Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga Gen 7 assessment: A super 2-in-1 for trade professionals

Highest Costs These days: Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga Gen 7 (2022)

Lenovo’s Thinkpad X1 Yoga is now a veteran of the Home windows 2-in-1 marketplace. It has outlived competition just like the Microsoft Floor Studio and Dell XPS 13 2-in-1 to turn out to be one of the vital remaining flagship 2-in-1s with a 360-degree hinge. Lenovo turns out acutely aware of its distinctive place and is keen to price for it. Whilst we actually favored the keyboard and audio system, efficiency is moderate at highest. Learn on to be told extra.

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga Gen 7 specifications and contours

The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga Gen 7 I gained was once a quite fundamental variant with mid-tier processor, RAM, and forged state pressure choices. It additionally provided a 1920×1200 IPS touchscreen as a substitute of the OLED choice. Nonetheless, even this style has forward-looking options like two Thunderbolt 4 ports and Wi-Fi 6E, the most recent wi-fi usual.

• CPU: Intel Core i7-1260P
• Reminiscence: 16GB
• Graphics/GPU: Intel iris Xe
• Show: 1920 x 1200 IPS touchscreen
• Garage: 512GB SSD
• Webcam: 1080p
• Connectivity: 2x Thunderbolt 4, 2x USB-A three.2 Gen 1, Headphone/Microphone, HDMI 2.0
• Networking: Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.2
• Biometrics: Fingerprint reader in energy button
• Battery capability: 57 watt-hours
• Dimensions: 12.38 x 8.75 x .61 inches
• Weight: 3.04 kilos
• MSRP: $1,938.60

On the other hand, this mid-tier style is quite dear. This X1 Yoga I examined rang up at slightly below $2,000. The Lenovo X1 Yoga Gen 7 is priced upper than the Apple MacBook Air, MacBook Professional 13, Dell XPS 13 Plus, and the Microsoft Floor Pc Studio, amongst many others. Can it justify the top rate? 

Design and construct high quality

Lenovo’s ThinkPad X1 circle of relatives takes the “if it’s broke, don’t repair it” strategy to design. That’s now not an effective way to seize headlines, but it surely’s exhausting to seek out fault with the X1 Yoga’s glance, really feel, or serve as. 

The X1 Yoga is a good-looking {and professional} 2-in-1 with a slender, minimalist external. Those that’ve been clear of ThinkPads for a couple of years is also stunned it has a silver aluminum chassis as a substitute of the vintage black magnesium alloy of older fashions. The more moderen aluminum design is extra generic but additionally extra sumptuous. That’s necessary given the X1 Yoga’s top pricing. 

Although designed as a 2-in-1 with a 360-degree hinge and touchscreen, pc use is the transparent precedence. The X1 Yoga weighs about 3 kilos and is six-tenths of an inch thick, which means that it’s no lighter or thinner than conventional pc possible choices just like the Dell XPS 13 or MacBook Air. The X1 Yoga additionally packs a big 14-inch display screen with a 16:10 facet ratio. This makes for a comfy typing revel in, however the instrument is simply too heavy for comfy pill use. 

Nonetheless, the touchscreen supplies some versatility. The usage of the keyboard as a stand makes the touchscreen extra available in tight areas. It’s additionally handy when looking at motion pictures or YouTube. The touchscreen helps stylus use and, in contrast to maximum competition, the X1 Yoga has a transportable stylus that tucks safely throughout the instrument. 

Keyboard and trackpad

IDG / Matthew Smith

The X1 Yoga’s keyboard is implausible. It has a spacious structure with considerable room between keys each vertically and horizontally and, in spite of the 2-in-1’s skinny profile, the important thing really feel is spacious with a company and responsive bottoming motion. Maximum top rate laptops and 2-in-1 traces, together with Apple’s MacBook Air and Dell XPS 13, even have nice keyboards, however the X1 Yoga stays on the entrance of the pack.

Lenovo stuffs in a couple of keys that some 2-in-1s ditch, corresponding to the house, finish, and insert keys, in addition to the web page up and web page down keys. This isn’t a large deal for most of the people however those that want them will admire their inclusion.

Keyboard backlighting is usual on all X1 Yoga fashions. There’s best two ranges of backlight brightness, on the other hand, and a good quantity of sunshine leaks across the edges of each and every key. Although now not a useful downside, it’s underwhelming for a top rate 2-in-1.

The vintage Lenovo TrackPoint nub sits in the course of the keyboard. I’m keen on the TrackPoint, which I to find sooner and extra responsive than a touchpad, however there’s not anything right here to switch the minds of those that don’t adore it. 

The touchpad is responsive and has a easy, delightful floor, but it surely’s a bit of small as a result of 3 bodily, clicky touchpad buttons on the height of the touchpad. Those buttons can be utilized with both the TrackPoint or touchpad. This, just like the TrackPoint, units the X1 Yoga excluding its competition. Bodily touchpad buttons are just about extinct on competing units.

Show, audio

IDG / Matthew Smith

Lenovo ships the X1 Yoga with as much as a three,480 x 2,400 OLED show, however was once daring sufficient to ship me the more economical 1,920 x 1,200 IPS show as a substitute. I admire this – the OLED show is very good, I’m certain, but it surely’s now not what most of the people will purchase.

The fundamental show nonetheless holds up neatly, with excellent distinction, top brightness, and shiny, correct colour. Like maximum IPS monitors, the show is highest when viewing punchy, saturated, vivid content material, corresponding to 3-D esports video games or animated presentations. The show can’t succeed in a deep and convincing black stage however in reality does higher than maximum, hitting a distinction ratio of 1690:1. 

The 1,920 x 1,200 answer doesn’t appear spectacular on paper however nonetheless packs over 161 pixels consistent with inch. That’s just about similar to a 27-inch 4K observe, which crams 163 pixels consistent with inch. Sharpness is very good throughout motion pictures, internet pages, and paperwork. 

And, as a result of it is a 16:10 show, there’s further show area when in comparison to a 16:9 selection. It’s now not a lot of a bonus, as competition have additionally moved to a 16:10 show. Nonetheless, the added area comes in handy when operating with two home windows side-by-side. 

Although it should glance skilled, the X1 Yoga can rock out. It has a four-speaker sound machine with Dolby Atmos certification. The Atmos branding is fluff (I’ve heard Atmos house theater sound programs, and this ain’t it), however audio high quality is robust with transparent discussion, excellent sound staging, and a touch of kick to the low finish. It’s a excellent effort and, whilst now not as crisp or deep as Apple’s MacBook Professional 14 or Microsoft’s Floor Pc Studio, it’s spectacular.

Webcam, microphone, biometrics

A 1080p digital camera will also be discovered above the display screen of each and every ThinkPad X1 Yoga, with an improve to IR cameras with pc imaginative and prescient to be had. 

My style had the bottom digital camera and, to my wonder, it was once excellent. The digital camera treated modest lights neatly and was once ready to regulate publicity to stay my face neatly lit in a room with blended mild resources. Colour replica and sharpness have been forged, as neatly.

The X1 Yoga additionally has an excellent quad-microphone array. It picked up my voice at a usable stage from a lot of angles and, as a result of its quantity, I didn’t have to boost my voice for others to listen to. Audio high quality remains to be a bit of tinny, as true of maximum pc microphones, but it surely’s a forged effort general. 

A fingerprint reader is hidden within the energy X1 Yoga’s energy button, situated simply above the keyboard. It really works neatly despite the fact that, like maximum fingerprint readers I’ve attempted on Home windows laptops, it misfires too frequently. The non-compulsory IR digital camera improve allows Home windows Hi facial reputation login, which is faster and extra dependable.

Connectivity

IDG / Matthew Smith

The ThinkPad X1 Yoga’s connectivity has one thing for everybody. 

A couple of Thunderbolt 4 ports be offering sturdy improve for contemporary units. They are able to be used to price the pc or attach exterior shows. That is paired with two USB-A Gen 3.2 ports for older stressed out units and an HDMI output for connecting to exterior shows with out an adapter. A three.5mm combo audio jack rounds out the bodily ports. 

Wi-fi connectivity is simply as powerful, providing improve for the most recent Wi-Fi 6E usual. This may succeed in speeds equivalent to and above stressed out Ethernet in ultimate scenarios, which is helping excuse the X1 Yoga’s loss of an Ethernet port. You’ll desire a Wi-Fi 6E router to unencumber this attainable. Bluetooth 5.2 is supported, as neatly.

Those that want in reality cellular connectivity can improve to 4G or 5G modem, despite the fact that my assessment unit didn’t be offering this. Those upgrades will permit Web use any place your provider supplier provides cellular information. You pay for the privilege, despite the fact that: the 4G modem is just about $200, and the 5G modem is sort of $300.

Efficiency

Intel’s Core i7-1260P processor powered my ThinkPad X1 Yoga assessment unit. It’s a twelve-core processor with 4 efficiency cores, 8 efficiency cores, and a most turbo frequency of four.4GHz. My assessment unit paired the i7-1260P with 16GB of soldered LPDDR5 RAM and 512GB of forged state PCIe garage. 

IDG / Matthew Smith

Our first check, PCMark 10, evaluates general machine efficiency with a heavy lean in opposition to the processor. It completed a good however now not exceptional rating of five,118. 

This rating is a tad in the back of the Lenovo Yoga 9i, which was once examined with the similar Intel Core i7-1260P processor, and considerably in the back of a number of AMD Ryzen 7 5000 and Ryzen 7 6000 collection processors which might be in style in competing machines. 

IDG / Matthew Smith

We subsequent dig into Cinebench R15, a closely multithreaded benchmark that gives the Core i7-1260P to sing their own praises. It reaches a rating of one,425, which is spectacular, despite the fact that in all probability inferior to I’d be expecting from this processor. This benchmark suggests the X1 Yoga isn’t the fastest platform for this chip.

IDG / Matthew Smith

That was once showed by way of the strenuous Handbrake benchmark, which throws a heavy-lift encode of Tears of Metal immediately on the processor’s face. A check this lengthy traces the thermal functions of a pc and, arguably, the X1 Yoga flinches, requiring over an hour and twenty mins to finish the duty.

There’s two techniques to means this outcome. That is nonetheless an enormous improve from the Intel Eleventh-Gen Core processors that have been to be had within the prior style. So, in the event you’re upgrading from an older gadget, it’s a win. However this outcome falls neatly in the back of the Lenovo Yoga 9i, which implies the X1 Yoga is achieving a thermal prohibit over longer workloads. 

IDG / Matthew Smith

3DMark Time Secret agent involves a rating of one,393. Proceeding the X1 Yoga’s theme, it is a excellent outcome in comparison to older laptops however now not spectacular in 2022. The X1 Yoga will likely be defeated by way of some possible choices with Intel Iris Xe and likewise lose to laptops with AMD’s new Radeon 680M graphics, which is located in some Ryzen 6000 cellular processors.

IDG / Matthew Smith

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The Shadow of the Tomb Raider benchmark reached a mean of 15 frames consistent with 2d at 1080p answer and Perfect element. That’s a good outcome for built-in graphics, despite the fact that for sure nonetheless neatly in the back of maximum discrete graphics answers. Older 3-D video games are playable however best at medium to low element settings.

It’s no wonder to peer small gaming laptops are a lot sooner – despite the fact that this comparability isn’t solely abnormal, because the X1 FYoga’s pricing is in league with an Alienware x14 or ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14. 

On steadiness, it kind of feels the ThinkPad X1 Yoga Gen 7 prioritizes portability and decrease fan speeds over efficiency. The pc isn’t in particular loud and, as I’ll speak about in a second, provides excellent staying power. Efficiency, alternatively, is inconspicuous for this class of processor. 

The X1 Yoga can simply care for day by day duties simply and also will chunk thru many heavier workloads, like conventional picture modifying or programming, with out factor. It’s lackluster for gaming, on the other hand, and isn’t your only option for video modifying and encoding, 3-D rendering, and different extraordinarily extensive duties. 

Battery existence

The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga had a 57 watt-hour battery. That’s now not large for a 2-in-1 in its phase, but it surely nonetheless seems a powerful results of 10 hours and 57 mins. That’s significantly better than maximum laptops we’ve just lately examined.

There’s a couple of causes for this: the 1920×1200 IPS show and the pc’s reasonably modest {hardware}. The loss of OLED, discrete graphics, or a top-tier cellular processor lend a hand the 2-in-1 wring decent staying power from each and every watt-hour.

Forged battery existence is superb for portability, which is additional enhanced by way of the pc’s Thunderbolt 4 ports and its skinny profile. The integrated energy adapter isn’t massive and smaller third-party adapters are to be had, so packing each pc and adapter isn’t a bother. Small

Conclusion

I just like the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga Gen 7. So much. I’ve individually bought ThinkPads for many of my existence, and the X1 Yoga Gen 7 underscores the explanations for my choice. It has a good-looking, sturdy external, an excellent keyboard, provides the original TrackPoint have an effect on, and delivers on connectivity and battery existence. It’s nice for operating lengthy hours but transportable sufficient for go back and forth. 

However the X1 Yoga, like many ThinkPads, comes with luggage: the associated fee. The X1 Yoga Gen 7 begins a bit of north of $1,500 and will simply breach $3,000. This isn’t simply Lenovo’s pricing, both. The X1 Yoga is costly at outlets like Amazon and Highest Purchase. I may just excuse this if the X1 Yoga proved particularly fast, but it surely’s slower general than the more economical (but nonetheless top rate) Lenovo Yoga 9i. 

The X1 Yoga may be dearer than the Microsoft Floor Pc Studio which, despite the fact that now a era in the back of on processor efficiency, supplies a extra compelling 2-in-1 revel in. 

Lenovo’s top rate ThinkPads goal very particular shoppers with a willingness to pay for precisely what they would like. If that’s you (or your boss is keen to foot the invoice), superior. However most of the people could be at an advantage purchasing the Yoga 9i and pocketing the financial savings.