Lenovo Yoga 7 Pro – Relive the past (a bit)

Somewhere in the beginning of the Corona period I reviewed a laptop that I was quite impressed with. It was the first compact laptop with an eight-core processor that I laid my hands on, and this processor made it a bang faster than any other thin laptop at the time. The eight cores were part of the new AMD Ryzen 4800U processor. Intel could not keep up with AMD at that time and continued to release quad processors in the 15W segment for a while. The laptop in question was the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 and the review in question was that.

We are now three years later. The Yoga Slim 7 got a successor where we have some less to speak, but now there is a new one, and on paper it looks promising. The word ‘Smart’ is no longer in the name; The new version is simply called Yoga Pro 7. So what makes it so interesting? In fact, especially that it is so very similar to the first Yoga Slim 7, both in terms of hardware and appearance. It seems that Lenovo used this first model as a blueprint for the new Pro 7. That is a positive starting point in my opinion.

One such similarity is the perforations on either side of the keyboard. The first generation had it too, but its first successor did not. So they came back and the sound system now uses four speakers. Two pieces face up and two face down. There is ‘Dolby Atmos’ support where you shouldn’t expect a cinematic action. The sound is especially shrill when you turn it up, but the most important thing is that the volume can be turned up nicely. Therefore, making a video call without headphones is no problem – and thanks to the speakers above.

Another cool thing that the Yoga Slim 7 and the Yoga 7 Pro share is a time of flight– Sensor. It controls whether you are sitting in front of your laptop or not. If you just start drinking a cup of coffee/tea/water, the screen dims and the laptop goes into standby a little later. If you return to your workplace, the sensor will detect that you are back. Then it changes the camera, which is equipped with facial recognition, and you will connect to your system in no time. At least that’s the idea. Every time I sat down I saw the laptop wake up, the camera LED on and the infrared LED next to it blinking, but the screen wouldn’t turn on and I wouldn’t connect. A press of any key caused the screen to wake up, but the idea behind the tof sensor is that you don’t need to. So at the moment it works half, but Lenovo can probably solve this with a software update. By the way, the webcam has been improved; The resolution was increased from 1280×720 to 1920×1080 pixels.

Another innovation compared to the first generation is in the keyboard. Almost all compact laptops have a keyboard with flat keys. Key slightly bent, so with a dimple in them, nonetheless, I find work more beautiful. The grooves, which you simply encounter on most desktop keyboards, ensure that your fingers wander less quickly during touch typing. According to the sheet, the Yoga Pro 7 also has one and a half millimeters of key travel, which is quite a lot for a compact laptop. You notice the key travel as you type, and what you also notice is that the laptop is very solidly put together. The housing is made entirely of metal and does not bend, even if you hit the buttons.

All Yoga 7 laptops have had a metal, in this case aluminum, housing over the years. It looks luxurious and gives a solid feel. The latter is also due to the weight, because this new Yoga Pro 7 weighs almost a kilogram and a half. I’ve always referred to the Pro 7 as a “compact” laptop above, but whether or not it actually is depends on where you draw the line. The diagonal of the screen has also grown a little in this version, to 14.5 “, so that it is not really small anymore. In all dimensions, this laptop is bigger than the first generation Slim 7, which weighed 1.32 kilograms. That the larger dimensions are also coming because this is the ‘Pro’ version, which is equipped with a less efficient, but if all goes well, faster processor.

To make the housing appear thinner than it is, Lenovo implemented a trick that is often used with laptops. The manufacturer made the edges convex, making them narrower than the laptop actually is. Fortunately, this was not at the expense of the connections. On the right is a normal USB port with a speed of 5Gbit/s. You will also find the connection jack and the on/off button. With the slider next to it you can turn off the webcam. On the left is the HDMI connection; it’s back, because Lenovo omitted it in the previous generation. In addition, the USB-C connection is provided on this side. One of them supports USB4, with a maximum transfer speed of 40Gbit/s, while the other supports USB 3.2 Gen 2, which means a speed of 10Gbit/s. If you are using a specific USB4 or Thunderbolt dock, it is important to grab the right port, but if you are connecting a display, for example, it will not be a problem. You can also use both ports to charge the laptop and both ports can pass a DisplayPort 1.4 signal to an external screen.