Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Pro X

A sleek choice for creatives, but more power is available elsewhere if you don't need its portability

SCORE ✪✪✪✪*

PRICE £1,643 (£1,971 inc VAT) from lenovo.com/gb

Graphics workstation or gaming laptop? This isn't the first G time we've asked ourselves this question since Nvidia launched its Studio initiative, where it works with companies such as Autodesk, Adobe and DaVinci to fine-tune their software for GeForce graphics chips. What's unusual about the Yoga Slim 7i Pro X is that it weighs 1.5kg, which is light for a system with creative professionals in its sights.

The key attraction is the GeForce RTX 3050. It lacks the firepower of the RTX 3070 Ti found in MSI Creator Z16P (see issue 336, p57), but it means that creative applications can exploit the 2,048 CUDA, 16 ray-tracing and 64 tensor cores. SPECviewperf scores of 54 in the 3ds Max viewset, 29 in Catia and 179 in Maya hardly threaten the results of desktop workstations, but they show that it has high-end graphics chops.

Intel's Core i7-12700H is an excellent choice for a power-oriented system such as this, with six juicy P-cores lying in wait for the toughest tasks, while eight E-cores either work on background tasks or provide extra threads as needed. A score of 14,483 in Cinebench R23's multicore test demonstrates the power on tap, as does 12,717 in Geekbench 5.

Nor does Lenovo ignore the supporting cast, with 32GB of super-fast LPDDR5-6000 RAM along with a 1TB Gen4 SSD. In our sequential transfer tests, the latter read data at 4.771MB/sec and wrote it at 2,684MB/sec. The SSD is easy to replace - five Torx screws keep the magnesium alloy base in place - but the memory is soldered onto the board.