Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x Review: Thought OLED was overrated? Not with this laptop - it's one of the best-looking I've ever used

Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x: Two-minute review

The Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x offers plenty of benefits in almost every department, all powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon Elite X processor: this is a laptop built with creativity in mind, coming with one of the best OLED displays you'll ever see, battery life that'll keep your charger out of use for almost an entire day, and perhaps most importantly fast multitasking experiences with up to 32GB of RAM (though its soldered, so you'll have to pick the model that's ideal for you).

Its slim and sleek design, along with the 14-inch display size, allows the 90Hz OLED panel to blossom - believe it or not, this beats the excellent Alienware AW3423DWF QD-OLED ultrawide monitor at HDR with True Black HDR 600 certification compared to 400. Burn-in is, of course, still a concern - as with any OLED - but utilizing Windows 11's helpful tools, such as automatically hiding the taskbar, will go a long way in preventing it.

The Slim 7x isn't all perfect, though, as you'll only have access to USB-C ports. There's no USB-A port or even an audio jack, so the only solution for external connections that don't use USB-C would be a dock.

While gaming is possible with acceptable frame rates (since this isn't a gaming laptop), it's held back by the 3K (2944 x 1840) resolution, which I'll delve deeper into later on - don't buy this laptop if you're intent on serious gaming, especially at its native resolution.

To give you a brief summary, I tested less demanding titles like Hades and Sifu, with the latter struggling to stay above 60fps at 1440p on low graphical settings - that should be enough of an indication that this system isn't built for gaming, but it can still hit surprisingly hard at lower resolutions.

Besides this, it does exactly what it promises, providing enough power and speed for your creativity - the 12-core Snapdragon X Elite X1E-78-100 processor offers a nippy 3.4GHz clock speed, and after my testing within a handful of CPU-intensive applications, this easily joins the list of my favorite machines and certainly is among the best laptops of 2025.

Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x: Price & Availability

• How much does it cost? Starting at $1,049 / £1,249.99 / AU$2,609
• When is it available? Available now
• Where can you get it? In the US, UK, and Australia

Whilst its price ($1,049 / £1,249.99 / AU$2,609) might throw you off a potential purchase, the specifications make up for it in a variety of ways. I'll highlight the benefits of the gorgeous OLED screen on this laptop shortly, but considering the price of OLED panels in general when it comes to not just laptops but also gaming monitors and TVs, there's always going to be a premium to pay - this can't be faulted either, as it remains the best among all display types.

It would also be a disservice not to mention the Qualcomm Snapdragon 12-core processor, especially when it comes to multitasking - running multiple applications and tabs simultaneously. The Snapdragon X Elite loses out to Apple's M3 chip in single-core processes, but matches the Apple Silicon chip in multi-core workloads, providing a satisfying experience catering towards productivity.

Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x: Specs

Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x: Display

Now, starting with this laptop's display: the OLED panel present here is, hands down, the stand-out aspect. You may have wondered why I mentioned Dell's Alienware QD-OLED ultrawide monitor earlier - I happen to own that display, and it's magnificent when using either DisplayHDR 1000 or True Black HDR 400, but the Yoga Slim 7x's display outdoes the latter.

True Black HDR 600 is the second-best VESA certification that you can get with OLED screens, as you're getting 600 nits of brightness, all while maintaining infinite contrast and deep black levels. That's not to say that the AW3423DWF doesn't utilize its high-quality contrast while HDR 1000 is in use, but ABL (auto-brightness limiter) is far too aggressive, making gaming a frustrating experience in this mode.

With the Slim 7x, True Black HDR 600 will make any of your games, movies, and shows look phenomenal - it's important to note, that I had to utilize the Windows HDR Calibration app (which can be found in the Microsoft Store) to adjust HDR as many of the colors can seem washed out when the mode is enabled and viewing HDR content. Once adjusted, it works like a charm, and I've managed to get some of my best viewing experiences ever with this display.

It's another reason for me to tell you yet again that once you upgrade to OLED, there's no going back - the deep black levels are phenomenal with the infinite contrast ratio, and unless you're reading this on a similar OLED panel, images won't do them any justice. I've never been one to notice the imperfections of regular LED displays until I decided to snap up Dell's Alienware OLED. I've also tested Asus's PG49WCD OLED ultrawide, and neither came close to my experience with the Yoga Slim 7x.

You also have the advantage of multiple color settings to switch between, thanks to the pre-installed X-Rite Color Assistant with P3, DCI-P3, Adobe RGB, sRGB, and Rec. 709 for SDR viewing (which is fantastic here). When using this, you'll need to disable HDR as X-Rite appears to be incompatible with it - this is relevant, as there was plenty of content I viewed that wasn't available in HDR.

While True Black HDR 1000 (which was recently announced at CES 2025) OLED displays will likely surpass the Yoga Slim 7x, it shouldn't be a reason to stop you from getting your hands on it.

Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x: Battery

Battery tests were extremely positive at higher percentages - my first test was at 47% at full brightness with HDR enabled while multitasking with multiple YouTube videos playing, and it lasted approximately 42 minutes before the issue came into play.

My second test, had the battery at 80% with full brightness and HDR enabled, with the same level of activity, and it lasted for 2 hours and 34 minutes. These are fantastic results for a system that is put under strain at its maximum brightness level, but I've got even better news regarding my third test.

With my brightness levels set between 20 and 30 percent and HDR enabled while at 100% battery, the Yoga 7x took a full 2 hours and 8 minutes to start draining while multitasking. Yes, you read that right - it was at 100% battery for 2 hours. Putting the system under further stress with multiple videos at high resolutions running in the background and even a few benchmark tests, it took another 2 hours and 50 minutes to fall to 48% battery, lasting a total of 4 hours and 58 minutes without fully draining.

Now, barring the issue of the immediate battery drain (which I'm hoping was an isolated issue with my review unit), this is truly exceptional for those out for a laptop capable of lasting them throughout the day. I've always been one to opt for a system that allows me to forget that my charger exists, at least for multiple hours - the Yoga Slim 7x does just that when you're reasonable with brightness levels and the amount of strain you put on the laptop.

Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x: Performance

There was no way I was testing this beautiful laptop without attempting to game on it and see just how far I could go with its performance across several games. Well, at least I tried.

If you're contemplating a purchase of the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x with the intention of using it for gaming, this isn't the laptop for you. While it can perform well in some games like Hades (which left me quite impressed), its drivers leave several games crashing - some would crash on startup, and if they could make it past the menu screen, the frame rates were not acceptable.

A prime example of this was Capcom's Resident Evil 4 (you know you were going to see that at some point in this review), which would consistently crash on startup. Once using Qualcomm's upgraded graphics driver (which included GPU performance optimizations for several games), I made it past the main menu into the game - on the lowest preset at a 720p resolution, it could not push past 20 frames per second before eventually crashing again with a fatal D3D error, which points towards driver incompatibility.

On the bright side, though, Hades (while at the maximum 2944 x 1840 resolution) never once fell below 80 frames per second, even in the midst of intense combat. Where you'll run into issues when trying to game is with games that are somewhat demanding and that the X1E-78-100 processor can't handle at higher resolutions.

You may think that lowering the resolution will suffice in multiple games, but the screen has a 16:10 aspect ratio, which isn't great for resolutions like 1920x1080 or 2560x1440 (which are some of the only options in games).

Fortunately, performance in other areas provides a far more pleasant experience - multitasking is key for me when using any laptop, and the Slim 7x gave me zero issues when doing so. Thanks to the processor's 12 cores and 12 threads, keeping multiple tabs open hardly makes the system break a sweat (also making it essential for video editing and rendering).

Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x: Design

Considering the OLED display present here, the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x is a very thin laptop - as the name should suggest - while also being very lightweight, weighing only 1.28kg. There's also an incredible backlight keyboard at your disposal, and one of the standout features here was the caps lock - yes, I know, it sounds minor, but a simple key press will display whether caps lock is enabled or disabled on screen.

This eliminates any potential issues with caps lock when entering passwords (there are still some sites that won't let you show your password), which goes a long way when trying to stay productive.

It's a big shame that there are only three USB-C ports available on this system, which means you'll be forced to use a dock if you plan on using your USB-A drive, ethernet cable, or HDMI to connect to an external display. I suspect the omission of said ports is to adhere to keeping the Slim 7x thin, but I digress. The lack of even a 3.5mm headphone jack just feels absurd in a modern laptop.

The speakers here are underwhelming, but there's always got to be a compromise for a system that has so many positives - you do, however, have access to multiple sound presets through the Lenovo Vantage app so you can adjust the sound to adapt to your games or movies.

It's worth noting that this is a touchscreen display, but I never used this often throughout testing - touchscreen on a beautiful OLED display like this, just didn't seem appealing as I didn't want my fingerprint marks all over the screen, and it's not a 2-in-1 laptop (unlike some of the other Snapdragon laptops). What's great, though, is that there were little to no thermal issues even when there was a lack of room for ventilation, and it's safe to say that the Slim 7x satisfied me within its design region.

Should I buy the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

How I tested the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x

I spent two weeks testing the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x, assessing its multitasking capabilities while also testing a variety of games. The Snapdragon(R) X Elite - X1E78100 excels at ensuring you get the best out of your activity, and this review unit included 16GB of RAM - 32GB may yield even greater results.

Some of the other games I tested included Street Fighter 6, Hitman: World of Assassination, Dragon's Dogma 2, and Tekken 8 to see just how far it could go with performance, but most of them would crash.

The issues with the instant battery drain prevented me from testing its battery life even further, but the results above indicate an incredible battery at reasonable settings.