Lenovo Slim Pro 7 review: Excellent for video editing on a budget

Once in a supernova (Milky Way specific) we get a laptop that offers killer specs all for an affordable price — this time that’s the Lenovo Slim Pro 7. It’s not perfect, but damn it’s close. 

For just $1,199, you get a powerful AMD Ryzen 7 CPU and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 GPU tucked in a slim chassis with a gorgeous 14.5-inch display, a clicky keyboard, and great audio. Annoying power button and shallow touchpad aside, the biggest offense that the Lenovo Slim Pro 7 commits is its below-average battery life.

If you can come to terms with those few flaws, the Lenovo Slim Pro 7 is an absolute monster for the price, and is easily one of the best video editing laptops out there.

Lenovo Slim Pro 7 price and configurations

There’s only one model of the Lenovo Slim Pro 7 available right now, which is the one we reviewed, sold exclusively at Best Buy. It costs only $1,199, which is a steal considering its specs. The Slim Pro 7 is outfitted with an AMD Ryzen 7 7735HS processor, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 GPU with 6GB of VRAM, 16GB of RAM, a 512GB SSD, and a 14.5-inch, 1600p, 90Hz display.

If you’re looking for a laptop that’s even cheaper, check out our best budget laptops page.

Lenovo Slim Pro 7 design

I will complain about black, silver, and gray chassis until the end of my days, but color isn’t everything, especially when you are as svelte as the Lenovo Slim Pro 7. The gray hood is adorned only with a Lenovo logo, but instead of a square box, the Slim Pro 7 features a curved design. It’s represented throughout the lid and sides of the machine. It almost conforms to my palm as I pick it up, like it wants to be there.

Jump cut to me yelling at the Lenovo Slim Pro 7 because I clicked the exterior power button again. Why have this? It’s not a 2-in-1 laptop. There’s literally no reason for this inconvenient design choice.

The interior offers more of the same, with the slick gray deck, a well-spaced keyboard surrounded by top-firing speakers and a wide touchpad underneath. The bezels on the display are barely noticeable thanks to the glossy panel. There’s a larger lip for the webcam, which not only allows for a larger webcam, but also a convenient point to lift the lid.

At 12.8 x 8.9 x 0.6 inches and 3.5 pounds, the Lenovo Slim Pro 7 is a skinny witch. It’s slimmer than the Asus VivoBook Pro 16 2023 (4.3 pounds, 14.2 x 10.2 x 0.7 inches) and LG Gram 17 2023 (3.2 pounds, 14.9 x 10.2 x 0.7 inches).

Lenovo Slim Pro 7 ports

Despite how slim the Lenovo Slim Pro 7 actually is, it has room for all of your vital ports.

On the left side there’s an HDMI port, one USB Type-C 3.2 port, and one USB 4 port, while the right side offers one USB Type-A port, a headphone jack, the cursed power button, and a camera kill-switch.

If you do need more ports, check out our best USB Type-C hubs and best laptop docking stations pages.

Lenovo Slim Pro 7 security and durability

The Lenovo Slim Pro 7 blends its identity between being a business laptop and a consumer creator laptop. It doesn’t have any remote features like vPro, but it does offer a hardware camera kill-switch. It even has an IR camera for Windows Hello instant log-in.

This machine won’t even flinch if you drop it (although, I don’t recommend it). The Slim Pro 7 passed MIL-STD 810H military-grade certifications, which means it’s passed rigorous testing for drops, shocks, dust, and more.

Lenovo Slim Pro 7 display

The Lenovo Slim Pro 7’s 14.5-inch, 2560 x 1600, 90Hz display is beautiful and smooth for the price.

In the trailer for Strange Way of Life, daddy Pedro Pascal’s green jacket popped in contrast to the greenery and sand in the background. The panel was bright and sharp enough to pick up the details of the chair in the corner of the leading men’s bedroom. I could see each strand of Ethan Hawke’s goatee in the next scene. Keep in mind that it has a glossy display, so there will be some glare in bright spaces.

According to our colorimeter, the Lenovo Slim Pro 7 covered 83.7% of the DCI-P3 color gamut, which isn’t far off the premium laptop average (89.6%). The VivoBook (89.2%) and Gram (115.4%) were more colorful.

At 325 nits of brightness, the Slim Pro 7 doesn’t surpass the premium laptop average (381 nits), but considering there are laptops quadruple the price in that category, I can forgive that. While products like the VivoBook (393 nits) and Gram (438 nits) made it past that, the Slim Pro 7 is plenty bright.

Lenovo Slim Pro 7 keyboard and touchpad

Bing, boom, bam! My fingers bounced across the Lenovo Slim Pro 7’s keyboard like they were trying to reach the stratosphere. Clicky clacks felt good. They offer deep travel and punchy feedback.

I hit 79 words per minute on the 10fastfingers.com typing test, which is just slightly above my current 78-wpm average. I love how well-spaced the keys are from one another and how distinct they feel against my fingertips.

The 3.1 x 5.3-inch touchpad could be softer, but its worse offensive is how flimsy the touchpad feels. There isn’t much resistance and the click travel is terribly low, so it feels rather unsatisfying to navigate the web.

Lenovo Slim Pro 7 audio

From the top-firing speakers to the Dolby Atmos software, the Lenovo Slim Pro 7’s audio was a recipe for success.

I listened to SKYLAR’s “Double Denim,” and the opening guitar was bright and inviting, luring me into the vocals, which were soft and melodic. Then the percussion came in thick just before the chorus popped off crisp and clear vocals that had my head bopping until the song finished before I realized it.

With the Dolby Access app, you can adjust the audio with presets like Game, Movie, Music, Voice, and Dynamic — this is my favorite because it makes the sound brighter and louder overall.

Lenovo Slim Pro 7 performance

Packed in the Lenovo Slim Pro 7’s thin frame is the AMD Ryzen 7 7735HS processor and 16GB of RAM, both paired together to easily breeze through a couple dozen Google Chrome tabs and a handful of YouTube videos.

On the Geekbench 5.5 overall performance test, the Lenovo Slim Pro 7 scored 9,031, surpassing the premium laptop average (7,275). The VivoBook’s AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX (8,191) did surprisingly worse, while the Gram’s Intel Core i7-1360P (9,945) scored higher.

The Lenovo Slim Pro 7 transcoded a 4K video to 1080p in 6 minutes and 36 seconds on the HandBrake benchmark, sliding past the 8:25 category average as well as the VivoBook (6:41) and Gram (9:09).

Lenovo’s 512GB SSD has a transfer rate of 1,595 megabytes per second, crushing the premium laptop average (1,329 MBps) once again along with its competitors, the VivoBook’s 1TB SSD (1,043 MBps) and Gram’s 1TB SSD (1,393 MBps).

Lenovo Slim Pro 7 graphics

If you’re a creator or a gamer looking for a laptop with discrete graphics without breaking the bank, the Lenovo Slim Pro 7 is no joke. It’s packing an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 GPU with 6GB of VRAM.

On Sid Meier's Civilization VI: Gathering Storm benchmark (Medium, 1080p), the Lenovo Slim Pro 7 averaged 81 frames per second, soaring over the average premium laptop (49 fps). The VivoBook’s RTX 3050 Ti did better, at 99 fps, but the Slim did beat out the Gram’s RTX 3050 (50 fps).

On the Grand Theft Auto V benchmark (Very High, 1080p), the Slim Pro 7 hit 46 fps, which is not bad at all considering it crossed over the 30-fps threshold for playability. However, it was far below the category average (70 fps).

To put it in perspective of synthetic benchmarks, the Lenovo Slim Pro 7 scored 10,064 on the 3DMark Fire Strike graphics benchmark, toppling the average premium laptop (7,646), the VivoBook (10,024) and the Gram (7,155).

Lenovo Slim Pro 7 battery life

The Lenovo Slim Pro 7 has few flaws, but unfortunately battery life is one of them. On the Laptop Mag battery test, the Slim Pro 7 died out at 9 hours and 41 minutes. It’s not bad, but it could be better. It fell short of the premium laptop average (10:19) as well as the VivoBook (11:07) and Gram (12:02).

Lenovo Slim Pro 7 webcam

Despite being a 1080p webcam with IR tech, it’s still as bad as any other laptop camera.

The My Hero Academia poster behind me was decently colorful, but my head of hair looked like a blurry mess. Not to mention that the back window was completely blown out and started to absorb parts of the wall. I could even see blotchy RGB pixels in the fan above me. I recommend picking up a discrete camera on our best webcams page.

Lenovo Slim Pro 7 heat

There wasn’t enough heat in the Lenovo Slim Pro 7 to cook my breakfast, which is disappointing, but it’s great for your nethers. After streaming a 15-minute video, the underside clocked 95 degrees Fahrenheit, which is the exact comfort threshold we look for. The center of the keyboard and touchpad reached 90 and 78 degrees, respectively. However, the hottest the machine got was 97 degrees, located on the rear underside, in front of the vent. It's still not very hot.

Lenovo Slim Pro 7 software and warranty

Thankfully Lenovo packs all of its important software features into one app — Lenovo Vantage. Within this app, you can check your system information, warranty, adjust system settings, update drivers, and more. Anything you could possibly need for getting settled with your new laptop is found there.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t stop this laptop from getting other bloatware like Spotify and Clipchamp — no professional is using this to edit videos, sorry.

The Slim Pro 7 comes with a one-year limited warranty. See how Lenovo performed on our Tech Support Showdown and Best and Worst Brands ranking.

Bottom line

The Lenovo Slim Pro 7 is a champ for the price. You can’t deny that performance in a slim body or that sharp, beautiful display. The top-firing speakers and the clicky keyboard are the cherries on top. Of course, it’s tough to ignore the less than stellar battery life.

If battery life is your priority, check out the LG Gram 17 2023, which offers a bigger screen with better longevity. But the speakers suck.

If you can shave a few hours off that battery life, you will be more than happy with the Lenovo Slim Pro 7. It’s a petite killer.