Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Ultra Aura Edition Gen 11 Review: Chasing Lightness Has Its Cost

If you’re looking for one particular component to justify this laptop’s steep price, look no further than its screen. This 14-inch OLED touch screen running at 1800p and 120Hz caught my attention when I first powered it on and never let go. With fiery reds, rich blues, and lush greens, I sometimes catch myself simply staring at the rotating Windows 11 background photos of Montana’s mountains and Scotland’s bridges. The stark whites and deep blacks are striking, but what impresses me more are the subtle shades of brown and gray as images transition between light and dark sections. The colors never run together or lose their definition, even in high-contrast images of sunsets or seascapes.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

The Yoga Slim 7i Ultra’s premium feel extends to the keyboard, too. The soft finish on the keycaps and their 1.5mm key travel make typing feel comfortable and responsive, even after hours of use. You can also toggle some elegant white backlighting, although you’ll find no keyboard shortcut for this. Instead, you’ll have to rely on the built-in Lenovo Vantage software.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

Lenovo Vantage is one of the few preinstalled programs on the laptop, along with McAfee (which feels as intrusive as ever) and some Dolby software for the speakers. Vantage has a few smart features (performance scans, BIOS updates, sound modes) and a few questionable ones (presence detection, flip to start, adaptive battery modes), but it can be helpful if you take a little time to toy around with it.

The Yoga Slim 7i Ultra also comes with two major AI tools, Lenovo AI and Copilot, which is what the “Aura Edition” branding signifies. This laptop is an official Copilot+ PC laptop, complete with a dedicated Copilot button in the lower-right section of the keyboard. If you’re comfortable using AI, you can hit the ground running; if not, these features are easy enough to ignore.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

Otherwise, this laptop’s 5MP webcam and an integrated microphone work well enough. During a hybrid in-person/online Dungeons & Dragons session, our remote players commented on the webcam’s sharp resolution and the mic’s clear audio quality. They also said that the video chat’s colors looked washed out, though, and the mic picked up distracting background noise way too easily.

However, the speakers, located on either side of the keyboard, are impressive. Regardless of whether you tinker with the Dolby software, you can expect rich treble, audible bass, crisp vocals, and an excellent balance among all three. When I first set up the laptop, I intended to connect my favorite Bluetooth speaker to improve sound quality. After playing a few tracks with the built-in speakers, I decided I didn’t need it after all.