In the past, 16 and 17-inch laptops have generally been treated as ‘desktop replacement’ systems. They were too big and heavy to carry around with you on a regular basis, so they mostly stayed on a desk at home or in an office, and only occasionally ventured forth into the outside world. That was especially true of heavyweight gaming laptops, with their power-hungry GPUs and bulky fans and cooling systems.

Recently, though, gaming laptops have begun to slim down a little. That trend started with more modest 14-inch models, but we’re now starting to see even larger 16-inch laptops, such as Lenovo’s aptly-named Legion Slim 7i, that are shedding some weight in order to provide high-end gaming power in a more portable design.

With a weight of just 2.1kg, the Slim 7i is just about light enough to fit into a backpack or travel bag when you’re on the move, yet it provides strong gaming performance and a 16-inch display with high refresh rate that can give you a smooth, precise view of the gaming action – without needing to be plugged into a larger external display all the time.

Price and options

• Display: 16-inch IPS, 2560×1600, 500nits 240Hz; 16-inch IPS, 3200×200, 430nits 165Hz
• Processor: Intel i7-13700H, 14-core, max 5.0GHz; i9-13900H, 14-core, max 5.4GHz
• Graphics; Intel Iris Xe (integrated); nVidia GeForce RTX 4060 Laptop, 8GB VRAM (US only); nVidia GeForce RTX 4070 Laptop, 8GB VRAM
• Memory: 16GB/32GB DDR5
• Storage: 1TB SSD

Customers in the US get the widest range of options with the Legion Slim 7i, with a number of pre-configured models available for immediate delivery, as well as a ‘Build Your PC’ option that lets you customise the laptop to suit your own requirements – albeit with delivery times of up to one month at the time of this review.

Pricing in the US starts at $1769 with a 13th generation Intel i7-13700H processor, 16GB memory and 512GB solid-state drive, along with a GeForce RTX 4060 graphics card and 16-inch display with 2560×1600 resolution. However, reviewed here is the top-of-the-range model, which steps up to an i9-13900H processor with 32GB memory and 1TB SSD. This model also upgrades the display to ‘3.2K’ resolution (3200×2000), and boosts graphics performance with an RTX 4070 with 8GB of video memory, for a total price of $2478.99.

In contrast, Lenovo’s website in the UK simply offers a single ‘Build Your PC’ webpage, with two-week delivery times and this i9 review unit coming to £2,300. It’s worth noting, though, that the Legion’s slimline design does seem to impose some restrictions, and there’s no option to add the RTX 4080/4090 GPUs that are available with some larger, heavier gaming laptops.

Design

• Dimensions: 19.9 (max.) x 357.7 x 259.3mm, 2.1kg
• Weight: 2.1kg
• Ports: HDMI 2.1, 1x Thunderbolt 4, 1x USB-C (3.2), 3x USB-A (3.2), 3.5mm audio In/Out, SD card
• Wireless: Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.1

The rigidly rectangular, metallic grey chassis of the Slim 7i isn’t going to win any awards for stylish design. The large cooling vents that run along the back and both sides aren’t particularly elegant either, and had us wondering how hot and noisy the laptop might become once we started to run our gaming and graphics tests.

Lenovo gets all the basics right, though, reducing this high-end laptop to just 19.9mm thick, and 2.1kg in weight (Lenovo’s website says that the laptop ‘starts at less than 2kg’, but our review unit tipped the scales at 2.1kg). That’s not exactly in the ultraportable class, and you’ll definitely need two hands to pick the Slim 7i up and move around with it. However, that’s still an achievement for a 16-inch laptop such as this, and the Slim 71 is actually fractionally lighter than Apple’s considerably more expensive 16-inch MacBook Pro (2.15kg).

The aluminium casing feels very sturdy too, with a firm keyboard panel that should be able to take a pounding during long gaming sessions. The size of the laptop means that there’s room for a full-size keyboard with numeric keypad, and a set of navigation keys as well. The Slim 7i provides good connectivity too, with HDMI for an external display, one Thunderbolt 4 and one USB-C port, three USB-A ports, audio in/out and even an SD card reader. There’s also Wi-Fi 6E with the new 6.0GHz frequency for maximum performance, and Bluetooth as well.

• Display: 16-inch IPS, 3200×200, 430nits, 165Hz
• Webcam: 1080p with E-Shutter
• Audio: 2x 2W stereo

My review unit included the top-of-the-range 3.2K display, with 3200×2000 resolution and 165Hz refresh rate. This provides a very smooth, detailed image that works well for gaming, and it also supports the DCI-P3 colour standard used for professional video-editing work, so the Slim 7i can turn its hand to content creation as well when it needs to.

The display does have limitations, though. It doesn’t support HDR, and its 430 nits brightness level could be better. To be fair, most people will find that brightness level adequate for gaming and entertainment when the laptop is running off mains power, but I would normally turn the brightness down to 50 per cent for battery tests and I found that to be a little too dull with the Slim 7i. Instead, I ran the test at 60 per cent, which will obviously have an effect on battery life.

Sound quality is fairly modest too – the stereo speakers are pretty powerful, so you can certainly hear what’s going on when playing video or games. However, the bass is quite weak, and higher frequencies can sound harsh at times, so a set of external speakers will probably be a good investment for use at home.

The 1080p webcam works well, though, producing a bright, sharp image even on a British gloomy morning during September, and I like the fact that there’s a privacy button on the right-hand side of the laptpo that deactivates the camera as well.

Performance and battery (as reviewed)

• Processor: Intel Core i9-13900H, 14-core, 2.6GHz (max. Turboboost 5.4GHz)
• Graphics; Intel Iris Xe (integrated); nVidia GeForce RTX 4070 Laptop (8GB VRAM)
• Power: 230W adaptor, with 4-cell 99Whr Li-Ion battery

As mentioned, the modest size and weight of the Slim 7i do impose some limitations, and even the top-of-the-range model only offers a mid-range GeForce RTX 4070 graphics card. Even so, it still performs well, with its i9 processor achieving GeekBench 6 scores of 2,670 for single-core performance and 14,275 for multi-core performance, which are in line with most i9 laptops I’ve seen in recent months.

It’s a similar story with the RTX 4070 graphics card, which reaches 123fps when running the Unigine Valley test for 3D graphics, and is directly comparable to rivals such as the Asus Zenbook Pro 14 at 120fps with the same CPU and GPU options.

However, it pulls ahead of the Zenbook when running 3DMark, with a score of 105fps on the Wildlife Extreme test, compared to 95fps for the Zenbook. And, when running Rise Of The Tomb Raider on its highest graphics settings at 3200×2000 resolution, the Slim 7i pulls way ahead on 139.5fps, while the Zenbook could only manage 110fps at a slightly lower 2880×1800 resolution.

The only drawback here is that these results were achieved with the laptop’s fans and set on ‘performance’ gaming mode, which is quite noisy, so you’ll probably want a decent gaming headset to block out the noise. But you do also have the option of switching into ‘quiet’ mode, which allows the laptop to run almost silently while still cruising along at a smoothly playable 100fps in Tomb Raider.

And while large gaming laptops rarely offer more than a few hours of battery life, the Slim 7i does make it to almost 6.5 hours when streaming video in my battery tests and using integrated graphics only (six hours and 27 minutes to be precise) – and this was at a higher brightness to usual that I would consider usable by most.

Verdict

The Legion Slim 7i does have some rough edges – such as the modest screen brightness and its less-than-imposing sound system. Even so, Lenovo has still done a good job of squeezing some very powerful gaming hardware into a slim and lightweight design, and the Slim 7i will certainly be able to handle some serious gaming action when it needs to.

If you don’t need such a large display then there are certainly smaller, lighter gaming laptops available. However, the Slim 7i is competitively priced for a 16-inch gaming laptop, so it’s a good choice for anyone that really needs that larger screen size.