Lenovo - Legion Slim 7i 16" WUXGA Gaming Laptop - Core i7-12700H - 16GB Memory - NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 - 512GB SSD - Onyx Grey
Customers are saying
Customers have good things to say about the Legion Slim 7i's performance, build quality, and graphics capabilities, frequently praising its sleek design and powerful processing. However, some users expressed concerns regarding battery life, heat generation, and fan noise during intensive use. The keyboard and screen size also received positive feedback. A few customers mentioned limitations with RAM and storage capacity.
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The vast majority of our reviews come from verified purchases. Reviews from customers may include My Best Buy members, employees, and Tech Insider Network members (as tagged). Select reviewers may receive discounted products or points for an honest, helpful review.
- Rated 5 out of 5 stars
Great Laptop
Gotta say I’m very happy with this laptop so far it’s been reliable and passed every test I’ve put it through . After going through 2 different Alienware x15 r1’s that would get so hot and loud then shutdown after 15 min of arma 3 and halo I gave up on Alienware and moved to an Asus m16 which was a great laptop especially the bright screen but was missing 2 important features that ultimately brought me to this legion 7i, g-sync and advanced Optimus. Now compared to the asus m16 (12700h,3060) this is a lower wattage 3060 but your not losing much performance… it will maintain 100w on the graphics at all times and stays cool while doing it also not getting as loud as the asus either. On balanced mode in the legion application it will maintain 85w and run cool and quiet and still have great performance. On turbo it goes the full 100w and will still only stay between 70-77 on the temps which is pretty impressive compared to other laptops I’ve been through and not be near as loud as the Alienware and on par with the asus. The battery life has been great for a 71 watt hour but the asus m16 has a 90whr and will last longer. The screen gets decently bright but not near as bright as the asus. But the best part is the advanced Optimus. Not having to restart the Lenovo to switch to dgpu is just a must have imo u get full performance from 3060 automatically when booting up a game and it works flawlessly. It also has g-sync which is a great feature aswell. The keyboard is also rgb which I didn’t know until after I got it home and that’s a plus. This thing does not get to hot to touch either like the Alienware did it’s actually much cooler than I expected running full send. My only complaint is that the lowest brightness level on the keyboard is still pretty dang bright at night I wish it had more than 3 brightness settings. Doesn’t seem like there’s much difference from dimmest to brightest. This thing also feels very premium with all aluminum build better than the asus but it’s a tossup with the Alienware. It has fingerprint login but no facial recognition which isn’t an issue for me. The closest thing I’ve used to compare it to is obviously the asus m16 and they are both good so I’ll summarize and try to help someone choose between the 2. Legion 7i Advanced Optimus G-sync Runs cooler and quieter under full load Full per-key rgb Great build quality Some ports on back for cleaner setup Smaller battery Only has fingerprint for windows hello Asus m16 Brighter screen Bigger battery More tweaking available for cpu-gpu in armory crate Only single zone keyboard rgb Runs a little hotter and louder Higher wattage gpu Requires restart for full gpu performance on display Has facial recognition
Posted by Stallones
- Rated 3 out of 5 stars
Well-Built, but Hot & Expensive
TL;DR at the bottom for those who just want the bottom line. :) See photos for benchmarks and thermals. External Impressions: Laptop dimensions are 14.08 x 10.24 x 0.67 inches, and weighs just over 2kg. Very easy to handle with one hand, and should fit in basically any standard backpack or messenger bag. As someone that has used an ungodly number of different laptops, I will say, the first thing that impressed me was the build quality of the Slim 7i itself, both in terms of rigidity and appearance. The entire laptop is made of aluminum, and the trim was sandblasted to give it a polished/mirror-like finish. Lenovo also squared off the corners of the device a bit more than the prior generation to give it a more defined look. The top lid is pretty rigid, more-so than my Legion 7 Gen 6, but still isn't as solid as a Razer Blade or MacBook Pro. The keyboard deck and bottom panel were very sturdy though, and impressed me right away. The trackpad felt pretty similar to the last few Legion devices I've used, and is quite good, but isn't fundamentally different or better in any way. Seems to be the same glass precision trackpad. It didn't rattle, and had good feedback for physical clicks. It also handled gestures accurately and without any issue. The keyboard shares the same layout as the prior Legion devices, but has more travel than the nearly-identical Legion 7/7i, and was something I noticed immediately. My main gripe of my current Legion 7 was that the keyboard felt shallow to use, and albeit subjective, it certainly feels better and more tactile on the Slim 7i. Internals: The Slim 7i has two m.2 slots, 1 SoDIMM slot, a 71WHr battery, and a thick heatpipe cooler design. What caught my attention immediately was how big the fans were in relationship to the prior generation, and to the chassis itself. Made me curious how it would perform later when I started benchmarking it. My unit has an Intel Wi-Fi 6E AX211 NIC, and a Micron MTFDKBA512TFH Gen4 NVMe SSD. Repasting shouldn't be too hard if you wanted to do it -- I may do so later and record a video for it if it garners enough interest. Battery Life In mixed usage, I saw around 8 hours between YouTube, downloading and installing some applications, browsing the Internet, and writing a portion of this review, while at 50% brightness. While just watching a YouTube video, total system power draw lowered to around 6.5W, and stayed there for about an hour. This means you can realistically get 9-9.5 hours out of the 71WHr battery of video playback if no background processes pop up and eat system resources. System Thermals and Benchmarks First up, Cinebench R23, 10-minute burn test: The Slim 7i pulled 92W on average for the duration of the run, peaking at 129W. It thermal throttled pretty quickly at that spike (remember, this is 0.67" thick, about the same as a Blade 15). It eventually settled in around 85W in the last 4 minutes of the test and the CPU sat in the low-80s. My recommendation would be to use ThrottleStop to artificially limit the power to roughly 80W to keep temperatures in check and maintain the majority of CPU performance. Fans ramped up quickly, and settled around 49dBa using a rudimentary measurement tool. Next up is 3DMark Time Spy: CPU Score: 13883 Graphics Score: 7855 CPU performance is great, scoring 3000 more points than my 5900HX in my Legion 7 Gen 6. GPU performance is in-line with other 3060s at 100W power limits. GPU seems to sit in the 60s through the duration of the test after heating up. A VBIOS flash to a slightly higher power limit may be worth investigating after doing some thermal tuning and maybe a repaste. Fans weren't running as hard here, system acoustics were around 45-46dBa. Next up is Shadow of the Tomb Raider! 1080p Highest Preset, 102FPS avg. CPU hit 100C and throttled when power spiked to 110W, but maintained reasonable temperatures when power draw was reasonable. GPU maxed at 74C but averaged 69.3C. The massive power spikes for the CPU is causing the temperatures to rise to 100C+ and throttle back to a more reasonable value. This further calls for an artificial limitation on power through a tool like ThrottleStop to prevent these swings in power draw and temperature spikes, while maintaining most of the 12700H's stellar performance. The TL;DR The good: Build quality is top-notch Device footprint & weight are very reasonable Keyboard has improved over predecessor Advanced Optimus instead of traditional MUX is nice bonus 16:10 1200p screen makes it easier to run more demanding titles Great battery life (8-10 hours) The bad: Expensive when compared to slightly thicker devices with higher TGPs, currently $1699+tax High power limits lead to thermal throttling, calls for advanced users to repaste/tweak an already-expensive device; calls long-term longevity into question if left unchecked Currently no fan control and is loud under load (unless Rodpad wants me to help him get LegionFanControl updated for this SKU :P) Some may want a higher resolution screen for productivity work and smaller text scaling The easiest way for me to explain this device, is to call it a Blade 15 competitor, except with massive power limits. While Razer limits their CPU performance in favor of noise and thermals, Lenovo does the opposite and gives the user the ability to push the 12700H full-bore at the expense of system temperatures and fan noise. Overall, the Slim 7i is a well-built thin & light gaming laptop that is unfortunately stifled by its own power and price. Hope this was informative, thanks for reading!
Posted by Braxton
- Rated 5 out of 5 stars
Great Little Laptop!
This is quite a nice laptop! I love the fact that it has a full keyboard with number pad, and that the keys are where it's most standard (some makers get creative with the placement of some function keys like 'Del' and 'Fn') The screen is plenty sharp and bright, the keys feel good for a touch-typist, the webcam has good resolution, there's plenty of storage and RAM (but I added more ram to mine because I do a lot of RAM-hungry video editing), and the whole thing is made of metal, which I love, it feels quite solid! The only complaint I have is that it doesn't have a built-in network port. If you want to be wired, you need to get an adapter. And it can get a bit noisy when the fans are at full throttle, but I've heard worse; headphones solve that problem! ;)
Posted by AFox