A New Favorite? Yoga Slim 7i Aura Edition (Lunar Lake) Review

Introduction

You may have seen our recently published video which was a long-term review of Lenovo’s Slim 7x. It is a stunning, light-weight, premium laptop with excellent battery life and lots of power, but it ended up just falling short. We found its trackpad felt cheap, it had woeful port selection, and a lot of applications wouldn’t run due to its Snapdragon processor that utilizes Windows on ARM. Well, Lenovo just came out with a new Slim 7: the Slim 7i Aura Edition. Luckily, it solves all the issues we had with the 7x. In fact, this is now Josh's favorite thin and light laptop with a large screen.

It has Intel’s brand-new Lunar Lake processor inside, which brings with it many benefits including broad application support as it runs the traditional x86 Windows version. It also boasts no heat and fan noise, long battery life, a super comfortable keyboard, a great display, and ample ports. It even has an improved trackpad over the Slim 7x. That being said, as you are about to see, it's not perfect.

Here are some quick Pros and Cons before we get into the meat of it.

Pros and Cons

Chassis: Lightweight with a Bland Appearance

We're going to start with its look and feel, as that’s the first thing you’ll notice. The Aura’s Luna Grey color makes it look boring, like it's any old laptop. This is especially unfortunate as the Slim 7x is a very sexy-looking device in comparison. It has this stylish dark blue color and nice feeling finish, which the Aura does not. When it comes to portability, the Aura is very light for a laptop with a large 15.3 inch display. It weighs only 3.4 pounds. This is a little heavier than the MacBook Air 15’s 3.3. Even though the Aura is very light for its size, we personally found the smaller Slim 7x felt noticeably more comfortable to carry around. It is a smaller laptop with a 14.5inch display, so it is lighter at 2.8 pounds. It’s also a hair thinner than the Aura. This is the same with the MacBook Air 15, which is significantly thinner. This makes both of those laptops easier to pick up and carry around than the Aura. And on that note, I do have one annoyance to share. When you do grab the Aura, you’ll need to be very careful not to grab it on the right side of the laptop where the power button is. It’s really easy to accidentally mispress. It only puts the laptop to sleep and does not turn it off completely, but it’s still a stupid place to put such a button.

Display: Bright, High Refresh Rate

Now when using the Slim 7i Aura, you’ll notice that its hinge is too tight to open with one hand, which is something that you can do easily on the Slim 7x and MacBook Air. But, once you do get the Aura open, you’ll see something a tad disappointing. Right now, in the U.S., the Aura only comes with an IPS panel. It’s not a bad panel by any means, it’s got a high resolution of 2880 by 1800, it gets bright at 500 nits, it’s got a wide color gamut, and it has a 120Hz refresh rate. It even supports touch. But after having used the Slim 7x right before this one, we definitely noticed that its OLED panel is better than this one. That laptop’s display is just more vibrant with true blacks and significantly higher contrast.

Now, on the flip side, we have heard rumors that the Aura will be available with an OLED screen in some regions. But, it may be a cheaper OLED panel than the one in the 7x. It will be more similar to the OLED panels found in Asus and HP laptops. These don’t get much brighter than 400 nits for standard definition content, and many of them suffer from a screen door effect. A screen door effect is when you can see colored pixels peeping through white or light-colored content. These are of course rumors, so we are unsure if that will happen on the Aura’s OLED panel. Moral of the story, the Slim 7i Aura Edition has a great IPS screen but if you want the best OLED panel out there the Slim 7x is the way to go.

Keyboard: Excellent with a (Mostly) Standard Layout

Next, let’s talk about the keyboard. It’s excellent and feels great to type on. Clicky but not crazy loud like most clicky keyboards we’ve tried. We are pretty sure that the Aura and the Slim 7x both use the same physical keyboard. They both have the same layout, which is standard so no mispressing keys, well other than perhaps the CoPilot key. And, both have the same 1.5 mm of key travel. Where they differ seems to be the coating used on the keys themselves. The Slim 7x’s coating feels more premium, but it’s a little slippery compared to the more matte feel of the Aura’s keys. Typing on the Slim 7x’s version of this keyboard feels a bit more aggressive, almost like a mechanical one, whereas typing on the Aura’s keyboard feels more soft to the touch.

Trackpad: Solid, Accurate, Mechanical

We are very pleased to report the trackpad of the Aura is a step up from the Slim 7x. It is still a mechanical one, but its click is thankfully quieter. And, gliding your finger across the Aura’s trackpad isn’t as slippery as the Slim 7x’s, which means Josh found himself being more accurate on the Aura.

Ports: a Good Selection

We were relieved to see that the Aura has a decent port selection versus the limited ones on the 7x, which only has 3 USB-C ports and doesn’t even have a headphone mic combo jack. On the Aura, you’ve got 1 USB-A port, an HDMI 2.1 port, and you do have a headphone/mic combo jack. You lose 1 USB-C port compared to the 7x, but we think it’s 2 is enough especially considering they can be found on both sides. They both support Thunderbolt speeds and charging, which is nice to see. This laptop also supports a super fast charging feature like the Slim 7x.

Speakers: Subpar

The speakers on this laptop are really subpar for a laptop at this price point. The Zenbook 14 S with Lunar Lake and Apple’s MacBook Air both have significantly better ones. Music sounded rather bass heavy but other frequencies sounded muffled.

Performance: Awesome Single-Core and Graphics; Poor Multi-Core

When it comes to Performance we released a detailed video on these new Lunar Lake processors. So, if you want more details, check out that video we've linked here. Here are the highlights.

These new Lunar Lake laptops have excellent single-core performance, which makes most tasks you do on them feel snappy. This is helped by faster on-chip memory. I found basic things like browsing the web, working on office documents and the like, all felt very snappy.

Cinebench Results, single and multi-core

When it comes to graphics, these processors have excellent integrated graphics. This will allow you to get some solid frame rates in less demanding games, and even give you a taste of more intensive ones. Josh played a couple rounds of League of Legends on this laptop and found that he was able to run the game at the screen’s native high resolution, with highest in game settings, and was able to get well over 60 fps out of it at all times. Taylor even tried video editing on this laptop and found it to be a good experience, as long as your project is reasonably simple.

Wildlife Extreme Results

Where these laptops do not do well is in multi-core CPU performance. All these Lunar Lake laptops only have 8 cores. 4 performance and 4 efficient, and they no longer have simultaneous multi-threading. This results in this laptop performing worse in multi-core than laptops with a Snapdragon X Elite chip and AMD’s Zen 5 processors. It even performs worse in multi core than some older laptops with Intel’s prior Meteor Lake chips.

That being said, the Aura is fed 30 watts of power, which is 5 watts more than the Zenbook S 14 we tested with the same processor. That does allow the Aura to perform a little better than that laptop. So that is a minor positive.

Power Draw during Cinebench

In the real world, this is enough multi-core performance to handle multi-tasking, like switching browser tabs or between office applications. In fact, even some more intensive tasks like coding will be fine on this laptop. Once again, so long as the projects you are working on are simple. On the other hand, for applications that can take advantage of a higher core count, or if you are working on more complex projects, this laptop is going to significantly lag behind its competitors.

Heat and Fan Noise: Cool and Quiet

Back on the positives, one great thing about the Aura is how quiet it is and how cool it feels under any use case. Throughout my day I rarely heard the fans going, and when I did they were extremely quiet. The laptop also felt cold to the touch. Even when gaming, the fans were only lightly audible, and the laptop still didn’t get warm. Heck, we ran a torture test playing Cinebench on a loop for 10 minutes on the laptop’s highest performance mode. It still remained cool to the touch and its fan noise was reasonable compared to its competitors.

Heat You Feel during Cinebench

Battery Life: Solid Longevity

Battery life on this laptop is pretty good but it doesn’t quite reach the ridiculous heights of our other Lunar Lake laptop the Zenbook S 14. For light use on battery this laptop came in behind that one but is still towards the top of the pack.

Video Playback Rundown

When running performance tasks on battery, this laptop didn’t do that well. The higher power fed to the Lunar Lake processor in this laptop plus its smaller battery and large screen are probably the culprits. It does at least maintain its performance while on battery, though.

Cinebench 30 Min Battery Test

Upgradeability: SSD, but not Memory

Now, with all these new Lunar Lake laptops Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4, and memory are all included in the chipset. So, they aren’t upgradeable, but the SSD is.

Comparisons

Since there are so many laptops out right now, and it could get confusing working out, which to choose, we're going to take a moment to share our thoughts on how the Aura stacks up versus its competitors.

VS the Zenbook S 14 (Lunar Lake)

Versus the Zenbook S 14 with Lunar Lake, we'd personally get the Aura. It’s a more premium machine in areas that matter most, like its keyboard. And, even though it has an IPS panel vs the Zenbook’s OLED, the Aura's is a better panel for more environments as it gets brighter.

VS Larger Laptops with Snapdragon Processors

Compared to large screen laptops with Snapdragon processors like the Surface Laptop 15, I think that the Aura will be better for the majority of buyers. These new Intel processors have broader application support as they use traditional x86 Windows architecture. Many specialist applications and games just don’t run on Snapdragon hardware. We feel that the faster multi-core speeds of the Snapdragon laptops are overshadowed by the compatibility issues, their slower single-core performance, and poorer graphics performance.

That being said, we're not saying Snapdragon laptops are dead. Absolutely not. They are still very competitive for smaller laptops at around the $1,200 price point. In this range, there aren’t really any top-notch Lunar Lake laptops out right now. Certainly, none that are as good all round as the Surface Laptop 7 13 or Slim 7x. So, if you are looking for a small laptop and you are just sticking to office applications, web browsing, and other basic software, go for it. Snapdragon laptops are still a great choice for you. Same goes if you are positive that the specialist applications you will run work on the ARM version of Windows.

VS the MacBook Air 15

Compared to the MacBook Air 15? I know this is going to sound nuts, but we think most people will prefer the Aura. And, it is a lot cheaper. Where the MacBook Air shines over this laptop is in ancillary things like better speakers and webcam. But, even then, the Aura’s keyboard is way more comfortable than the Air’s. Plus, the Aura has better ports.

VS the Zenbook S 16 (AMD Zen 5)

Compared to Asus Zenbook S 16 with AMD’s Zen 5. That laptop gives you a larger display, a more powerful processor, and gives you excellent battery life. But, that laptop can get very warm to the touch which is annoying. We'd still take the Aura and just deal with its slower Multi-core performance.

VS More Powerful Laptops

If you do want a more powerful laptop, rather than try to force a more powerful processor into a small thin and light or get a Snapdragon laptop and deal with the compatibility issues, we’d personally buy the Asus Pro Art P16. That laptop is fantastic and it’s very light and portable for what it is.

VS Cheaper Laptops

Finally on the flip side, what if all these laptops are too expensive and you just want long battery life and a decent laptop? What these Lunar Lake laptops are showing us is that we should have paid more attention to laptops with the lower powered 125U version of Intel’s older Meteor Lake chip. Such as the Yoga 7i 2-in-1. It has crazy long battery life, and can now be found for super cheap.

Conclusion

If you are looking for a laptop with a large screen that is portable, the Slim 7i Aura Edition is Josh's number one pick. To be honest, he didn’t think it would be going into this review, as he noticed several areas where it is a step back from the Slim 7x that he'd reviewed the other week. But the more Josh used the Aura, the more he loved it. The improvements it makes over that 7x are far more noticeable than the areas where it is worse. Those ended up being minor.

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