Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x in the test: ARM, but sexy

With the Yoga Slim 7x, Lenovo has released a compact laptop with an ARM chip from Qualcomm. We were able to test the laptop for a month, you can find out the conclusion in the video.

In principle, laptops with ARM architecture are nothing new. A few years ago, Apple successfully demonstrated with the M1 chips how ARM-based laptops can be built with high performance and low energy consumption at the same time.

Now Qualcomm has also stepped up and started this yearProduce chips for ARM laptops – which ARM doesn’t necessarily like. Some devices have already been released with the new Snapdragon X Elite, including the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x.

The first impression

The first impression is convincing: The Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x is flat, very light and can be easily transported thanks to its compact dimensions. A disadvantage of the flat design: There are just three connectionsall USB-C. From my point of view, there is at least one jack connection missing for wired headphones and headsets. A USB-A or HDMI port cannot be expected due to the low height.

On the right side we also find a hardware switch that can be used to deactivate and reactivate the webcam, as well as the power button.

The webcam also makes a solid impression and, together with the integrated microphone, it survived some meetings well. It is also used for Microsoft’s “Windows Hello” facial recognition, which allows you to unlock your laptop with your own face. This worked well in most cases.

Lenovo has integrated the webcam in a kind of “overbite” in the housing. Instead of going the Apple route and cutting out part of the display for the camera and facial recognition, the casing bulges out at the top, level with the webcam.

The display is a 14.5-inch OLED display with a 90 Hz refresh rate. It looks great and is sharp thanks to the high resolution of 2,944 × 1,840 pixels. The OLED also has a touchscreen. By the way: The display can be opened through a quick 180°, as is usual with Lenovo’s Yoga series.

Visually, watching films on the Yoga is fun, but when it comes to sound, we recommend using external speakers. The internal speakers sound a bit thinBut they are absolutely acceptable for everyday use.

The keyboard and trackpad also hold a precise position: the keys have a pleasantly long key travel and feel good. However, this keyboard has one special feature. A new taste has emerged between “To the Left” and “Alternate Graphic”.: the shortcut for Copilot, Microsoft’s own AI assistant, more on that later.

Why a laptop with ARM technology?

There are good reasons to choose an ARM-based laptop. The energy-saving CPU architecture ensures long battery life, which was also confirmed by our first test. We started a playlist from our YouTube channel and set the display to 50 percent brightness. The laptop ran for over 17 hours. The energy saving mode, which is activated when the battery level is below 30 percent and dims the display a little further, only switched on after about 12 hours.

In my everyday use with a slightly higher display brightness, I was able to achieve an average of around 10 hours. Anyway, I had to never unintentionally connected to the socket. A USB-C power supply with 65 W power is included. This means the Yoga can be fully recharged in about an hour and a half.

Also positive: the heat development is limited. In everyday life, the fans rarely start up audibly. Only when the device is under load for a longer period does a quiet whirring sound occur.

Windows on ARM: Pretty usable

Windows on ARM has a long history behind it. Back in the early 2010s, Microsoft tried to develop an operating system for the ARM architecture with “Windows RT”. The company was not successful with this, especially since the Windows version at the time did not emulate x86 software The program is only accepted from the Windows Store.

And the current version? Standard programs, such as Google’s Chrome, are now available in ARM-compatible versions or can be adequately translated for the new architecture using Microsoft’s “Prism” translation layer. When the translation is running, I definitely couldn’t tell whether I was using an emulated version or one optimized for the new architecture.

If you want to use special software, Choose between ARM support and ARM emulation. Let’s take Adobe’s programs for example: During my test phase, I actually wanted to outsource parts of my work to the Lenovo laptop. Edit photos, for example, or create smaller animations. But Adobe’s “Creative Cloud” thwarts my plans: Neither After Effects nor Lightroom Classic are available for installation on the ARM platform and are also already blocked by the manufacturer.

Of the programs I use, only Photoshop has been optimized for ARM. The video editing program “Premiere Pro” at least runs in compatibility mode via Prism. So, in an old version, the latest one crashes during startup with an error message.

At least I was able to push the Lenovo to its limits using an old Premiere version. The Snapdragon

A similar picture if you want to play on the Lenovo: Some games can be started, others close as soon as they have to display more than one menu. Now the Lenovo Yoga Slim is not a gaming laptop either.

A second opinion confirmed my impression. Frank also currently uses an ARM-based laptop, but from Samsung. The programs he uses generally worked, but he couldn’t start the SoundSwitch tool, which he uses to control the sound sources under Windows.

Whether Lenovo will do it or not: Non-functioning software reflects poorly on the otherwise good performance of the laptop.

Microsoft’s AI tools: Copilot and Cocreator

It’s the year 2024, there has to be a product Definitely have AI features. This means that the laptop not only has the nickname “Copilot+ PC”, but also its own Copilot button with which you can immediately start Microsoft’s chatbot “Copilot”. Incidentally, this does not run on the local NPU, but on Microsoft’s servers.

Every Windows 11 user can try out for themselves how helpful they find Copilot. In my test, ChatGPT was definitely much more competent. When searching for a song whose name wasn’t entered, Copilot couldn’t help at all; ChatGPT only needed a query to find the song based on my description.

When writing a script for the Windows command line, Copilot commands were used, which are no longer supported and could not be convinced that the script would not work. ChatGPT created a functional script in the first attempt.

In contrast to Copilot, Cocreator, a new function in Microsoft’s classic Paint, runs on the local NPU. If advanced features such as the fill tool or font with shadows are not enough for you, you can use the Cocreator to run a generative AI locally over your own works.

The results always look artificial and something between blurred and sharpened. A function with which you can definitely have fun for 15 minutes.

Prices and availability

The 9th generation Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x launched with a model with 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage for almost 1,300 eurosThe version I have with 1 TB of storage and 32 GB of RAM costs just under 1,600 euros (RRP), but is now available cheaper. This means that the device is in direct competition with the MacBook Air in terms of price, even if Apple charges a higher price for comparable storage variants.

Speaking of memory variants: Internally, the Yoga does not rely on soldered memory. Instead, it is a short M.2 SSD. A subsequent memory expansion shouldn’t be a big challenge, even if we haven’t tested it.

Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x: Conclusion

The hardware of the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x is really well made: the keyboard and trackpad feel comfortable, the display is crisp and the battery life is a dream with 17 hours of video playback. And yet this laptop has an Achilles heel: Windows. While Apple has managed to successfully and as quietly as possible convert its own product lineup to ARM technology in recent years, there is a grinding problem in the Windows system.

Many standard programs work, but if you rely on special software, you have to check “somehow” beforehand whether it might or might not work. In my case, Adobe decided not to offer After Effects and Lightroom Classic for installation at all. Premiere Pro runs, but only in an old version, the latest one crashes with an error when starting.

I wouldn’t buy the Lenovo myself, but can I recommend it to others? Actually yesIf you’re looking for a light and compact laptop with a nice display, good performance and excellent battery life, but don’t use any special software, you’ll find what you’re looking for in the Yoga Slim 7x.

• Lightweight and compact laptop
• Long battery life
• Beautiful OLED display
• Software compatibility can be improved
• Few connections