No Intel or Nvidia required: Lenovo Legion Slim 7 16ARHA7 Gen 7 laptop review

[Redaktion]

Lenovo's thinnest gaming laptop is just 1/100th of a millimeter thicker than the Razer Blade 15 and it uses only the latest Zen 3+ and RDNA 2 parts from AMD. It holds up surprisingly well against the competition so long as you don't mind the high core temperatures.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/No-Intel-or-Nvidia-required-Lenovo-Legion-Slim-7-16ARHA7-Gen-7-laptop-review.665789.0.html

[LL]

8Gb soldered!? that is enough to not even consider it.

[Nick Evans]

Honestly, how much RAM do you need? I put in 32 GB in the free slot for 40 GB total in mine. For me this machine is absolutely perfect. Gorgeous design and relatively light but built like a tank, can game pretty hard or do machine learning without sounding like a jet engine and has a *fantastic* screen that checks all the boxes: large, matte, 16:10 aspect ratio, very bright, very fast and high resolution (without 4K overkill). So far it's the best laptop I ever owned.

[NikoB]

Mem tuning in bios afwul (too slow vs Intel SoC) or all AMD mem controllers is bad design by AMD in Zen3+. Only latency is ok for ddr5, but not throughput.

Noise is very good up to average level for cores. But the question immediately arises for Lenovo engineers - how did they manage then, in a larger weight, Legion 7 also with AMD, to make the cooling system much noisier in such a load? Complete absurdity, everything should be the other way around! Lenovo clean up the R&D department!

But buying this series today is simply pointless. Do not put 32-64GB in dual-channel mode there. Why such power in the long run, if the memory is already a priori insufficient for normal operation in modern Os and software? What kind of wild stupidity does not put 2 memory slots? At least unsolder MINIMUM 32GB and remove the second slot altogether so as not to be dishonored. Sell ��only two options with 32 and 64GB. Everything else today can be safely sent directly from the factory assembly line under the bulldozer. He became morally obsolete before he appeared on store shelves.

And of course, a complete shame with the lack of TB4.0 (USB40) with a processor that supports them initially. It is also shameful that only DP1.4 is being output for usb-c, although it supports DP2.0 (albeit at 1/2 bandwidth relative to the full 2.0).

And stop lying to customers in your psref site, that HDMI supports 8k@60Hz! HDMI 2.1 does NOT support 8k resolution in monitor 4:4:4 mode, only 4:2:2 for TV!

[Alhena]

You can absolutely charge this device using PD....
psrefDOTlenovoDOTcom/syspool/Sys/PDF/datasheet/Lenovo_Legion_S7_16ARHA7_datasheet_EN.pdf

[Gobrel]

Is it possible to undervolt the dGPU in the driver like the desktop version?

[Allen]

You can absolutely charge this device using PD....
psrefDOTlenovoDOTcom/syspool/Sys/PDF/datasheet/Lenovo_Legion_S7_16ARHA7_datasheet_EN.pdf

We tried two different USB-C chargers, 65 W and 130 W, and neither of them would work. Lenovo sells an optional 135 W USB-C charger which we did not have during testing. We're trying to confirm with Lenovo if the laptop is compatible with third-party USB-C chargers or if users must have the Lenovo-branded 135 W USB-C charger instead.

[Alhena]

We tried two different USB-C chargers, 65 W and 130 W, and neither of them would work. Lenovo sells an optional 135 W USB-C charger which we did not have during testing. We're trying to confirm with Lenovo if the laptop is compatible with third-party USB-C chargers or if users must have the Lenovo-branded 135 W USB-C charger instead.

The 135W charging is proprietary yes. It's not PD3.1 - which is a shame - but rather it's 20V 6.75A. However, I'm confident you should be able to charge at 100W (20V 5A) using the PD3.0 protocol. Maybe 65W is not enough to charge it? I don't know.

[Alhena]

Actually, one more thing too. You said you've used the 99Wh battery. This is literally incorrect - look at the images you've taken for the inside of the laptop. You clearly have the 71Wh variant.

[NikoB]

Actually, one more thing too. You said you've used the 99Wh battery. This is literally incorrect - look at the images you've taken for the inside of the laptop. You clearly have the 71Wh variant.

The author simply copied the data from the L7 series and did not edit for the L7 Slim series. But this is another test of attentiveness ... =)

[Prisoner Elect Trumputin]

In CPU load, Legion 7 is 26.8db. Legion S7 is 31.4db. Both 6900HX.

In CPU+GPU load, Legion 7 6850M XT 140w TDP is 54.2db. Legion S7 5800S 90w TDP is 51.2db.

Please apologize to the R&D Dept!

Noise is very good up to average level for cores. But the question immediately arises for Lenovo engineers - how did they manage then, in a larger weight, Legion 7 also with AMD, to make the cooling system much noisier in such a load? Complete absurdity, everything should be the other way around! Lenovo clean up the R&D department!

[NikoB]

In CPU load, Legion 7 is 26.8db. Legion S7 is 31.4db. Both 6900HX.

In CPU+GPU load, Legion 7 6850M XT 140w TDP is 54.2db. Legion S7 5800S 90w TDP is 51.2db.

Please apologize to the R&D Dept!

Noise is very good up to average level for cores. But the question immediately arises for Lenovo engineers - how did they manage then, in a larger weight, Legion 7 also with AMD, to make the cooling system much noisier in such a load? Complete absurdity, everything should be the other way around! Lenovo clean up the R&D department!

The numbers have already been corrected since I wrote this. If you follow the new L7, it is almost 2 times quieter in terms of noise in an average load! And this level is already sufficient to comfortably work for a long time for L7, but not L7Slim.

In any case, as a working machine (games do not interest me at all, and all "gaming" laptops with a noise of more than 40dBA cause me only Homeric laughter) L7 is many times cooler than L7Slim both in terms of noise and ports and availability (and this is key, noise by priority) - 2 memory slots up to 64GB in dual-channel mode. Whereas the pathetic L7Slim is limited to 16GB for non-demanding "housewives" in dual channel mode. I do not see any point in buying L7Slim against the backdrop of L7.

[RobertJasiek]

the new L7, it is almost 2 times quieter in terms of noise in an average load!

Please specify what L7 model exactly and what software do you run in average load!

[NikoB]

See reviews. 26dB(A) vs 31. Every +6dB(A) - it increases the noise by ~2 times by ear.

[Prisoner Elect Trumputin]

In CPU load, Legion 7 is 26.8db. Legion S7 is 31.4db. Both 6900HX.

In CPU+GPU load, Legion 7 6850M XT 140w TDP is 54.2db. Legion S7 5800S 90w TDP is 51.2db.

Please apologize to the R&D Dept!

Noise is very good up to average level for cores. But the question immediately arises for Lenovo engineers - how did they manage then, in a larger weight, Legion 7 also with AMD, to make the cooling system much noisier in such a load? Complete absurdity, everything should be the other way around! Lenovo clean up the R&D department!

The numbers have already been corrected since I wrote this. If you follow the new L7, it is almost 2 times quieter in terms of noise in an average load! And this level is already sufficient to comfortably work for a long time for L7, but not L7Slim.

In any case, as a working machine (games do not interest me at all, and all "gaming" laptops with a noise of more than 40dBA cause me only Homeric laughter) L7 is many times cooler than L7Slim both in terms of noise and ports and availability (and this is key, noise by priority) - 2 memory slots up to 64GB in dual-channel mode. Whereas the pathetic L7Slim is limited to 16GB for non-demanding "housewives" in dual channel mode. I do not see any point in buying L7Slim against the backdrop of L7.

Of course! The numbers were originally incorrectly posted by notebookcheck!

Is 31.4db too loud for non gaming load? The Dell G5 which you say you use and is perfect for quiet usage is apparently more noisy than that at idle and far far noisier under load:

"During idle after a cold start and also under low load, silent operation is not possible. While both fans also run during idle, at 31.1 – 34.2 dB(A), the measured volume is not loud. Thus there will always be a quiet whirring. Under load, the fans really rev up, and we measure the maximum value of the Dell G5 15 5587 at 44 dB(A)."

Source: notebookcheck.net review (Please manually search for this review: Dell-G5-15-5587-i5-8300H-GTX-1060-Max-Q-SSD-IPS-Laptop-Review)

They also said that the case temperature is "simply too high".