Lenovo Slim 7 14 (2024) review: A mid-range laptop with top-notch features

The Lenovo Slim 7 14, initially unveiled as the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 14 during its debut at CES 2024, exceeded my expectations for mid-range laptops. For a relatively affordable, sub-$1,500 price, the Slim 7 14 boasts a slew of premium features that I’ve only seen on more expensive laptops.

This laptop has a gorgeous OLED display, a keyboard that’s a joy to type on, and performance capabilities that blew me away. My daily driver laptop, the Lenovo Yoga 9i, is more expensive than this Slim 7 14 configuration, but if I had to choose between the two today, I’d choose the Slim 7 14. 

Of course, the perfect laptop doesn’t exist — at least, not yet. There are certainly a few things I’d change about the Slim 7 14, but it’s still a superb mid-range option that deserves a spot on our greatest laptops list.

Lenovo Slim 7 14 price and specs

The Slim 7 14 in this review has a price tag of $1,174 — and it’s available via Lenovo’s official website.

• Intel Core Ultra 7 155H CPU

• Integrated Intel Arc graphics

• 32GB of RAM 

• 1TB SSD

• 14-inch, 1920 x 1200-pixel OLED touch display

If that’s too pricey for you, there’s a configuration with a less powerful Intel Core Ultra 5 125H CPU and fewer gigabytes of memory (i.e., 16GB of RAM). This variant will set you back $1,041 at Lenovo. (For even cheaper options, check out our greatest budget laptops page.)

What I like about Lenovo Slim 7 14

Lenovo’s new Slim 7 14 laptop has a plethora of positive features, including one of the greatest laptop keyboards I’ve ever tested.

Addictive keyboard

From the first keypress, Lenovo’s Slim 7 14 keyboard captured my heart. It’s satisfyingly clacky and comfortable to type on, and so enjoyably bouncy that I found myself wanting to use it more than my daily driver laptop’s keyboard.

This laptop’s large, backlit keys, featuring 1.5 millimeters of travel and satisfying feedback, make its keyboard one of the greatest I’ve ever tested.

Attractive display

The Slim 7 14 has a gorgeous display, and that’s largely thanks to its OLED panel. With its 1920 x 1200-pixel resolution (WUXGA), it’s a slight step up from 1080p. Plus, it has a 16:10 aspect ratio, providing more screen real estate.

To scrutinize the display, I watched the Wicked trailer on YouTube. Elphaba’s striking green skin came through vivid and perfectly balanced, as did the multiple pink outfits sported by Glinda and the multi-colored landscapes and creatures throughout the trailer. And despite being vibrant and super bright at max brightness, nothing was oversaturated.

Impressive performance

When I saw the price attached to this laptop, I wasn’t expecting top-notch performance, but that’s exactly what I got.

 

This configuration of the Slim 7 14 sports 32GB of RAM and Intel Core Ultra 7 155H processor, a 14th-generation CPU that’s au courant. In other words, you’re getting one of Intel’s latest and greatest offerings.

In my experience, these internals translated to seamless multitasking with a ton of Chrome tabs, Spotify, and photo-editing software. 

Talking about how well this laptop handled my daily tasks over the past few weeks is great and all, but I also subjected the Slim 7 14 to the Geekbench 6 benchmark, an objective performance test Mashable uses for all laptop reviews. Its multi-core score barely dipped below the highest score we’ve seen this year for Windows laptops. Check out the Geekbench 6 section for specific results.

Great port selection, with one exception

For a relatively affordable laptop, the Lenovo Slim 7 14 has a great variety of ports. On the left side, there are two USB-C (Thunderbolt 4) ports and an HDMI 2.1 port, which I don’t even have on my more expensive daily driver laptop, Lenovo’s Yoga 9i. 

Looking at the right side, I spotted a USB-A 3.2 port, a 3.5mm headset jack, the power button, and a webcam kill switch (this lets you quickly turn off your webcam without the added bulk of a privacy shutter switch above the webcam). There’s also a Lenovo Reset Recovery switch that can be triggered using a smartphone’s tiny SIM eject tool.

I only wish Lenovo had placed one of the Slim 7 14’s USB-C ports on the right side for charging convenience, especially with its charging cable being shorter than most. 

Aluminum chassis resists fingerprints well

The Slim 7 14’s aluminum chassis is cool to the touch, durable, and greatest of all, fingerprint resistant. 

When I tilt the closed laptop in sunlight, I spotted a few scattered smudges, but they’re not very visible otherwise. 

I also love the sleek Luna Grey colorway, but this is the only color you can get the Slim 7 14 in right now. A few other color options would be nice, like Lenovo’s Abyss Blue or Oatmeal hues.

One-handed open design

With a slight lip above the webcam, the Slim 7 14 14 can easily be opened with one hand. The hinge is smooth, and the bottom of the laptop doesn’t even lift if you don’t open it too quickly.

What’s ‘eh’ about Lenovo Slim 7 14

There are some aspects of Lenovo’s Slim 7 14 14 that didn’t blow me away, but they weren’t disappointing enough to throw in the “dislike” category.

Decent sound quality

Laptop speakers are notoriously awful, so I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the Lenovo Slim 7 14’s audio. Don’t get me wrong, the audio isn’t fantastic, but it’s certainly better than my smartphone’s speaker setup and countless other laptops I’ve tested in the past.

The Slim 7 14 is equipped with two Dolby Atmos-tuned up-firing speakers, which already gives it a leg up compared to the bottom-firing speakers found on many laptops. To test audio quality, I played Ariana Grande’s “Supernatural” on Spotify followed by Unprocessed’s “Real ft. Polyphia’s Tim Henson & Clay Gober.”

While Ariana’s vocals came through beautifully, the highs and lows in the song that give it a full-body, atmospheric sound were missing. And same goes for “Real,” a song that I love to use while testing because it has such nuanced highs, mids, and lows that are often lost without higher-quality speakers.

If I didn’t have my Yoga 9i’s rotating Bowers & Wilkins soundbar to compare other laptops to, I might not have even realized the audio was lacking — that’s how great these speakers are compared to most other laptops.

New dedicated Microsoft Copilot key

Whether you use Microsoft Copilot or not, your next Windows laptop will probably come with a dedicated Copilot key that, most likely, replaces the extra Ctrl key on the keyboard’s right side.

My gripe isn’t with the Copilot feature itself. I actually enjoy using Copilot to help quickly and concisely answer questions, reword an email or a text message, and break down complex terms. But when Copilot can be accessed with an easy click in the bottom right corner of my screen or a keyboard shortcut (Windows key + C), is a dedicated Copilot key necessary? 

What I dislike about Lenovo Slim 7 14

In addition to the lack of a USB-C port on the right side of this laptop, there were only a few things that irked me about the Slim 7 14.

Doesn’t last long on a charge

This laptop’s 8-hour battery life can last a full workday, but with Intel’s new Core Ultra 7 155H chip that’s supposed to be more efficient, I expected better battery life. Granted, the Slim 7 14 14 does have an battery-sucking OLED display, but so does the HP Spectre x360 14, and it lasted over 3 hours longer than this laptop in the same battery benchmark.

Check out detailed runtimes for both Lenovo’s Slim 7 14 14 and HP’s Spectre x360 14 in the battery life section.

Short charging cable

The Slim 7 14 14’s charging cable doesn’t have a central brick linking a thicker cable to the wall and a thin cable to the laptop, which translates to: it’s really short. 

I stretched out the cable from where it comes out of the wall brick to the USB-C connector, and it measured about 70 inches. Compared to my Yoga 9i’s charging cable at 113 inches, which I’d consider to be a “traditional” charging cable length, that’s about 3.5 feet less cable length.

Lenovo Slim 7 14 Geekbench 6 score

On Geekbench 6, which tests for overall processor performance, the Lenovo Slim 7 14 earned an impressive multi-core score of 12,267. 

This is slightly lower than the 12,955 score delivered by HP’s Spectre x360 14, the most powerful Windows laptop we’ve tested in 2024 so far, with the same Intel Core Ultra 7 155H processor.

Lenovo Slim 7 14 battery life 

To test the Lenovo Slim 7 14’s battery life, we ran the PCMark 10 Modern Office benchmark with the display at max brightness. It lasted 8 hours and 11 minutes before running out of juice.

In comparison, the more powerful HP Spectre x360 14 with a higher-res OLED display lasted a whopping 11 hours and 27 minutes when running the same benchmark.

Lenovo Slim 7 14 webcam

Compared to the grainy 720p webcams found on many laptops, the Slim 7 14 14’s 1080p webcam provided a surprisingly crisp picture.

Of course, it’s only a 1080p camera, and zooming in showed obvious blurriness and fuzz. But the edges of my face and hair were relatively sharp, and the webcam rendered colors pretty accurately.

Is Lenovo Slim 7 14 worth it?

The one thought that stuck with me throughout this entire review process is, “How is this laptop only $1,240?” 

I’ve seen a lot of laptops in this price range that only have 1080p LED displays, 8GB or 16GB of RAM, squishy keyboards, and lackluster speaker and webcam quality. But Lenovo’s Slim 7 14 boasts a 1920 x 1200-pixel OLED display, an impressive 32GB of RAM, slightly raised keys with 1.5 millimeters of travel, and a better-than-average webcam and speaker setup.

I wish the battery lasted a bit longer, but an 8-hour battery life isn’t anything to sneeze at, and with Rapid Charge Boost, battery life is replenished quickly. The only hang-up you’ll have to get used to if you opt for the Slim 7 14 is a short charging cable that can only be plugged in on the laptop’s left side. Other than those minor flaws, the Lenovo Slim 7 14 is a mid-range gem.