PCIe Gen3x4 NVMe, TLC (Samsung PM981A)
Software Microsoft Windows 10 Home
Connectivity Wireless
802.11ax Wi-Fi
Bluetooth 5.0
Wired
1 x Thunderbolt 4 
2 x USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-C
Display 13.3″ 2.5K (2560 x 1600) 60Hz IPS Anti-glare LED-backlit display with narrow bezels, 300 nits
Audio 2 x 2W Harman Kardon speakers with Dolby Atmos
2 x digital microphones
1 x 3.5mm combo audio jack
Power 65W power adapter
50Whr 4-cell Li-polymer battery
Dimensions 295.9 x 208.85 x 14.25 mm
Weight 0.97 kg

Performance

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Starting off with CrystalDiskMark, the storage drive in the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Carbon performed pretty well. It should be more than enough for most people so you can expect fast boot ups and minimal loading times, if any. For those of you who are wondering, this is the 1TB Samsung PM981a SSD.

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On Cinebench R15, the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Carbon performed decently enough. The single core score is definitely well but the multi-core performance is certainly lacking.

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As for Cinebench R20, the multi-core score didn’t seem as bad as the previous one but it’s still lagging behind the competition. This is evident as another laptop running the same CPU, Intel Core i7-1165G7 has a noticeably higher score.

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On Unigine SuperPosition’s 4K Optimized benchmark, the score is rather low but this is understandable as this test is GPU-reliant. I’m personally surprised that it passed the 1,000 which means that the Intel Iris Xe graphics definitely gives a noticeable boost in performance compared to the old Intel UHD Graphics. It won’t be as powerful as say a GTX 1650, but it’s still something.

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The same can be said with 3DMark’s Time Spy benchmark, with the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Carbon, with it getting a low score but not too low either. If you don’t need to do anything graphically-intensive, this shouldn’t be something to worry about.

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In PCMark, you can see that the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Carbon is a well-rounded laptop here. It’s no surprise that digital content creation is the lowest here as it needs more firepower. It would make for an excellent laptop for light gaming, work, and studies, that’s for sure.

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Lastly, we have PCMark’s Modern Office endurance test which tests for battery life for productivity-based tasks. The battery life is good enough as it lasted 8 hours and 40 minutes (520 minutes) before it died out. It may not have the longest battery life for a laptop of this kind, but it’s definitely more than enough within practical reasons.

Need a laptop with something unique to offer? Check out our review of the Lenovo ThinkBook Plus by clicking right here.

User Experience

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Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Carbon Review

The Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Carbon laptop has adequate power for those who prioritize on having a lightweight machine. It’s powered by the Intel Core i7-1165G7 CPU with Intel Iris Xe graphics. As for memory, it has a 16GB LPDDR4X RAM at 4266MHz. For the most part, it runs rather quietly, but it does get a little warm from time to time. It’s really nothing to worry about however, but make sure there’s nothing blocking the bottom air vent. Memory is definitely more than adequate for what it’s intended for.

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Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Carbon Review – Display

As for the display, the 13.3-inch display is great. You get good viewing angles and the colours are certainly punchy, but I feel that the screen is a little dim. It does use a 2.5K resolution display so it’s a step up from Full HD, and I feel is a reasonable step up as 4K can be a little too much still.

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Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Carbon Review – 3-in-1 USB-C hub

The Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Carbon is meant to be something like the MacBook or Dell XPS 13, so the available ports may seem like a surprise if you’re not familiar with it. It has three USB-C ports consisting of a Thunderbolt 4 port and two USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-C ports, and a combo audio jack. If you want to get more ports, you will have to get a hub or dock for it. As this does have a Thunderbolt 4 port, it’s potential for expansion is much better compared to regular USB-C ports, so best to find accessories that can take advantage of it. It’s worth noting that Lenovo did include 3-in-1 USB-C hub gives you a USB-A port, HDMI port, and VGA port by sacrificing one USB-C port.

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Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Carbon Review – Keyboard

As for the keyboard, we have a backlit chiclet keyboard with no Numpad. It’s comfortable to use with decent tactility, short travel distance and decently-sized keys so it’s easy to press. The trackpad works fine, but nothing much to say about it. You’re better off using your own mouse.

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Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Carbon Review

In the sound department, the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Carbon’s speakers are rather soft at maximum volume. As for sound quality, it’s rather bland with bass essentially being non-existent. They are built-in speakers so can’t really expect much from it. You’re better off using your favourite pair of headsets instead.

If you’re looking for something more premium, check out our review of the ASUS ROG Zephyrus by clicking right here.

Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Carbon Verdict

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Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Carbon Review

The Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Carbon is a good productivity laptop if you really need a machine that is very light. You get solid build quality, reliable performance, 2.5K resolution display, comfortable keyboard, more than adequate memory capacity, good battery life, USB-C charging, and Thunderbolt 4 in a very lightweight body.

However, it doesn’t have touchscreen support, the choice of ports here may surprise people, it may look rather plain, and the screen is a little dim. At RM5,159, it may be a little pricey but given what it offers, it’s not a surprise. At the end of our Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Carbon review, I award this with our Silver Pokdeward.

Pokde-Silver

Big thanks to Lenovo Malaysia for letting us use this laptop for the purpose of this review.

About The Author
Aiman Maulana
Jack of all trades, master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one. YouTuber, video editor, tech head, and a wizard of gaming. What's up? :)

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