NotebookCHECK - Notebook Forum

Is the AMD version review coming?

I actually have this laptop infront of me right now but the AMD one.

The battery life is abit disappointing (5-7 hours using 80% brightness / WiFi on - depending what you're doing). But I guess it's to be expected when pushing a 3k panel @ 120hz.

And yeh, people aren't kidding when they said the speakers lacked bass. Feels like my phone speakers have more punch to them.

Other than that, wish the trackpad wasn't slightly offset to the left and centred exactly. The display could be slightly brighter aswell (guess we are used to 1100+ nit oled phone displays so feels on the dimmer side)

Overall, I feel if you can find this laptop on sale, for the right price, it is a solid choice. Even tho I've mostly mentioned about the negatives, there is a lot to like here. The build quality is exceptional and I love the keyboard. Under lighter loads, it stays quite cool and the fan barely makes any noise. Even when it does come on, it's not annoying at all and quite silent. The WiFi 6E mediatek card under windows usage has been relatively fast and stable performing for me.

Review notes:
1. Lenovo lies in psref (psref.lenovo.com/Detail/Yoga/Yoga_Slim_7_ProX_14IAH7?M=82TK006CGE) about the speed of the RAM - LPDDR5 6000 is declared, but in fact 5200 (2600x2) according to CPU-Z data.
2. Autor writes about HDMI 2.1, but according to psref, only HDMI 2.0 is output there (despite the fact that 3050 is exactly from 2.1). His check it in reallity?

Now about the laptop itself.
In the beginning about the good:
The memory, despite the lower speed in fact than stated in psref, gives out just wonderful throughput speed (although this is not enough in reality even for the 5200) against the background of other laptops. This is a champion among laptops (especially in this class) in terms of memory speed, which was immediately proved to us by the AID64 CPU PhotoWorxx test - probably the top result of 52Mpixels/s. Although the latency could have been reduced. But still a great result with over 80Gb/s on average.

Now for the cons:
The laptop screen is disgusting. Not only is it glare, but it does not even reach 2000:1, which is almost the norm for glossy IPS panels today in the best solutions (and cheapest smatphones). But this is a trifle against the background of poor color space in only 92% sRGB and a completely fake "120Hz", which in reality cannot even manage to render 50Hz in the most difficult cases. Hence the disruptions of synchronization on YouTube at 4k@60fps, in addition to the monstrous latency of the system.

And a really bad deal with the exhaust of the laptop on this fake "120Hz" panel. The temperature exceeds 50C under load, which almost certainly under such a long load can lead to its failure, because. in modern panels, the limiting max working temperature has already dropped to 50C by datasheets...

Judging by the author's review, the laptop in reality will get the owner under an impulse load with sharp howls of coolers.

Well, to top it off, a completely unusable power supply unit of only 100W. Despite the fact that only one 12700H requires 115W in a turbo mode(PL2) for fast "office"/imulpse response, not counting the other hardware inside laptop. There should definitely be a compact 150W GaN PSU here.

Well, a weak battery completes the picturesque picture - the laptop is definitely not enough for a working day and even for 6 hours of real surfing and working with something.

It turns out that a certain thing in itself is not clearly aimed at whom...

Well, according to psref, the 1-year warranty, as it were, hints that Lenovo a priori does not consider this model reliable for long-term use and frequent carrying...

In Europe, this model in this configuration can be bought for about 1150-1200 euros. Which is generally not bad, but it makes little sense, because it doesn't do the basic function of an ultrabook - full working day time in a typical load. And people sensitive to noise, it is clearly better to bypass it, although the performance of the processor and memory here is impressive for 14".

Apparently 14.x inch laptops are considered "subnotebooks" now?

Apparently, there's a fix for the audio here:

www(dot)Reddit(dot)com/r/Lenovo/comments/r5c7my/how_to_greatly_improve_the_audio_on_lenovo/

Not sure if the author of this review still has the laptop, but if so would be interesting seeing the speaker section of this article re-evaluated with the above changes.

Maybe going forward all Lenovo laptop reviews should be tested with above setting if aren't already.

Only an external DAC+amplifier (from 300mW@600 Ohm headphones, with 110dB SNR/0.001% THD-N/<-80dB crosstalk. i.e. real class A for headphone amplifier) gives a really sharp improvement in sound quality to headphones via an optical channel with galvanic isolation from the laptop's power circuits. And to do it for a long time is elementary. My old laptop from 2008 has this output combined with an analog headphone audio output. An adapter for use with a regular optical spdif cable on such a plug costs a penny on Ali.

Why no one makes an optical spdif output in 2022 (except for the top versions of some laptops today) and at least 1 audio output on the left and the second on the right - as a reserved/backup port (and it useful for right-handled and left-handled) and for quickly creating a quad system of two pairs of active speakers, I don't understand.

can you please confirm if its Intel evo certified? The ads show that it is whereas the website doesn't say the same. Does this have all the Intel evo features?

How's the boot and shutdown timing? Is it below 10 seconds? This is something that you should include in your reviews.

Quote from: Nithin Sastry Tellapuri on December 10, 2022, 05:23:19can you please confirm if its Intel evo certified? The ads show that it is whereas the website doesn't say the same. Does this have all the Intel evo features?

How's the boot and shutdown timing? Is it below 10 seconds? This is something that you should include in your reviews.

They never even check the real bandwidth of the ports. And for example, in most laptops, where an HDMI 2.1 port is allegedly declared, often an outdated 2.0b or at best 24Gb/s is hidden under this nameplate 2.1, i.e. 1/2 of a full port 2.1. Exactly the same as with Display Port 2.0. And all USB ports also need to be checked for compliance with the standard. Including maximum current.

A complete and thorough study requires a powerful laboratory with a lot of equipment worth money. Obviously, you can keep such no more than 2-3 for small company. With constant updating and calibration of high-precision testing equipment. And there you need to bring all models of laptops purchased in random order. And even this is not enough - each model needs to be rechecked once every 1-2 quarters, because all manufacturers defame the quality of the goods, deliberately supplying in the first batches (when there are a lot of first reviews that everyone is guided by) the best quality component goods. And then they drastically lower the quality or deliberately dilute the batches with components of several times worse quality in different proportions, thus ensuring the minimum required margin level in the batches, because if you sell only high-quality components in goods, this margin level is not provided.

The simplest example is an SSD. At the beginning, there are expensive components, a controller, nand chips, and then, in the next batches, the controller is installed much cheaper, with a lower clock frequency and cheaper nand chips in worst grade by the number of cycles and self-discharge rate, plus more defects, also operating at a lower frequency. For example, the "twin" series from HP and A-Data - 950Ex and 8200. At the beginning of sales, the sustained write speed in the first batches outside the SLC cache was more than 500Mb/s, now it has dropped to ~250, because everything is cheaper, but not a word is fraudulently said to the consumer about this in datasheet or a clear change in the product code (and most often such business behavior is even punishable in most countries of the world).  As a result, naive consumers read reviews of SSD from the first batches, where everything is made on much higher-performance components, and in retail lots with much cheaper and slower components are already sold everywhere in subsequent batches, after 1-2 quarters. This is a disgusting tactic of modern business, but it is who is used without a twinge of conscience - everywhere.

In smartphones, the same Chinese manufacturers, including Xiaomi, are constantly engaged in such forgery – changing class of component the filling to a cheaper one in 85-90% of batches, leaving about 10-15% of quality in batches, in order to ensure the necessary level of profit, otherwise they will just crash into the pipe.

This leads to the need to check several random copies in batches at once and new batches at least once every 2 quarters. And this site and all the others check at best ONE copy ONE time for the entire time of its production. What is the point of such reviews for buyers if they do not immediately buy the product in the first batches? Now do you understand why some of the more experienced buyers, just like in some totalitarian country like the USSR, line up in the West to buy the first batches of goods? They already know that subsequent batches are definitely not worth the money in terms of quality. Some flaws can indeed be corrected in subsequent batches, but the overall quality inevitably falls quietly for buyers - because otherwise the planned margin level for the manufacturer cannot be achieved.

And who is the rich Pinocchio who, without the help of manufacturers and society, will do this reviews with high quality check all features of goods and with the necessary frequency of rechecking batches to keep the reviews up to date (and on condition that you trust their author and company)?

High-quality, on a regular basis (rechecking) examination of the goods costs a lot of money. Maintaining multiple industrial evaluation labs with state of the art testing equipment is required to test the latest products. Often even high-quality test equipment is not available for this. it is deliberately blocked in free sale by workshop collusion or it does not exist at all, and all that remains is to believe the manufacturers, or rather their marketers at their word ...

And the truth about the product begins to become clear gradually from the mass of negative reviews (since positive reviews are often written by illiterate inhabitants and most often do not carry any practical benefit, with rare exceptions) on forums, which, moreover, are also monitored by special departments of manufacturers and sent there employees deliberately write laudatory fake reviews about their company's product and negative ones about someone else's products, which makes it even more difficult to find honest and adequate reviews from real buyers of a new product, and especially such reviews outside the first batches...

RAM is single channel, for both 16GB and 32GB variants. And also for AMD variants.

Good thing is they are 6400MHz.

Nevermind, even making such changes to the Dolby digital audio, the sound from the speakers still isn't great.

There is a fix for poor battery life tho. If you just put it in battery saver mode, you can easily get 8-9 hours out of it. Unsure how much this effects or limits the GPU wattage for gaming on battery tho.

Been recently testing heavier applications and games. If you disable CPU turbo boost (something you should do to keep noise and heat at reasonable levels on all laptops), it really isn't too noisey. Mostly thanks to 6800hs CPU/APU which is impressive.

Only real complaint I've is wish it was lighter, had better speakers and oled display (once you go oled, it's hard going back to IPS)

Not sure what pcie gen 4 SSDs Lenovo uses on this but they're blazing fast. Installing stuff is so quick. And app loading/resuming from background is extremely responsive thanks to fast 6400 MHz LPDDR5 ram.

So far had zero system crashes or had to reboot even once. Extremely stable system. System resume from sleep works flawlessly. It also loses very little battery in standby. I think I left it at 90-something% and after a week, didn't use it, was only 86%.

The screen on this is slow tho, doesn't have the fastest response times (grey 2 grey, etc). Hope they improve this next gen aswell.

Will notebookcheck be reviewing flow x13 2022 model? That's another quite similar alternative to this.

Quote from: An update! (AMD version) on December 10, 2022, 23:04:00and oled display (once you go oled, it's hard going back to IPS)

Easy, because eyes on OLED will immediately leak from the low-frequency flicker.

And in the same place where it was suppressed through DC Dimming, the color rendition was not even close in accuracy to IPS, which is proved by all local reviews. Plus, the resource of LEDs is sharply less in hours than that of the IPS backlight, 1.5 times. Plus, poor color accuracy of dark shades and a narrow dynamic range with DC Dimming scheme with banding on gradients. And also the absence of "infinite" black with a contrast that has fallen 100 times.

And to put the final nail in the coffin of AMOLEDs - they are always glossy, which is the most tiring sight.

Only one thing is good about OLEDs - super fast response times better than "fast" IPS, and in some cases, viewing angles.

Super black (also known as supercontrast), which always comes with a vile low-frequency flicker, makes sense only in complete darkness, while IPS wins in the light, especially on a white background.

So no - laptops do not need glossy panels with low-frequency pwm for the sake of super response and super black, which is needed only in complete darkness.

Movies should be watched on a projector because size matters, so there is no need for super black on laptops, but 1500:1 is enough with good IPS but without flicker and with a matte panel.

Yes, the low pwm flicking is very annoying.

Not sure what the ideal solution is.

All I know is the majority of laptop displays are light years behind the tech that's use phones, tablets and even some TV's these days.

Perhaps miniLED is the way to go. Hope more OEMs transition to this tech soon and it becomes more widely available for mainstream adoption.

People don't work on smartphones. At least adequate people do not look at the screen of an AMOLED smartphone for hours. People work for hours on laptops - this changes everything radically.

Current attempts to eliminate flicker on AMOLED laptops are immediately ruining their most vaunted advantage of "infinite" contrast and super black. Plus poor color depth and color reproduction with dc dimming scheme. Plus, their resource is always 1.5 or more times lower than that of IPS backlights. Which will lead to the need to change the screen after 3-4 years. Even the best AMOLED options, as local reviews show, are calibrated much worse in hardware than IPS, and moreover, AMOLED calibration floats much faster. Plus, their color resolution is often lower than that of IPS.

Today they can be used only in extremely narrow areas. For home and work, AMOLED screens should be avoided in every possible way, especially for children who are just developing the nervous system.

miniLED is complete bullshit even with 4000 zones. Halos around the letters on the borders of the zones are not removable. The only hope for microLED, but there will most likely also be flickering and glossy matrix - and then there is no point in them either.

As IPS was the best option for the eyes, it remained 20 years later ..

The main thing is that the contrast should be from 1500:1, all shades are visible, including dark ones, good real viewing angles from 178/178, in terms of contrast and brightness and the response time for B2W/G2G is no more than 10ms. Such panels are worth taking. But they are few and expensive. There is a shortage of quality IPS panels on the planet, like everything else.

Does anyone know if the limited performance on battery, is like a Lenovo thing or specific to this model thing or windows 11 or ryzen 6000 thing? It's especially bad on ryzen 6000 models.

After some further testing, I've discovered or come to realise that it does indeed quite seem to quite severely limit performance while on battery. Doesn't matter if on battery saver or balanced profile.

Even lighter games seem to lag and installing larger apps take a lot longer than when connected to charger.

I wonder if there any laptops that do better in this regard. (Besides M1 MacBooks I am unaware if there are any windows laptops that can run full power or close to it, while on battery alone)

Quote from: NikoB on December 11, 2022, 11:41:58The main thing is that the contrast should be from 1500:1, all shades are visible, including dark ones, good real viewing angles from 178/178, in terms of contrast and brightness and the response time for B2W/G2G is no more than 10ms.

Are there any laptops with a display which meets such a criteria?

psref.lenovo.com/Product/ThinkPad/ThinkPad_X1_Extreme_Gen_5
1500:1, but only 170/170 (it very bad) and only 60Hz. Real contrast measured in review  only 1360:1, not 1500:1+

Look in the reviews for models that have managed to surpass all 5 key parameters. The search for the holy grail is endless when technologies are slowly improved or deliberately not introduced to the masses, and instead of the best versions of IPS, people are offered OLED with glare, flicker and color rendering problems and much less resource (i.e. they are also expensive to maintain). Or without flicker, but with a lower color depth and poor color accuracy and a sharp drop in contrast, although it is still many times better than on the best IPS. Alas, this is the current level of technology - science and production today cannot provide a mass production 100$-150$ flicker free screens with a contrast from 1500:1, matte and a response of no more than 10ms b2w/g2g, high uniformity of white and black (without backlit bleeding with 95%+ stability), viewing angles from 178/178 with less than 2 times the drop in brightness/contrast, resolution from 4k, brightness from 500 nits and a resource (up to 75% brightness) from 15k hours.

Keep searching...

The backlight uniformity in the tests is shocking and I'm surprised it wasn't commented on - 436 at the top of the screen and 372 at the bottom?! No matter how well you calibrate that, it's not going to be a useful display for colour-sensitive work.