A laptop that accomplishes more than the essentials, the Lenovo Yoga Pro 7i offers itself as an elegant combination of design and utility. At a starting price of Rs 150,000, this laptop boasts a sturdy metal body, an OLED display with excellent quality, and a potent NVIDIA RTX 4050 GPU. Although the Yoga Pro 7i claims to be capable of handling everything from gaming to multitasking, how well does it actually balance these features when tested in real-world scenarios? Let’s investigate:
Create
Similar in appearance to the Yoga 7i 2-in-1, the Lenovo Yoga Pro 7i boasts a somewhat bigger 14.5-inch display along with a sturdy, virtually full-width hinge that can rotate the device 180 degrees. Similar to the convertible, the Yoga 7i series Pro model has an elegant, all-aluminum appearance that gives it a high-end vibe. The surface has a matte texture that blends fashion and functionality. The Yoga Pro 7i weighs 1.59 kg, which makes it somewhat bigger and larger than its 2-in-1 sibling, but it is still competitively portable.
When the laptop lid is opened, which is easy because of its strong hinge, a 14.5-inch OLED edge-to-edge panel is visible. Lenovo extended the box at the top centre of the lid to house the infrared sensor and front camera, slightly altering the lid’s design. Interestingly, the front camera has no actual shutter; instead, the camera is controlled via a slider switch located on the edge of the lower half. Nestled between speakers on either side beneath the display is a full-sized keyboard with a sizable touchpad that preserves the laptop’s matte appearance.
The rounded corners from the Yoga 7i 2-in-1 are still there in the Yoga Pro 7i, despite its lack of 360-degree rotation, which makes it just as comfortable to use in your hand. But when you’re in a hurry, the power button’s side location might be a little annoying. Furthermore, when worn on flat surfaces, the inadequate grips on the bottom could cause slight sliding.
Both visual and auditory
The laptop Lenovo Yoga Pro 7i has a 14.5-inch OLED screen with 120Hz refresh rate and 2.8K resolution. The screen’s 16:10 aspect ratio allows for longer vertical content, which improves the display-to-body ratio of the smartphone.
Rich colours and outstanding contrast are hallmarks of OLED technology, and the Yoga Pro 7i’s display is no exception. It offers a wider range of more intense and saturated colours by encompassing 100% of the DCI-P3 colour space. Lenovo improves this by supporting Dolby Vision HDR, which makes watching video on the Yoga Pro 7i even more enjoyable. With its Super Resolution features, the Lenovo Vantage app further enhances video quality for non-HDR material on browsers like Microsoft Edge, Opera, and Chrome.
The visual experience is much smoother with a refresh rate of 120Hz, especially while scrolling. Despite being glossy, the display efficiently reduces reflections in bright lighting. Although not particularly remarkable, the maximum brightness of 400 nits guarantees that the screen stays bright enough indoors. But even if it gives off a more upscale appearance, the shiny texture is prone to smudges and fingerprints.
The laptop has a stereo speaker system with compatibility for Dolby Atmos in terms of audio. Two 2W tweeters provide crystal-clear vocals, while two 2W woofers give the music more richness. The woofers’ subtle thump enhances audio tracks, and the audio output is clean, well-balanced, and loud enough. Although the speakers are good for playing movies and videos, if you’re a music lover, you might get better sound quality by connecting to an external speaker.
microphone and camera
The 1080p resolution camera on the Lenovo Yoga Pro 7i laptop has an electronic shutter for improved privacy. When making calls in well-lit areas, the camera’s performance is decent; however, in low light, it performs poorly, producing relatively blurry photos. For infrequent users, this might be plenty, but for people who use video conversations or live streaming frequently, you might want to think about investing in an additional webcam for better clarity.
Although generally accurate, the laptop’s facial recognition technology occasionally has delays in its detecting speed.
The integrated microphone produces clear enough audio during calls, although recordings may sound a little muffled. However, it performs exceptionally well in speech recognition and efficiently reduces background noise, guaranteeing clear communication.
Lenovo has software that allows you to play around with different options in the camera settings. Enabling this option, however, does not currently bring about any notable changes. Lenovo may add more features to these in future versions.
Trackpad and keyboard
The Lenovo Yoga Pro 7i has a full-sized backlit keyboard, but it doesn’t have a separate number pad, which is a feature that is typically left out of small laptops. This keyboard offers an excellent typing experience, and it usually takes users little time to get used to it. The keys have enough downward travel despite their thin profile to deliver tactile sensation with every keystroke. Functionality-wise, the keyboard gets dedicated buttons that double as function keys, with the exception of the new Copilot button next to the left arrow key. These contain buttons to open the settings menu, the calculator, the clipboard, the Snipping tool, and more.
The large, easily reachable touchpad on the laptop can be used with both thumbs while typing. The touchpad’s sensitivity is set rather high by default, which could occasionally result in unintentional clicks. It is possible to lower the sensitivity by adjusting the settings, however slower scrolling rates can occur from doing so.
MacBook Yoga Pro 7i: Trackpad and keyboard
Applications
Lenovo’s Vantage software provides a plethora of customisation choices and settings for the Yoga Pro 7i. This includes the “Super Resolution” function that we previously covered and pre-set Dolby Atmos sound settings for various media, including gaming or movies.
Additionally, the Lenovo Vantage software offers a number of task-specific modes, including Media, Meeting, Learning, and Gaming. Lenovo’s AI engine operates in “Automatic” mode, which modifies the configuration according to the user’s activity and behaviour at the moment. Users can also choose between three different power modes: Adaptive, Battery Saver, and Performance. The latter modifies itself dynamically based on usage patterns. Additionally, the software has an X-Power feature that allows GPU overclocking to improve performance when performing demanding tasks, such as playing games with high graphics settings.
In addition to the Lenovo Vantage features, the Yoga Pro 7i has a “Flip to Boot” feature that turns the laptop on right away when it is opened. With background blur for privacy and auto framing to maintain the user’s focus even when they move, Windows Studio Effects improves video conversations. The background blur performed well in tests, but the auto framing did not perform as well.
Additionally, the laptop has presence detection, which uses the user’s presence to start the facial unlocking process. The function functions effectively and is undoubtedly helpful when returning from work breaks. In addition to hands-free unlocking, the Yoga Pro 7i has “Zero touch video playback,” which employs presence detection to halt and restart video playback. This capability worked well with offline videos, however it was less successful when used with YouTube and other streaming services.
Achievement
The Lenovo Yoga Pro 7i laptop, with its Intel Core Ultra 7 155H processor and 16GB of LPDDR5X soldered RAM, fulfils the requirements for a portable workstation. The laptop maintains effective temperature management while handling multitasking with ease. It runs silently and is responsive and cool to the touch even with multiple tabs, windows, and background apps open.
For graphic-intensive activities, this model comes with a dedicated 6GB NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4050 GDDR6 GPU. Despite being called a GeForce RTX Studio laptop, this badge only signifies that the laptop satisfies NVIDIA’s requirements for a creator-friendly computer, guaranteeing excellent performance and display quality. Creator Ready drivers are pre-installed on the laptop, and the GPU may be tuned for gaming by installing NVIDIA’s Game Ready drivers.
I did not push the laptop’s creative capabilities to the fullest extent, but I did play several challenging video games, such Need For Speed Payback. The laptop produced 45–55 frames per second (FPS) in Auto performance mode when using Ultra Graphic settings. After switching to Performance mode, there was no lag or significant problems, and the FPS climbed to about 65. I also played around with the GPU overclocking capability, which is still in its experimental phase. I was able to reach up to 80 FPS at the highest in-game graphic settings with a few manual tweaks. It’s important to note that the laptop may get uncomfortable hot during prolonged gaming sessions because the thermal management technology is not as good as those found in laptops designed specifically for gaming.
There is a direct influence of the dedicated GPU on battery life. In contrast to the Lenovo Yoga 7i 2-in-1, which has a continuous multitasking time of over nine hours, the Yoga Pro 7i’s auto power mode only lasts roughly six hours, with possible reductions during heavy tasks like graphically demanding games. The laptop comes with a 140W USB-C charger that can fully recharge the battery in around an hour.
Conclusion
The Lenovo Yoga Pro 7i, which starts at Rs 150,000, offers a powerful processor, an amazing display, and an elegant, long-lasting aluminium frame. The presence of a strong dedicated GPU makes it easier to play some graphically demanding video games and to play casual games.
All things considered, the Lenovo Yoga Pro 7i is a great option for anybody looking for a business-focused laptop that can also be used for pleasure and artistic expression. Even though it has an NVIDIA RTX 4050 GPU, this does not make it a stand-alone gaming device. Other solutions in the same price range might be more appropriate for people who are expressly looking for a high-performance gaming machine.