Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Aura Edition review: copilot with extras

Introduction

How do you make your latest ultraportable laptop stand out in a sea of Copilot+ PCs? If you’re Lenovo, you tap up Intel to supply more than just the silicon. The Yoga Slim 7i is the first of the firm’s Aura Edition laptops, with software to suit different working environments and speed up file transfers from your phone.

It also still flies the flag for 15in screens, when most rivals have either downsized to 14in or stepped up to 16in. That basically puts it up against Apple’s 15in Macbook Air and the Microsoft Surface Laptop, though the Lenovo has price on its side. The top spec model tested here was $1423/£1348 directly from the firm’s web store at the time of writing, while an equivalent MacBook is £1899/$1899 and a Surface laptop over $2000/£2000.

The Yoga hardly skimps on screen or spec, either. Are those app additions enough to earn it a glowing recommendation?

Design & build: slender fan

Yoga used to be Lenovo shorthand for 2-in-1 and hybrid laptops, but that hasn’t been the case for a while now. The Slim 7i Aura Edition is a traditional notebook – just one that doesn’t wear a business suit, like the firm’s Thinkbooks. You’ll find rounded corners and smoothed-off sides here, rather than right angles and straight edges.

The Luna Grey finish, something between gunmetal and silver, falls on the right side of professional, as does the minimal Lenovo logo on the lid. The aluminium build feels suitably big-budget, and everything feels built for the long haul, with no noticeable chassis flex. I also struggled to open the lid with one hand, though that’s not to say the hinges won’t loosen up with regular use.

I like that the raised bump in the bezel, which makes romo for the Windows Hello-ready webcam, gives you something to reach for when opening the laptop. It’s sort of like an inverse of a modern MacBook notch. There’s no fingerprint sensor, but the webcam almost always recognised me before I could reach to enter my password.

At roughly 1.5kg not counting the very compact power brick, this is a very portable laptop. It’s marginally thicker and heavier than a 15in MacBook Air, but no so much that you’d notice the difference when lugging either on a commute.

The Lenovo has Apple licked for connections, with one USB-A, two Thunderbolt 4 Type-Cs, a full-size HDMI out and a 3.5mm headphone port. Having one Type C port on either side is rather handy for charging. It’s a shame there’s no card reader, though. It’s something the imminent Yoga Slim 7i Gen 10 puts right.

Screen & sound: shine on

At 15.3in, the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Aura Edition’s screen is a bit of an outlier. Now that 16:10 has become the go-to aspect ratio, most rivals have either shrunk down to 14in or expanded to fit a 16in screen instead. It’s a one and done, too – there’s no choice of non-touch panels or the option to swap LCD for OLED.

It’s a good job this doesn’t disappoint on image quality, then. The 2.8K resolution looked fantastically sharp and detailed from my typical working distance, and the 120Hz adaptive refresh rate kept my scrolling smooth at all times. Viewing angles are decent rather than spectacular, and the glossy finish meant light reflections could be a bit distracting, but the exceptional tilt range and high panel brightness made up for it.

You’re getting around 500 nits here, making it far brighter than a Dell XPS 13 with an OLED panel, and practically tied with the 15in MacBook Air. LCD tech means black levels aren’t quite as deep, but contrast was really rather great and the colours, while vivid and expressive, were also consistent enough for colour-accurate work without a complicated calibration first.

Large speaker grilles either side of the keyboard tray gave me confidence the Yoga Slim 7i Aura Edition would sound pretty tasty. The two tweeters and two woofers underneath deliver more than enough volume and a very clear mid-range, with just a hint of bass beneath. It can’t topple the latest MacBook Pro for overall presentation, but this is otherwise one of very few ultraportables that won’t have you running for a pair of headphones.

Keyboard & touchpad: a soft touch

The Yoga Slim 7i Aura Edition gets Lenovo’s usual keyboard layout, with shield-shaped keys that curve ever-so-slightly inwards to keep your fingers in the right place. They need it, because I found the rubbery keycaps to be very slick and slippery. Factor in a keyboard tray that flexes a fair bit under pressure and there’s a sponginess here that I wasn’t expecting.

There’s a good amount of key travel, and each one springs back into place quickly enough. Pretty much the entire board uses full-size keys, and there’s also a generous amount of space between each one, so once I’d gotten used to the feel I was up to my usual writing speed. I just wouldn’t rank this among the best of Lenovo’s recent laptop efforts. A thumbs up for the bright and even white LED backlighting, though.

Lenovo has stuck with a traditional mechanical touchpad for the Yoga Slim 7i Aura Edition. It feels a little behind the times compared to rivals with haptic ‘pads, and isn’t the largest I’ve used recently. It sits slightly off-centre as a result – Lenovo should’ve made it just that little bit wider for better symmetry.

At least the smooth surface texture made low-friction scrolling easy enough, and it recognised all of Windows’ usual multi-touch gestures.

Software: a certain Aura

Microsoft wants you to see this Yoga Slim 7i as a Copilot+ PC. It has the now-familiar Copilot keyboard shortcut; Studio Effects for video calls, the image generating Cocreator tool and audio Live Captions are all present; and Windows 11 Recall even gets a mention during the initial setup, even if the feature is still MIA.

Lenovo, on the other hand, is going big on its new Aura Edition branding. It’s essentially a banner for a bunch of different software, including a series of smart modes meant to make your laptop time less stressful. Working in public? Shield mode uses the laptop’s webcam to either let you know when someone’s looking at your screen over your shoulder, or straight up blurs it until they leave. It’ll also remind you to activate your VPN when joining new Wi-Fi networks.

Attention mode silences notifications and blocks access to distracting websites like social networks; Collaboration mode boosts webcam video quality in low light conditions; and Wellness mode gives you regular reminders about posture and eye strain breaks.

None of these felt new or groundbreaking to me, but I can appreciate having them all under a single menu might be convenient for anyone that doesn’t know their way around Windows’ various Settings pages.

Smart Share is more useful, letting you sync files and photos between your phone and laptop. Tapping your handset against the side of the screen quickly shows your last 30 photos, but it’s a bit of a gimmick. The underlying software is Intel Unison, which can be found on plenty of other laptops, so doesn’t feel like a unique selling point. There’s also Smart Care, which is meant to provide real-time support when you’ve properly borked your laptop, but it’s basically a chatbot – if you want human assistance you’ll need to subscribe to Lenovo’s Premium Care offering.

I do like that Lenovo doesn’t cram all this software down your throat on the first boot. It’s there if you want it, but can be largely ignored if you don’t find it useful.

Performance & battery life: lovely lifespan

The ‘Lunar Lake’ Core Ultra CPU at the heart of this laptop is Intel’s riposte to Qualcomm’s impressively efficient Snapdragon X silicon, which as shaken up what we expect from Windows-powered ultraportables in terms of battery life. The eight-core, eight thread Ultra 7 258V chip in my review unit is paired with a generous 32GB of RAM and 1TB of PCIe SSD storage.

Some of my benchmarks showed Intel drawing level with a Snapdragon X Elite for single core performance, but most showed it falling a bit behind in multi-core tests. 2721 and 11012 in the Geekbench 6 tests meant it was also outpaced by an M3 MacBook Air across the board, but not by a huge margin. Software built with Qualcomm’s ARM architecture in mind might be massively outnumbered by those that run on Intel’s x86, but apps that are have a clear advantage.

For regular use, though? Web browsing, word processing, image editing and other basics – ie the sort of jobs an ultraportable will do on the daily – were perfectly punchy. The slightly larger chassis helped keep temperatures more under control than some smaller Intel-powered rivals I’ve used recently, so it has a slight performance edge when turbo boosting.

Intel’s Arc graphics aren’t built for modern gaming, but the Yoga Slim 7i Aura Edition could still put in a solid showing in older or less demanding games once I’d dialled the screen resolution and detail settings back.

The one area Intel has made real strides lately is battery life. In a video rundown test, the Yoga managed a significant 14 hours of playback, which is easily enough to last a full working day of websites, spreadsheets and email inboxes. Admittedly I’ve seen as much as five hours more from some Snapdragon machines, and a 15in MacBook has a little more lifespan too, so this isn’t the absolute best pick for digital nomads – blame the high resolution, high refresh rate screen.

Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Aura Edition verdict

With a competitive price, great battery life and plenty of power for most daily duties, the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Aura Edition is a great ultraportable for anyone not willing to skimp on screen size. There’s better connectivity here than you’ll find on its close rivals, and that screen is wonderfully bright and colourful. You don’t have to be picky with software like you do on a Snapdragon-powered laptop, either.

The spongey typing experience and mechanical touchpad feel a little out of step with Lenovo’s premium ambitions, though, and I’m not convinced the Aura Edition software is as mission critical as the firm makes out. It’s several hours short of the class best when away from the mains, and can’t match them for raw performance either.

Then again, those longer-lasting laptops are either a lot smaller or cost considerably more – or both. If you’re on a more sensible budget, there’s plenty here to like.

Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Gen 9 Aura Edition technical specifications

Screen	15.3in, 2880×1800 120Hz LCD touchscreen
Processor	Intel Core Ultra 258V
Memory	32GB RAM
Graphics	Intel Arc (integrated)
Storage	1TB
Operating system	Windows 11
Connectivity	1x USB A, 2x USB C, HDMI, 3.5mm
Battery	70Whr
Dimensions	344x235x13.9mm, 1.53kg