Legion Slim 7 AMD Gen 8 Reiew - Performance, Battery Life and Everyday Use
Hello everyone,
I got the new Slim 7 AMD Gen 8 about a week ago and I've been using it daily since then so I wanted to write a review to help anyone who is considering getting this model or is still undecided yet.
SPECS: Custom order Legion Slim 7 16APH8, Ryzen 7 7840HS, RTX 4060 (8GB), 32 GB DDR5 5600MHz Ram, 1TB WD SN810 m.2 SSD, 3.2k 100% DCI-P3 IPS Screen (All from factory - no aftermarket upgrades)
Unboxing
Firstly, I must say that the packaging and unboxing experience was awesome. Lenovo did such a great job of making it feel nice and premium. The box has cool prints on it and a nice premium suction feeling when lifting the top up.
Also, UPS took great care of it and the outer box didn't even have a scratch let alone any damage.
Setup
I ordered it without any OS on it and I loaded the Windows 11 to it myself to prevent getting any bloatware or unnecessary apps. Loading the Windows was easy as always, I just had to disable it asking to connect to the internet as it had no drivers, Wifi screen was empty. Here is how to bypass the Out-of-the-Box-Experience (OOBE) Internet Requirement: In the "Let's connect you to a network" screen, press Shift+F10 to launch cmd. Then type the following command: OOBE\BYPASSNRO . After that, the system will restart and restart and when you reach the "Let's connect you to a network" screen, click "I don't have Internet", continue to click "limited setup", accept the license agreement and continue to create a local user account. Overall setup only took about 5-7 mins to get into the desktop screen for me, but it may change depending on your internet connection.
Display
I got mine with the 3.2K 100% DCI-P3 420 Nits screen and it looks absolutely awesome. Texts look sharp and nice, no pixels visible and the colour accuracy as well as contrast range is insane. Blacks are seriously black, not gray like cheap panels and the screen is very comfortable to look at. It does a pretty good job outdoors as well, using it on a partially sunny day is not a problem at all. Even 90% brightness looks good outside. It might not be the best screen for gaming if you want to keep the full resolution, but if you aren't going to game all the time, if you want colour accuracy or will game with an external monitor, then this is the screen for you. If you want both, then you can always lower the resolution while gaming too.
Battery Life
Battery life is really really good and I'm not even exaggerating. Having the massive 99.99Wh battery with an efficient AMD processor is heaven to use it daily for work or study and not carry any charger.
Battery life on office work is around 10 hours with discreet GPU disabled, only in igpu mode, at 60hz, no keyboard lightning, 50%-%60 screen brightness and while using office apps as well as 5 chrome tabs running. Using PowerPoint and Word at the same time and occasionally checking Chrome with 5 tabs running consumes about 9-10 watts of battery. If you want, of course, you can close Chrome and run office apps with about low 9ws of energy consumption and this will increase your battery life slightly. But anyway, the system puts Chrome on power saving when you don't use it so it consumes a small amount that you won't notice if you need to check pages once every few minutes.
Watching YouTube at 50% brightness consumes about 13-14 watts, at 75% brightness consumes a little more than that like 14w-15w. So, battery life whilst watching YouTube should be about 7-7:30 hrs.
Of course in any use, you can get a bit more more battery life if you lower the screen brightness more.
Performance and Benchmarks
Performance is amazing for such a thin and compact laptop. You get lots of power with raised power limits so this laptop even performs better than some others while still being so thin.
*120 to 180 FPS in GTA 5 Max settings when nearly all gpu is used, only 30% of cpu is being utilised. GPU temp: 70C. CPU temp: 62C
*80 to 110 FPS in BeamNg Drive Multiplayer High settings (game is not very optimised well). Same utilisation for this as well, CPU seems to be really powerful to not even utilise much, but then again I didn't test cpu heavy games yet. GPU temp: 73C. CPU temp: 60C
Cinebench R23 scores are;
CPU Multi Core: 17369 pts
CPU Single Core: 1791 pts
3D Mark Sores;
Timespy sore is 10727 which is above the average
Graphics Score is around 10536
CPU Score is about 12000-12200
3D Mark DLSS Test gave 27 Fps with no DLSS and 43 FPS with DLSS
Repeat benchmarks have shown accuracy while some fluctuations in scores recorded, however those were no more than 100 or 150 points per 10k which may not be present if you let it cool a bit more before repeating.
Benchmarks are done in Custom power mode from Legion Toolkit, Vantage Disabled and everything is maxed from general settings, no overclock or boost, no advanced settings, just out of the box. Results showed accuracy with other tests on Youtube.
Benchmark Screenshots:
3D Mark *1 https://imageupload.io/DAZyPTjPM8oO3Q2
3D Mark *2 https://imageupload.io/9YBdmG3FJN70wY9
Cinebench https://imageupload.io/SCOQlUVDaE8Lxr0
3D Mark DLSS https://imageupload.io/0O1kaANrGr9Vjw4
Cooling
Slim 7 Gen 8 AMD runs very cool even whilst gaming.
Idle / light work on battery in silent mode with only igpu running (no Nvidia): 30C
Idle while running a monitor: 32-35C Cpu and 38-40C GPU
While gaming CPU doesnt go over 70C so far and GPU stays at around 70-75C
Right now I'm typing this sitting outside on a bench using the laptop on battery power in silent mode and CPU temp is at 25-27 degrees C in silent mode when one tab of Reddit and one tab of Youtube is running (ambient temp is about 18 degrees C).
Build and design
The build quality is awesome, everything is solid, the keyboard feels good and high quality, doesn't make janky noises and is very silent. The typing feeling is really good and it makes you want to type more, it's addictive haha.
The touchpad is solid as well, with no rattles or soft spots, it clicks from middle to down and it's a solid click when you press.
All metal feel is really a noticeable improvement for me after owning a HP where most of it was plastic. It feels solid and premium.
The design is very elegant and classy, it stands out a bit from other laptops with its sexy and premium design but it looks stealthy and more like a Macbook. So, it doesn't shout "I'm a gaming laptop" or doesn't look childish.
Ports
I really like the ports at the back because everyday I dock it on my desk lid open and it makes the cables disappear. It has a good variety of ports whether you like/use USB A more or USB C, you won't be searching for more ports even if you are doing lots of data transfer because it has 3x USB A ports and 2x USB C ports which is kind of a lot on a laptop. Plus it's got the full-size SD card slot!
Storage and Upgradeability
Upgradeability is not bad at all, bottom panel is easily accessible and has no security screws. You get 2x full sized SSD slots and one slot for RAM, as 16 GB is soldered from the factory as standard. I specced mine with 32 GB RAM and 1 TB SSD from the factory and it came with WD SN810 SSD which is very fast. Disk transfer scores are:
Value for money
I bought it just around 1200 GBP from sale directly from Lenovo and I think what you get for even the retail price without a discount is pretty good. Theres not much to ask from a gaming laptop. Its very light, thin and portble, and has a deent performance with amazing battery life, what can we ask more?
I hope this helps. Feel free to ask any questions, I will answer happily.
Edit: Cinebench shows Windows 10 but that must be a weird bug becuase I'm running Windows 11.
Disclaimer: I am not paid to promote this laptop, I bought it with my own money and only writing this to help you guys to decide for your next laptop.