The 16-inch laptop is a 2-in-1. Convertible laptop/tablet hybrids typically have screen sizes of 12-14 inches. This allows for easier tablet-mode carrying. It's not a device you will use every day, but rather a replacement 16-inch laptop or tablet that can be used for presentations and sketching. This combination may be more appealing, which is why the Lenovo Yoga 7i 16 Generation 7 (1,399.99) was introduced.
The larger model, which was launched alongside the Yoga 7i 14 Gen 7 is a bit more spacious, has a more powerful CPU and bigger battery. The 14-inch Yoga 7i 14 Gen 7 model has the same sleek, feature-packed design as the larger version, with the same rock-solid performance and great design, but it's much smaller. Although it may not be always the best, in this instance it isn't half bad.
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Mary Kay's Cadillac is the Biggest Convertible
The Yoga 7i 16 can be purchased in Storm Gray or Stone Blue. Both are anodized colors to enhance the aluminum frame's CNC-milled construction. The Lenovo measures 0.76 by 14.2 by 9.8 inches, more or less matching its 2-in-1 archrival the HP Spectre x360 16 (0.78 by 14.1 by 9.7 inches), but is lighter—the Lenovo tips the scale at 4.19 pounds to the HP's 4.45.
Our $1,399.99 review unit combines Intel's 12th Generation Core i7-1260P processor (four Performance cores, eight Efficient cores, 16 threads) with 16GB of LPDDR5 memory, a 512GB PCIe 4.0 solid-state drive, and a glossy IPS touch screen with 2,560-by-1,600-pixel resolution and 400 nits of brightness.
No other screen is available (i.e., you can't match the Spectre x360 16's OLED panel), but other models at Lenovo.com offer a 4GB Intel Arc A370M GPU instead of our unit's Iris Xe integrated graphics.
The Yoga 7i 14's increased bulk has led to a few design modifications. A wider chassis allows for an even smaller numeric keypad to be placed on the right side of the keyboard.
Although the keys on the number pad may be slightly smaller than those of the primary keyboard, they are not too narrow to feel cramped for entering data into spreadsheets.
Another change is a different position for the speakers, with a speaker grille between the screen and keyboard. With four stereo speakers, two 3-watt woofers, and dual 2-watt tweeters, the sound offered by the 16-inch laptop is superb, with robust volume and great clarity. It's enhanced with Dolby Atmos support and automatic amplification.
The Yoga 7i 16's sleek design makes it easy to access a wide range of ports. This is a refreshing departure from current minimalist design that relies only on a handful of Thunderbolt 4 ports and adapters for most ports. It makes the Yoga 7i an attractive choice for those who travel a lot. You'll see an HDMI output and two USB Type C/Thunderbolt4 connectors on the left. There is also a USB Type-A port.
On the right are a 3.5mm headphone jack and a second USB-A port, along with the power button. The Lenovo also has up-to-date wireless support, with Wi-Fi 6E in lieu of Ethernet and Bluetooth 5.2 for quick connections to peripherals and audio devices.
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The Display: Skinny Screen Sides, With a Bump
It's a 16-inch touch screen that looks amazing. The 2,560-by-1600 resolution and high contrast make it look great. There is also full support for touch and an active pen. Unfortunately, there is no pen included in the box. But it's all the more impressive when you stop to notice the slim bezels around the display—if you don't look for them, you might miss them completely since Lenovo boasts the laptop has a 91% screen-to-body ratio in tablet mode.
It's also impressive that despite the narrowness of the screen borders, you never feel like you're missing a place to hold the Yoga when in tablet mode—the rounded edges of the chassis provide enough of a finger and thumb grip to hold on comfortably without encroaching on the display real estate.
Above the screen is the slight protrusion of what Lenovo calls the communications bar, the housing for the 1080p webcam, dual microphones, and Windows Hello-compatible IR face recognition sensors for the laptop. It's sort of a reverse approach to Apple's infamous notch, raised above the display instead of dipping down into it. There's a sliding privacy shutter for the webcam (though it's so small you might not notice it) and the bar itself provides a handy ridge to help you open and close the lid despite the smoother rounded corners.
The Yoga 7i 16 Performance Test: High-End Laptop Contest
We compared the Yoga 7i 16 Gen 7 to two 16-inch deluxe notebooks: the HP Spectre x360 16 convertible, and the AMD-powered Asus Vivobook Pro (16X OLED) for our benchmark charts. It was also compared to the Dell Latitude 9520 2-in-1, a 15-inch convertible that is more business-oriented.
The main productivity benchmark we use for Windows systems is UL’s PCMark 10. This simulates daily tasks such as word processing, spreadsheet analysis and web browsing. PCMark 10's Full System Drive is also used to evaluate the response time and speed of a laptop’s boot drive. Geekbench 5, which simulates popular apps such as PDF rendering and speech recognition, focuses more on the processing power.
Maxon's Cinebench R23 is another CPU-intensive benchmark that uses all cores and threads. It runs Maxon's Cinema 4D engine to render complex scenes and HandBrake (an open-source video converter that converts 4K video clips to 1080p resolution). We use this to convert 12 minutes of 4K video into 1080p. The last productivity test we have is the PugetBench extension from Adobe Photoshop 22 by workstation vendor Puget Systems.
It uses Adobe Photoshop's Creative Cloud 22 version to perform a range of tasks, including opening, rotating and resizing images, applying gradient fills and filters, as well as performing general and GPU-accelerated tasks. The test, which is similar to HandBrake in that it rates the suitability of a PC for multimedia and digital content creation jobs.
These systems all passed the 4,000-point mark in PCMark 10, which indicates high productivity for Google Workspace and Microsoft Office. However, they did swap victories in benchmarks. The Asus claimed most CPU honors while the Yoga 7i16 won in Geekbench. They are all creative and high-performance machines.
Two game-like animations from benchmark suites are used to test the graphics abilities of PCs. DirectX 12 is a test of Night Raid, which can be used on laptops equipped with integrated graphics, and Time Spy, which are more demanding and suitable for those with gaming rigs that have discrete GPUs. UL's 3DMark provides the Night Raid and Time Spy subtests.
GFXBench renders off-screen the 1080p Car Chase and 1440p Aztec Ruins to determine if different resolutions will work. These tests are focused on both high-level image rendering as well as low-level routines such texturing.
These tests were won by Asus and HP, who had discrete Nvidia GeForce GPUs which outperform the Lenovo's integrated Intel graphics of the 11th and 12th generations.
We then test the battery life of laptops by looping an locally saved 720p video file (the Blender movie Tears of Steel). The display brightness is set at 50%, and the audio volume is at 100%. Before testing, we make sure that the battery has been fully charged.
We also turn off the keyboard backlighting and Wi-Fi. We also use a Datacolor SpyderX Elite monitor calibration sensor and software to measure the screen's color saturation—what percentage of the sRGB, Adobe RGB, and DCI-P3 color gamuts or palettes the display can show—and its brightness in nits (candelas per square meter).
In our video review, the battery life of the Lenovo was remarkable. It lasted for over 18 hours. The Lenovo's battery life was nearly twice as long as the Dell and beat the OLED-screen Asus and HP by almost two hours. These systems were able to outperform the IPS-panel laptops in terms of color coverage, with vivider colors and covering almost all gamuts.
Although the Yoga 7i's screen brightness was lower than what we would expect from a premium notebook, it is still acceptable. An OLED display displays have a higher number of nits. Dolby Vision HDR is supported on the screen. The maximum brightness can be set for small areas or applications rather than the entire screen.
Verdict: If you want more room to maneuver, it's possible
Convertible laptops of 15.6 inches and 16 inches are too heavy to be used as tablets. However, they can be easily flipped up or down for presentations and allow for touch interaction more than smaller notebooks. The HP Spectre x360 16 is our favorite due to its brilliant OLED display. However, the Lenovo Yoga 7i16 Gen 7 is a fantastic alternative for those looking for a bigger 2-in-1.