Last year, through the Legion Y740Si, Lenovo managed to present the thinnest and lightest Legion variant. Well, repeating the success of the Legion Y740Si, Lenovo has now released the Legion Slim 7i. With a weight of only about 1.86 kg, this laptop has won the title of the lightest 15-inch gaming laptop in the world with the Nvidia GeForce RTX. Curious about how capable the Legion Slim 7i is? Check out the reviews as follows.
Lenovo Legion Slim 7i design
The design line of the Legion Slim 7i is still similar to that of the Legion 7i we reviewed earlier. This laptop still inherits the Legion’s distinctive minimalist style. With this appearance, the Legion Slim 7i is not only ideal for gamers, but also suitable for professionals to carry to work.
The most significant difference between the Legion Slim 7i and the Legion 7i is clearly in the dimensions. Apart from being lighter in weight, the thickness of the body which is around 17.99 mm is also thinner. With these dimensions, it makes it very easy to travel with.
One added value Lenovo also now provides an SD memory card reader slot which can be found on the left side of the body. It’s quite rare that today’s gaming laptops are equipped with an SD memory card reader slot. The presence of an SD memory card reader slot clearly makes it even more reliable for the needs of creative content.
Just like other Legion variants, there are several ports behind the body. On the back there are two USB 3.2 Gen2 ports and an AC port for power supply. On the right side of the body, there are two USB-C Thunderbolt 3 ports.
Lenovo Legion Slim 7i display
The Lenovo Legion Slim 7i carries a 15.6-inch IPS screen panel with Full HD resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels. The screen frame is quite thin with a webcam at the top of the screen. The webcam is also equipped with a cover feature to protect privacy when not in use.
To accommodate gaming activities, the screen panel supports a 144 Hz refresh rate. The colors displayed on the screen are also brilliant and accurate with the Adobe sRGB 100% color standard and Dolby Vision support. It is optimal for gaming, enjoying multimedia content to editing photos and videos.
Lenovo Legion Slim 7i keyboard
Shifting to the Legion Slim 7i keyboard area brings the Legion flagship TrueStrike Keyboard. The keyboard is also equipped with Corsair iCue RGB lighting which can be adjusted according to the user’s taste. In addition, there is a 100% Anti Ghosting feature for more responsive input.
Just like the other Legion lines, this keyboard is still very comfortable to use for typing or playing games. The trackpad it carries is also large and very responsive to a swipe of a finger. The trackpad left and right buttons are also very comfortable to press.
Audio Lenovo Legion Slim 7i
In the audio sector, this laptop carries a 2W x 2 speaker configuration with Dolby Atmos for gaming features. This feature provides various audio presets to optimize gaming. In fact, there are also presets for enjoying movie or music content. The audio performance is also quite satisfying. The resulting sound is quite powerful and clear.
Lenovo Legion Slim 7i Features
The features of the Lenovo Legion Slim 7i are still similar to other Legion variants. On this laptop, Lenovo also still includes a performance mode that can be accessed by pressing the FN + Q shortcut key. There are three options to choose from, namely Quiet, Balance, and Performance. For each mode, the indicator can be seen on the LED ring on the Power button, which changes color. In the power button, Lenovo has also embedded a fingerprint sensor feature that can be relied on as security.
Lenovo Vantage is still available. Through Lenovo Vantage gamers can monitor CPU, RAM, GPU to make a series of settings for this laptop more quickly and easily. Lenovo Vantage also provides a hybrid mode feature which, if active, will allow the laptop to automatically switch to the integrated gpu and disable Nvidia’s discrete gpu for more efficient power usage.
Also present is a conservation mode to limit battery charging to a certain percentage, a rapid charge feature to speed up battery recharging and a flip to start which allows the laptop to automatically start up when the laptop screen is opened without the need to press the power button.
Lenovo Legion Slim 7i performance
The specifications of the Lenovo Legion Slim 7i that we reviewed come with an Intel Core 10th Gen, Intel Core i7-10870H. The maximum supported RAM is 32GB with an onboard 16GB configuration and 16GB in one available RAM slot. So, gamers no longer need to bother spending extra for RAM upgrades.
For storage space gamers will be spoiled with M.2 2280 PCIe 3.0 × 4 NVMe SSD storage space with a capacity of 1TB. If it is not enough, Lenovo still provides an empty slot to add an SSD. So, even though the body is very slim, the storage space capacity can be huge. In the graphics sector, this laptop relies on an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 Max-Q 6GB GPU. The benchmark results are as follows:
From our tests, the specifications of the Lenovo Legion Slim 7i are indeed very powerful and reliable for various needs. Including for content creation needs such as editing photos, videos to 3D rendering. The RTX 2060 Max-Q GPU is also still able to provide satisfying AAA gaming performance. Some of the games we tested, such as Shadow of Tomb Raider, Metro Exodus and Death Stranding, played smoothly at the highest graphics quality.
Then what about the cooling system? the Legion Slim 7i cooling system still relies on the Legion Coldfront 2.0. When gaming we tried to activate the performance mode and tested the cooling system.
In this mode, the cooling fan is able to keep gaming performance stable and optimal. However, we feel a warm sensation that is quite excessive in the middle and upper keyboard area. The cooling fan performance is also relatively noisy.
Quite different from other Legion variants we’ve tried before where the entire keyboard area only feels very little warmth and the cooling fan is relatively quiet. But, we can understand this because it could be the impact of the body design which is indeed thinner. At least, for a gaming laptop with a thin body design, the Legion Coldfront 2.0 is still able to provide relatively good thermal management.
Lenovo Legion Slim 7i battery
To test the battery life of the Legion Slim 7i we activated the FN + Q Quiet performance mode, hybrid active mode, 30% screen brightness, enabled power saver mode in Windows Power Management and disabled the always on USB Charge feature and backlit keyboard. The use of laptops is only for productivity such as typing documents and browsing by connecting to WiFi. With this scheme the Legion Slim 7i can accompany us to work for about 6 hours. Reliable enough for mobility.
Conclusion
With powerful performance and a thin and light design, the Lenovo Legion Slim 7i is the right answer for gamers who have high mobility. The accurate display panel and the availability of a microSD slot also make it the most ideal Legion variant for content creation. Overall, the Lenovo Legion Slim 7i features are quite complete in its class. So, not only do we recommend it for laptop gamers, we also recommend it for content creators who need a thin but powerful gaming laptop.
Lenovo Legion Slim 7i Suitable for:
High mobility gamers : With its thin and light body design, this laptop is very easy to travel with.
Content Creator : Accurate screen, microSD slot, large storage space and powerful performance make this laptop very reliable for creative content. Thunderbolt 3 also enables use scenarios with an additional monitor.
Workers or professionals who still play the game : The minimalist, inconspicuous design is ideal to work with.
The advantages of the Lenovo Legion Slim 7i:
+ powerful performance
+ thin and light design
+ accurate screen panel
+ large SSD capacity
+ comfortable keyboard to use
+ thermal management is quite good for thin laptops
+ equipped with a microSD slot
Weaknesses of Lenovo Legion Slim 7i:
– Performance is a bit noisy
– No option with Intel Core 11th Gen or Nvidia RTX 3000 Series
Overview of the Lenovo Legion Slim 7i Specifications:
| OS | Windows 10 |
| Processor | Intel Core i7 10870H |
| RAM | Up to 32GB 3200MHz DDR4 memory |
| Graphics | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 Max-Q |
| Storage | 1TB PCIe SSD |
| Display | 15.6 inch FULL HD IPS, 144Hz, 300nits, 100% sRGB with Dolby Vision |
| Ports | Two USB-C 3.2 Four USB-A 3.2 HDMI 2.1 Ethernet 3.5mm audio |
| Audio | Dolby Atmos for gaming |
| Features | – Legion Coldfront 2.0 and TrueStrike Keyboard with RGB backlighting option – Fingerprint reader integrated in the power button – Webcam with physical shutter – Lenovo Vantage Software and Fn + Q for power management |
