Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 Pro 14ACH5 in review: 14-inch powerhouse with good battery life

[Redaktion]

Lenovo's mobile computer scores points with a powerful Ryzen 9 5900HX APU, 16 GB of RAM, and a bright, high-contrast 14-inch display (2880x1800 pixels, 90 Hz, IPS) in the 16:10 format. This is accompanied by good battery life and low noise and heat development.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-Yoga-Slim-7-Pro-14ACH5-in-review-14-inch-powerhouse-with-good-battery-life.554871.0.html

[dadankboi]

YES! THIS IS WHAT WE WANTED! Holy crap this could've been an almost perfect laptop if it had a Thinkpad keyboard. With this thing's crazy specs, and surprisingly good cooling, this is almost the perfect laptop. And holy crap that display! 6500:1 contrast ratio?? That's as good as an OLED! and it's 90 hz too so gamers can also appreciate it as well! I see absolutely no cons in this. NBC, soldered ram and no memory slots are the same thing. Seriously? Is Intel paying you to say more cons? Besides the slightly mediocre keyboard, this thing is an absolute win!

[Clabber]

At a resolution of 2.8K there is an IPS and an OLED. You should have reviewed the OLED, because OLED is still rare but very desirable.
The 2.2K 5600H version is the more realistic option for the typical business user.

[Jane]

Maximum 16GB of memory? What a waste.

[RubenLosada]

Hi!!

Nice review!! ☺️ Thanks a lot!

I m considering to buy this laptop with the i7 11370h in Spain in 2.2K. I don't need a lot of power but I'm looking for a good battery laptop.

Do you think I7 option with the same specs will have better battery life?

My other option is an macbook air m1 512 same price i7 option, here in Spain.

Thanks a lot again!!

[johno]

Hi!!

Nice review!! ☺️ Thanks a lot!

I m considering to buy this laptop with the i7 11370h in Spain in 2.2K. I don't need a lot of power but I'm looking for a good battery laptop.

Do you think I7 option with the same specs will have better battery life?

My other option is an macbook air m1 512 same price i7 option, here in Spain.

Thanks a lot again!!

@RubenLosada
I would say go with the M1 MacBook Air. It already has amazing battery life, and if you want even more, you can get the M1 MacBook Pro, which has about 20 hours of battery life. I've used this laptop at my nearest Best Buy, and it feels cheap. The chassis flexes and bends whenever I touch it, and typing is quite uncomfortable because of that. The MacBooks have absolutely no chassis flex, and they just feel a lot better to use, as they are more sophisticated machines.

[Rubén Losada]

Hi!!

Nice review!! ☺️ Thanks a lot!

I m considering to buy this laptop with the i7 11370h in Spain in 2.2K. I don't need a lot of power but I'm looking for a good battery laptop.

Do you think I7 option with the same specs will have better battery life?

My other option is an macbook air m1 512 same price i7 option, here in Spain.

Thanks a lot again!!

@RubenLosada
I would say go with the M1 MacBook Air. It already has amazing battery life, and if you want even more, you can get the M1 MacBook Pro, which has about 20 hours of battery life. I've used this laptop at my nearest Best Buy, and it feels cheap. The chassis flexes and bends whenever I touch it, and typing is quite uncomfortable because of that. The MacBooks have absolutely no chassis flex, and they just feel a lot better to use, as they are more sophisticated machines.

Thanks! But I don't know if I want to enter in Apple World. Now I'm thinking about Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i with 1165g7 and 71wh, sound good for me.

[Muhammad Anhar]

Putting overclockable CPU in ultrabook and soldered RAM. What the heck Lenovo

[retoben]

I had really high expectations for this laptop.

- Biggest dark point for me is the glossy screen with only decent brightness. I wish they would offer more 500nits laptops. Plus brightness ranges from 355 to 444 depending on where you look at the screen. Not good enough for business travel.
- Amazing CPU but non-expandable ram... Why?
- 1 USBA and no HDMI forces me to have adapters when doing customer presentations.
- That wifi card doesn't inspire me much confidence as well (hello airports wifi).
- Otherwise, it looks very good and thermal is well managed.

Lenovo is really annoying. I mean the ideapad5 has an HDMI, 2 USBA and SD Cards with great CPU as well, but again the screen is bad. It looks like they think people only use laptop at home.

It's been months I'm looking for a laptop that meets all this, and I have to stick with a low Intel processor or pay >2500€.
X1 Yoga Gen 6 = 3000€
X1 Extreme Gen 4 = 16" (and will probably cost a fortune as well)
X1 Carbon G9 = could do, but intel 1185G7 CPU lol

[Connor]

If this had thunderbolt, I'd be pulling out my wallet right now.


How is there still not a powerful ultrabook for the office that you can dock into a gaming desktop at home. The Asus ROG Flow attempted this, but then ruined it by putting a GPU in the laptop chassy which raises the cost exponentially and lowers battery life....

[Dorby]

As others have pointed out 16GB is a real limiting factor for who this laptops is targeted to - IT professionals, Finance workers, and Big Data engineers who need the CPU and don't use the GPU.

Other complaints however I do not get as there are multiple models of this laptop. One is Intel H35  with Thunderbolt port, another has Ryzen/Intel U15 for the Battery life and cooler temps, and all 4 CPU types can be configured with MX450 dGPU as well.

If anything Lenovo has done a fantastic job at providing different SKUs on a consumer laptop, perhaps as an experiment to observe the sales % of different CPU types among - Intel, Ryzen, H35 and U15. They will probably trim the Yoga 7 Pro to 1 type of CPU in the next iteration, and use the data to sort out 10, 15, and 35 watt processors across different ultrabook lineups.

[doregi]

God I hate the future

Last year's model ARE05 VS this year ACH5 :

USB-A                  2 -> 1
HDMI            1 -> 0
SD card reader     1 -> 0
Battery life         652min -> 612min

Yes power is better, screen as well (even though brightness distribution is awful), but at what cost?

[biap]

Would it support a couple of 4k@30Hz external screens plugged into one of the USB-C ports (with the proper USB-C hub)? The second USB-C port would be used for power.
Best!

[oskar]

The monitor doesnt have PWM flicker. I have no idea what tools you use, but there was no pwm detected under 40% brightness.

Whats even more weird is that the contrast ratio 6533:1 is absurdly high for an ips display. Also this display has been measured 1500:1 by to reviewers so obviously it seems the reviewer used a faulty tool to measure it

[pacc]

If this had thunderbolt, I'd be pulling out my wallet right now.


How is there still not a powerful ultrabook for the office that you can dock into a gaming desktop at home. The Asus ROG Flow attempted this, but then ruined it by putting a GPU in the laptop chassy which raises the cost exponentially and lowers battery life....

But why? If you can afford a premium GPU the matching computer to put it in is practically free if you consider a thunderbolt docking solution and the premium on a more expensive laptop to match it with.

I do miss built in ethernet but the arrival of at least 16Gb of ram and 16:10 displays (unfortunately with PWM pick the OLED) is really good.