Lenovo Slim 7 Pro X Review

The world of portable 13- and 14-inch laptops is hyper-competitive in 2022, but the Lenovo Slim 7 Pro X (starts at $1,254.99; $1,599.99 as tested) manages to stand out. A blistering Ryzen 9 processor leads the way in our model, supported by 32GB of RAM, a 1TB SSD, and even an Nvidia RTX 3050 GPU. The latter is rare at this size, providing legitimate graphics chops in a 14-inch body, which competitors lack. A couple of cutting-edge features may be missing, but realistically the Slim 7 Pro X is a better value than most of the alternatives, earning an Editors’ Choice award among ultraportables.

Slim, Solid, and Ready for the Road

The design here delivers exactly what you’d expect to see from the system’s name. This is a trim, compact laptop that just looks like it’s ready to be picked up and taken on the road. That’s especially interesting considering its rather impressive internal components, but we’ll get to those a bit later.

(Credit: Kyle Cobian)

To stick with the focus on the build, it measures 0.63 by 12.92 by 8.72 inches—slim indeed! It also measures 3.2 pounds, which may be a touch higher than you’d expect when looking at its footprint, but factors in those more serious components and their requisite thermals. It’s still super-portable overall, and generally feels well built. The design is perhaps a bit plain compared to some premium alternatives like the Dell XPS 13 Plus or the HP Spectre x360 13.5, but the aluminum build is still solid.

(Credit: Kyle Cobian)

In addition to the trim size, the display is one of this laptop’s hero features. It measures 14.5 inches diagonally, laid out in a 16:10 aspect ratio. The “3K” resolution is thus an uncommon 3,072 by 1,920 pixels, which looks great in person.

(Credit: Kyle Cobian)

It’s an IPS panel, touch enabled, and even boasts a 120Hz refresh rate. Such a feature has been normally reserved for gaming machines (high refresh rates can show more in-game frames per second, which makes gameplay look and feel smoother), but it’s beginning to appear on more non-gaming systems. As with smartphones, which have also gone beyond the standard 60Hz, higher-refresh screens still make everyday computing use (such as web browsing and media) look smoother, too.

Lenovo has a long track record of comfortable keyboards, and that holds true here. It’s not quite on the level of the cushy ThinkPad keys, but the similarly scalloped keys with cushioned yet satisfying feedback are present. They are also backlit with white lighting. The touchpad, meanwhile, is a big, straightforward design, and it functions perfectly well. If anything, it’s slightly large for the chassis size, which is only a plus.

(Credit: Kyle Cobian)

The components are a big draw for performance, and we’ll get to those in a moment, but the supporting feature set is also positive for day-to-day use. The webcam is full HD and includes an IR sensor for Windows Hello, plus an electronic privacy shutter. The 1080p camera is a boon, and though that camera resolution is becoming more common in the past year due to the emphasis on remote work, we still see a lot of 720p webcams. The difference is notable, and the Slim 7 Pro X’s camera produces clear video.

(Credit: Kyle Cobian)

Physical connectivity includes two USB Type-C ports, two USB Type-A ports, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and an HDMI connection. This isn't an Intel-CPU system, so the ports lack Thunderbolt 4 support, which most Intel-based competitors will offer. The laptop also supports Wi-Fi 6 (not 6E) and Bluetooth. All told, it’s quite a fully featured laptop despite its compact size. Let’s check out the components, and then see how the system performs.

(Credit: Kyle Cobian)

Testing the Slim 7 Pro X: Ryzen 9 Speed, Plus Real Graphics Chops

I’ve alluded to the speedy components, so let’s take a closer look at what’s inside. Our $1,599.99 unit comes with an AMD Ryzen 9 6900HS processor, 32GB of memory, a 1TB SSD, and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 GPU. Our SKU is available from Costco, which may potentially limit availability of this good price for some, but you can customize up the base model on Lenovo’s website. The $1,254.99 starting model offers a less powerful Ryzen 6800HS CPU and 16GB of memory.

(Credit: Kyle Cobian)

Particularly when considering the laptop’s size, our model represents a really impressive loadout, and if anything a great deal for the price. The RTX 3050 won’t replace better GPUs for gaming, but it is much better than integrated graphics (as we’ll show below), and a big plus in a laptop of this type. There’s copious memory and storage to go around, too, and most of all, the processor should be lightning fast.

We put this system through our usual suite of benchmark tests to gauge the performance of these parts, and pitted it against the following systems…

There is somewhat of a spread in the types of laptops these are, but they fall within the same general category. The Dell XPS 13 Plus ($1,949 as tested) and HP Spectre x360 13.5 ($1,749.99 as tested) are competing super-portable laptops, the latter being a convertible option. The Lenovo ThinkPad Z13 ($1,851.85 as tested) is one of our favorite ultraportables.

Finally, the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 7 Pro is a sibling of the Slim 7 Pro X, but notably larger with a 16-inch screen. It will highlight just how capable the Pro X is for its size, as will the fact that most of these systems are more expensive than Pro X. The Slim 7 Pro is also the only other laptop with a dedicated GPU, another reason it’s included—this highlights how uncommon a true GPU like the RTX 3050 is at this size. These competitors, and many other 13- and 14-inch systems I could’ve chosen from as comparisons, use integrated graphics.

Productivity Tests

The main benchmark of UL's PCMark 10 simulates a variety of real-world productivity and content-creation workflows to measure overall performance for office-centric tasks such as word processing, spreadsheet work, web browsing, and videoconferencing. We also run PCMark 10's Full System Drive test to assess the load time and throughput of a laptop's boot drive.

Three other benchmarks focus on the CPU, using all available cores and threads, to rate a PC's suitability for processor-intensive workloads. Maxon's Cinebench R23 uses that company's Cinema 4D engine to render a complex scene, while Primate Labs' Geekbench 5.4 Pro simulates popular apps ranging from PDF rendering and speech recognition to machine learning. Finally, we use the open-source video transcoder HandBrake 1.4 to convert a 12-minute video clip from 4K to 1080p resolution (lower times are better).

Our final productivity test is workstation maker Puget Systems' PugetBench for Photoshop, which uses the Creative Cloud version 22 of Adobe's famous image editor to rate a PC's performance for content creation and multimedia applications. It's an automated extension that executes a variety of general and GPU-accelerated Photoshop tasks ranging from opening, rotating, resizing, and saving an image to applying masks, gradient fills, and filters.

For the most part, and unsurprisingly when you look at the other CPUs here, the Pro X’s Ryzen 9 wins out. The Intel competitors here are less powerful i7 variants meant for thin systems, so Ryzen 9—already proven—has even more of an edge.

It's not an unfair comparison because these are generally the exact types of processors used in laptops in this category, so it’s just another way the Slim 7 Pro X stands out. This laptop can easily handle everyday work, and media editing or creation that you throw its way, better than most equal-sized competitors.

Graphics and Gaming Tests

We test Windows PCs' graphics with two DirectX 12 gaming simulations from UL's 3DMark: Night Raid (more modest, suitable for laptops with integrated graphics) and Time Spy (more demanding, suitable for gaming rigs with discrete GPUs). We also try two OpenGL benchmarks from the cross-platform GFXBench, run offscreen to accommodate different display resolutions.

These results are no surprise if you read the build up: The Slim 7 Pro X’s RTX 3050 GPU is superior to all alternatives in this category. Integrated graphics can’t keep up, even if modern solutions provide a modest level for some light gaming, and this is a real benefit to opting for the Pro X.

Only the Slim 7 Pro and its own RTX 3050 could better these results, thanks to its larger chassis with more cooling capability than the Pro X. For moderate graphics-reliant work and gaming at low-to-medium settings, the Pro X is the easy winner among these 14-inch-and-under laptops.

Battery and Display Tests

We test laptops' battery life by playing a locally stored 720p video file with display brightness at 50% and audio volume at 100% until the system quits. We make sure the battery is fully charged before the test, with Wi-Fi and keyboard backlighting turned off.

We also use a Datacolor SpyderX Elite monitor calibration sensor and its Windows software to measure a laptop screen's color saturation—what percentage of the sRGB, Adobe RGB, and DCI-P3 color gamuts or palettes the display can show—and its 50% and peak brightness in nits (candelas per square meter).

The battery life is solid, even if it’s not spectacular and there are longer-lasting options. It will last you through most of the day, and you can make use of its portability by taking it on the go without worrying about finding the next outlet soon. As for the panel, the color coverage for the content-creator-minded Adobe RGB and DCI-P3 color spaces is a smidge underwhelming compared to the others, but sRGB is fine, and the brightness is right in line with the rest.

The Verdict: It's a Rare Ryzen 9 Value

In a tight field, the Slim 7 Pro X stands out thanks not only to its great performance and features, but great value proposition. The alternatives are largely much more expensive for less speed, and while there are some advantages on some of those models, like OLED screens, the Pro X’s core feature set and components are as good or better. You can find lighter and smaller laptops, but even among pricier options, few offer this combination of performance and size. One of the best 14-inch laptops in any category, this comfortably earns itself our Editors’ Choice award.