Modern gaming requires more power than the Lenovo Legion Slim 7 provides. Even though it isn’t the most powerful gaming laptop available, its thin design and high-res display more than make up for it.

Introduction

The majority of gaming laptops you’ll find on the market are constructed like tanks, making them heavy to transport. A thin laptop with high performance is the goal of the Lenovo Legion Slim 7.

A 12th Gen Intel Core H i5, i7, or i9 processor and an Nvidia RTX 3060 or RTX 3070 GPU can be selected to customize this laptop in a number of ways. If you have a preference between AMD and Nvidia, it’s important to know that this model can also be fitted with an AMD processor and GPU.

Given its high price tag of over £2,000/$1,700, the Legion Slim 7 won’t be included in our roundup of the best budget laptops. However, is it good enough to be included in our list of the best gaming laptops?

Design and keyboard

• weight 2.05 kg
• Ports on the back and sides of the device – no Ethernet port
• Good travel and responsiveness on the keyboard

With a weight of 2.05kg and a thickness of just 16.9mm, the Lenovo Legion Slim 7 lives up to its slim name. It’s too difficult to hold with one hand, but it’s not particularly heavy for a gaming laptop, and, as the name implies, it’s extremely thin and stylish.

Unfortunately, the included charger weighs more than I’d like it to and makes carrying the laptop much more challenging.

Due to the weight of the laptop and charger together, I rarely left the house with this laptop as a result, and I cannot recommend it as a portable device.

This is a very durable laptop because of its weight; in normal use, I didn’t notice any case flex, though under strong pressure, the lid does flex slightly. I feel as though I can easily throw the laptop on the bed and move it around without worrying about it breaking as long as it is closed. It has a glossy Legion logo on the lid and is remarkably smudge-resistant in addition.
The device has three USB 3.0 charging ports, along with a charging port and an HDMI port, all of which are located on the back of the device. Although the port layout at first seems a little awkward, I actually like this configuration because it allows all of my wired peripherals to run across the back of my desk rather than sticking out from the sides of the computer.
On the side, there are two Thunderbolt 4 USB-C ports, a 3point 5mm audio jack, a DisplayPort port, and a shutter button that you can use to turn the camera on and off. I do believe that Lenovo erred by leaving out the Ethernet port because it means that anyone with a shakier internet connection may have trouble playing online. In order to make up for that, you at least receive Wi-Fi 6E support.

This laptop’s design was appealing to me overall; it’s much more understated than the non-RGB gaming laptops I’ve tested. Although I’d prefer to see some other color options besides dull gray and black, it’s a sophisticated device that could be mistaken for a performance laptop.

I thought the keyboard was easy to use and had good travel. Although it feels more like a keyboard for productivity than a gaming keyboard, I wish it were a little more clicky than it is. Nevertheless, I quickly became accustomed to it.

The touchpad wasn’t as responsive as I would have liked, so I’m not a big fan of it. Additionally, it is always preferable to use an external mouse when gaming.

Screen

• Bright and vibrant screen
• Big enough for work and play
• refresh rate 165 Hz

With a WQXGA (2560×1600) resolution and a 165Hz refresh rate, the Legion Slim 7’s display appears to be quite impressive. In our testing, the screen’s brightness reached 531 nits with a contrast ratio of 1254:1.

Although the laptop lacked any dark scenes, the screen was extremely bright. It was a little bit more frustrating to play The Binding of Isaac because there were some parts that appeared strangely dark.

Working with vibrant colors will prevent you from running into these issues. This means that this laptop is excellent for productivity because I could comfortably use it to work on my balcony even on clear days.

Games like Hollow Knight, Horizon Zero Dawn, and Slimerancher appeared vibrant and detailed in every frame. Even Stardew Valley looked astonishingly detailed and had amazingly vivid colors, which helped take the gameplay to a new level even though it was rendered in retro 16-bit graphics.

In contrast to a 60Hz display, the 165Hz refresh rate was useful for playing more intense games like Zero Dawn or Borderlands 2.

Pictures and video content appeared vibrant, and whites lacked an unnatural blue or red tint. I was impressed with how much color depth was conveyed in the Disney Plus menu, which looked fantastic. And although the fans made a little noise when I was playing games, I was relieved to discover that they made no noise at all when I was watching TV.

In my further testing, I discovered that the sRGB, Adobe RGB, and DCI-P3 scores were 97.5 percent, 71.2 percent, and 73.8 percent, respectively. This laptop won’t work well for color-sensitive work due to the results, but it can still be used for basic photo and video editing.

Performance

• Excellent performance during productive tasks
• Intermittent stuttering while playing
• Consistently excellent graphics quality

The GeForce RTX 3060 from Nvidia, despite being a generation behind modern laptop graphics chips, still performs well.

Although the mid-range Intel Core i7-12700H is a member of the most recent generation of laptop processors, I found it to be more than sufficient for running both my gaming sessions and any daily tasks I needed to complete.

A 1TB SSD that offers amazing read and write speeds of 7060.29MB/s and 6468.59MB/s, respectively, rounds out these specifications. Games load quickly because that’s twice as much memory as the majority of gaming laptops.

Though there are more potent gaming laptops available, especially with the release of RTX 4000 laptops, I believe the Legion Slim 7 provides a cozy experience. At 1080p, Horizon Zero Dawn runs at a frame rate of 79. While it falls short of the 125fps at 1080p that the MSI Raider GE77 (2022) managed, it is still more than adequate and provides a fluid performance.

With 51 and 45 frames per second at 1080p and 1440p, respectively, the Legion Slim 7 lags a little behind in Borderlands 3. Despite the fact that Dirt Rally is an older game that isn’t as graphically demanding as new games, it won with impressive 123fps and 112fps at 1080p and 1440p.

The laptop’s processor scored 1660 and 11,987 on Geekbench’s single-core and multi-core tests, respectively, demonstrating good but not exceptional performance. These ratings surpass those of both the Razer Blade 17 (2022) and the Asus ROG Flow X16 (2022), but I don’t believe that this laptop should be discounted entirely, especially given that both of these rivals are much more expensive. label.

I was able to work with a lot of open tabs and apps while streaming to an external monitor. I believe it has more than enough power to keep you busy between gaming sessions, so you won’t need to worry about purchasing two different gadgets.

I didn’t think the Legion Slim 7 was particularly loud overall in terms of fan noise. The fans made more noise after prolonged play and generally had a low hum, but they weren’t nearly as loud as the Asus ROG Zephyrus G15 (2021) and they were less distracting overall.

Battery life

• Battery 99.99 Wh
• Worked 5 hours 24 minutes during performance tests.
• Dropped 40% after an hour of play

Due to the high-speed fans and potent internal components that are required to keep it running, a gaming laptop battery will always be inferior to that of performance laptops. The battery dropped 18% after 30 minutes and 40% after an hour while playing The Binding of Isaac at 100 percent brightness and 100 percent battery.

It was able to last for 5 hours, 24 minutes during the PCMark 10 Battery test. Although the Razer Blade 14 2021, which lasted an additional two hours during testing, might be a better option if long battery life is important to you, that is still an impressive performance for a gaming laptop.

It’s important to keep in mind that this laptop performs best when plugged in, so ideally you should keep it charged while playing video games. You cannot play on this computer while traveling.