Lenovo Legion Slim 7 16 gaming laptop in review: Convincing even with AMD Ryzen

[Redaktion]

Lenovo's Legion Slim 7 is a stylish and light 16-inch gaming laptop. Find out how the AMD version compares to the Intel rival during our test.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-Legion-Slim-7-16-gaming-laptop-in-review-Convincing-even-with-AMD-Ryzen.765570.0.html

[radpilot]

Wow that's a huge idle battery consumption. Something is not well tuned, maybe after a Bios update it will get normal.

[LL]

No RJ45.

[NikoB]

The author was lazy and did not even open the case and did NOT even read the psref for the series - psref.lenovo.com/Product/Legion/Legion_Slim_7_16APH8 which clearly states that there are 2 ddr5 slots and there cannot be any soldered memory.

The price is wildly overpriced. We sell these for 500-600 euros cheaper and still there is no demand from buyers.

Why there is no demand - obviously - the laptop is not a "gaming" laptop - it can no longer handle the 2022/2023 releases even in High fhd settings, which is clearly visible from the review, not to mention the native resolution of 2.5k, where fps drops to shameful levels. And the notorious DLSS, which some "smart guys" constantly point out, does not work in all games. Moreover, this is a crutch - designed to hide the unsightly fact for incompetent ordinary buyers - that 4060/4070 is NOT enough for modern games, especially 2023 releases in native 2.5k - where, to the shame of NVidia, with a monster tdp they cannot even pull out 60fps with high-quality settings graphics for games 2023. Don't forget that games already require more than 8GB of VRAM! The minimum volume for today is 16GB VRAM, not poor 8GB.

The screen, as usual, is mediocre(for this price level) 100% sRGB without DCI-P3 95%+ and of course not compatible with HDR content, even with the cheapest HDR600 option (HDR400 is a pure deception and a fake for suckers). 4k@120Hz it would be much better for both work and entertainment. Always clear fonts and always perfect looking graphics, but not with this 2.5k screen, which will always be cloudy picture in 4k and fhd resolution on the same YouTube and in another video 4k/fhd content.

The noise is monstrous and the overheating is so strong that the keyboard area heats up to 50C. This means that this series CANNOT be used with the screen cover closed in games - the screen panel can quickly fail, because its critical temperature is 50C.

Otherwise, nothing special - Lenovo has produced a lot of technically poor series (for example, in this one, due to its own stupid greed, the 2 ports built into the SoC 7840 - USB40 are not included) and is trying to sell them at completely inflated prices.

Moreover, Lenovo lied in its own psref - at the beginning it writes one thing:

Code Select Expand

Monitor Support
Supports up to 4 independent displays (native display and 3 external monitors via HDMI® and USB-C®)
[b]• HDMI supports up to 4K@60Hz[/b]
• USB-C supports up to 4K@60Hz

And then the exact opposite below in psref:

Code Select Expand

[b]1x HDMI 2.1, up to 8K/60Hz[/b]
So where is the truth, Lenovo marketers?

Let me remind you that both the 7840HS and 4060 natively support HDMI 2.1 48Gbps. Which does NOT support 8k@60fps in monitor lossless mode. It possible only with DSC lossy compression. But full version of HDMI 2.1 (48Gbps) supports 4k@165Hz with 30 bit color lossless. But this is not written in psref for all series Lenovo...

From an expert's point of view, Lenovo's psref data looks technically illiterate.

Who wants at least a powerful processor (literally more than 2 times) - it's easier to order a 7945HX+4060 from China for a much lower price. Moreover, this one will be Legion 5 Pro, albeit completely plastic, after Lenovo's downgrade in 2023, compared to the 2021-2022 models. And of course also without USB40/TB4.

For such a price and for such hardware with such shortcomings, the buyer has the right to expect a 32GB/4TB SSD or 64GB/2TB SSD out of the box, or as in this variant in review but with a 3-year On-Site warranty.

And yes, it series not have RJ45 cable stable network and minimum 2.5Gbps for 2023.

Possible for purchase at a price of around $1100-1250 for this config from review, no more, because...cpu and dgpu performance is too low for 2023 and there are many shortcomings in the rest.

[LyntonB]

"even with Ryzen..."  urrmmm Ryzen Phoenix is superior to Intel for mobile/laptop

[carmaster]

33W idle comsumption?

How is it that other reviews, even including your own, have the idle consumption of the 7840HS at 10~15 Watts? Cleary the laptop you tested either had something wrong with or was not fully updated.

[Mr Majestyk]

Why the heck does a so called gaming laptop not use AMD's gaming APU, the dragon range? Why would anyone buy a Phoenix based laptop if they are into gaming.

[Russel]

The author was lazy and did not even open the case and did NOT even read the psref for the series - psref.lenovo.com/Product/Legion/Legion_Slim_7_16APH8 which clearly states that there are 2 ddr5 slots and there cannot be any soldered memory.

The price is wildly overpriced. We sell these for 500-600 euros cheaper and still there is no demand from buyers.

Why there is no demand - obviously - the laptop is not a "gaming" laptop - it can no longer handle the 2022/2023 releases even in High fhd settings, which is clearly visible from the review, not to mention the native resolution of 2.5k, where fps drops to shameful levels. And the notorious DLSS, which some "smart guys" constantly point out, does not work in all games. Moreover, this is a crutch - designed to hide the unsightly fact for incompetent ordinary buyers - that 4060/4070 is NOT enough for modern games, especially 2023 releases in native 2.5k - where, to the shame of NVidia, with a monster tdp they cannot even pull out 60fps with high-quality settings graphics for games 2023. Don't forget that games already require more than 8GB of VRAM! The minimum volume for today is 16GB VRAM, not poor 8GB.

The screen, as usual, is mediocre(for this price level) 100% sRGB without DCI-P3 95%+ and of course not compatible with HDR content, even with the cheapest HDR600 option (HDR400 is a pure deception and a fake for suckers). 4k@120Hz it would be much better for both work and entertainment. Always clear fonts and always perfect looking graphics, but not with this 2.5k screen, which will always be cloudy picture in 4k and fhd resolution on the same YouTube and in another video 4k/fhd content.

The noise is monstrous and the overheating is so strong that the keyboard area heats up to 50C. This means that this series CANNOT be used with the screen cover closed in games - the screen panel can quickly fail, because its critical temperature is 50C.

Otherwise, nothing special - Lenovo has produced a lot of technically poor series (for example, in this one, due to its own stupid greed, the 2 ports built into the SoC 7840 - USB40 are not included) and is trying to sell them at completely inflated prices.

Moreover, Lenovo lied in its own psref - at the beginning it writes one thing:

Code Select Expand

Monitor Support
Supports up to 4 independent displays (native display and 3 external monitors via HDMI® and USB-C®)
[b]• HDMI supports up to 4K@60Hz[/b]
• USB-C supports up to 4K@60Hz

And then the exact opposite below in psref:

Code Select Expand

[b]1x HDMI 2.1, up to 8K/60Hz[/b]
So where is the truth, Lenovo marketers?

Let me remind you that both the 7840HS and 4060 natively support HDMI 2.1 48Gbps. Which does NOT support 8k@60fps in monitor lossless mode. It possible only with DSC lossy compression. But full version of HDMI 2.1 (48Gbps) supports 4k@165Hz with 30 bit color lossless. But this is not written in psref for all series Lenovo...

From an expert's point of view, Lenovo's psref data looks technically illiterate.

Who wants at least a powerful processor (literally more than 2 times) - it's easier to order a 7945HX+4060 from China for a much lower price. Moreover, this one will be Legion 5 Pro, albeit completely plastic, after Lenovo's downgrade in 2023, compared to the 2021-2022 models. And of course also without USB40/TB4.

For such a price and for such hardware with such shortcomings, the buyer has the right to expect a 32GB/4TB SSD or 64GB/2TB SSD out of the box, or as in this variant in review but with a 3-year On-Site warranty.

And yes, it series not have RJ45 cable stable network and minimum 2.5Gbps for 2023.

Possible for purchase at a price of around $1100-1250 for this config from review, no more, because...cpu and dgpu performance is too low for 2023 and there are many shortcomings in the rest.

psref.lenovo.com/Product/Legion/Legion_Slim_7_16APH8 shows 16 soldered for me when I check it.
😐.
Please check it again to see if it changed for you as well.
Slim 7 has been like this (one stick soldered) since before it became 16". So I was hoping that it'd change since slim 5 has no soldered memory.

[Russel]

Wow that's a huge idle battery consumption. Something is not well tuned, maybe after a Bios update it will get normal.

Thought the same with the 6800h. You wouldn't see any miraculous improvement in battery life😂

[NikoB]

Sorry, I mixed up 5 series and 7.

It's a shame for Lenovo - the 5 series has support for 256GB of RAM in dual-channel mode (2 slots 5600), and the 7(!) only 32 (16+16 max).

Also, the 5 series has USB-C ports, funny enough, they support higher resolutions.

Lenovo marketers are disgracing the company.

Стоит ли ради металлического корпуса, который в целом бессмыслен в этой серии и RGB подсветки каждой кнопки клавиатуры - покупать 7 серию? Я не думаю, что оно того стоит.

[Russel]

Sorry, I mixed up 5 series and 7.

It's a shame for Lenovo - the 5 series has support for 256GB of RAM in dual-channel mode (2 slots 5600), and the 7(!) only 32 (16+16 max).

Also, the 5 series has USB-C ports, funny enough, they support higher resolutions.

Lenovo marketers are disgracing the company.

Стоит ли ради металлического корпуса, который в целом бессмыслен в этой серии и RGB подсветки каждой кнопки клавиатуры - покупать 7 серию? Я не думаю, что оно того стоит.

Dang. So it's really the same everywhere.

It gets even weirder with the introduction of the 14" slim 5. 😂.


It used to be somewhat reasonable with just the legion 5, slim 7, legion 5 pro and legion 7.
Now it's plain confusing.
😂

[Corbolomo]

No one pays $1750 USD for these. You can get it for $1300 on Lenovo's website right now. Technically a sale, but it's Lenovo... they're always on sale and it's been closer to $1300 than $1750 since release.

[NikoB]

No one pays $1750 USD for these. You can get it for $1300 on Lenovo's website right now. Technically a sale, but it's Lenovo... they're always on sale and it's been closer to $1300 than $1750 since release.

I wrote above that in the config that is indicated in the review, the red price for it is $1100-1250. It is no better than Slim 5, and in fact it is worse in terms of upgrades and much worse.

Buyers are gradually getting wiser, as I notice, and do not want to limit themselves at the end of 2023 to a measly 32GB (28-29GB after the system starts) for the future if they buy a laptop for 3-5 years, as usual. And sometimes for 5-7 years. Accordingly, few people need a metal case (bottom) and RGB backlighting of each keyboard button in practice in "gaming" hardware, only if someone doesn't need it critically (and who needs it?).

Therefore, in reality, prices for Slim 7 2023 will soon become lower than for Slim 5 2023, which has 2 slots up to 256GB (128+128 in future), stable RJ45 connect to Ethernet and even USB-C ports officially(!) support higher resolution.

Previously, the exact same situation was with Slim 7 2021 - their prices, due to the idiotic inability to expand memory above 16GB in dual-channel mode (8GB soldered in mass models), very quickly fell below the price of L5Pro 2021, where 64GB could be installed.

[NikoB]

The same thing happened with the even more idiotic Lenovo 2022 L7 Slim series. It is also extremely unpopular.

[NikoB]

Lenovo needs to stop doing garbage with a bunch of useless series and focus on 2-3 decent working series of universal 18" models with 16:10 4k@120Hz LG Black IPS (1800:1+) screens, necessarily with A-TW polarizers ( elimination of Glow highlights) without a discrete video card or with entry-level video cards of the 4050/4060 level. They are the most popular among buyers looking for universal solutions for home and work, as a replacement for a stationary PC. Because even 18" is easy to drag around rooms and, if necessary, , but rarely, take you somewhere. And working for them is much more comfortable because... fits on the screen with a normal text size much more information than 16". Naturally, weight should no longer be decisive here - the most quiet cooling system is important for an average workload. Many ports, conveniently located on the back and sides closer to the rear edge and versatility for right-handed people and left-handers on ports such as the audio port (it should be on both the left and right).

Plus an excellent classic keyboard in terms of the size of the buttons (both height and width) and the distance between them with a key travel of at least 1.8mm and elastic feedback, like on good desktop ones.

This is the secret of success - to make a reliable 18" line of universal laptops with a good 3-year warranty. They will be bought en masse, including for company offices.

Something tells me that LG will make such a line faster than Lenovo, because LG(and probably ASUS) is clearly moving towards the goal faster...