The Ultimate Guide to the Best Portable Laptops for Telecommuters, According to ZDNet Tests

Discover the Best Portable Laptop Ideal for Telecommuters, According to In-Depth Testing

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ZDNET’s key takeaways

The Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x is currently available for $1,199 on Best Buy
It combines an impressive 3K OLED display with a solid battery life – two things that historically don’t go together
That said, certain apps’ lack of optimization for Windows on ARM might limit some users like content creators

View now at Best Buy

Of all the new Copilot+ PCs around the $1,000 price point, the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x feels like one of the most premium. Its dark “cosmic blue” colorway and sleek form factor exude a grown-up, capable aura that feels both down to business and ready to have some fun.

The solid hardware on board supports that impression, with the Snapdragon X Elite processor leading the charge, and the brilliant 3K OLED display acting as the cherry on top.

Also: The best OLED laptops of 2024: Expert tested and reviewed

Lenovo’s Yoga laptops have blown up in popularity this year for their versatile form factors that can bend and twist into multiple configurations (as their name suggests) and high degree of hardware customization. My colleague Max Buondonno reviewed the Lenovo Yoga 9i , an outright challenge to the traditional laptop form factor with a dual screen setup, and I took a look at the Yoga 7i , a 2-in-1 convertible laptop at a more accessible price point.

ZDNET RECOMMENDS Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x With a brilliant OLED display and compact form factor, the Yoga Slim 7x is a solid choice for creators, freelancers, and remote workers. View at Best Buy

The latest addition to the Yoga family, the aptly-named 14-inch, 2.6-pound Slim 7x, departs from its siblings’ flexibility by giving up the 2-in-1 form factor but, in exchange, gains impressive battery life, increased performance, and a gorgeous OLED display.

Truly, this might be one of the brightest displays I’ve seen on a laptop in a while, capable of up to 1,000 nits of brightness for peak HDR content. The touchscreen display features a resolution of 2944 x 1840 pixels (or 3K), resulting in a gorgeous media experience. While it doesn’t have a full 120Hz refresh rate, the 90Hz it can achieve is enough for that silky-smooth, crisp image.

Kyle Kucharski/ZDNET

The integrated Qualcomm Adreno GPU puts in the work here, sporting solid performance in graphics benchmarking tests in 3DMark , and usability with video editing in DaVinci Resolve , which ran smoothly during my testing. While it ultimately won’t compete with other high-end GPUs on the market right now, it features solid enough performance for the majority of cases that you’ll want to put this laptop through.

Rounding out the media experience, the Slim 7x provides audio through two upward-firing speakers on either side of the keyboard. Unlike the display, there’s not a lot to say here, as the audio is clear but lacks depth, which is typical for laptops. After all, that’s what Bluetooth is for. I recommend popping in a pair of Nothing Ear (a) earbuds if you want to listen to music or watch a movie, especially since the Dolby Atmos Access app allows for audio customization.

Also: One of my favorite laptops I’ve tested this year is ultraportable and has all-day battery life

As mentioned in all of our other reviews of Copilot+ PCs, the new Snapdragon X Elite processors with ARM architecture can’t run all programs, including industry staples like Adobe Premiere Pro, nor games, which are still a hit-or-miss endeavor.

You can certainly game on the Yoga Slim 7x, but not all titles will work yet, and the ones that do might not be perfectly optimized. That said, games that are not on the cutting-edge of graphics and hardware requirements look as good as they can on a 14-inch laptop.

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While the display makes media and gaming one of the most obvious first areas to explore on this laptop, it’s also well-suited to get down to business. From a productivity standpoint, you’ve got everything you could want here for a solid work laptop.

The X1E-78-100 Processor (3.40 GHz) Snapdragon X Elite processor supports snappy, responsive performance during multitasking, even with demanding applications, while the 16GB of soldered memory and 1TB of storage is enough to future-proof it.

Kyle Kucharski/ZDNET

Copilot+ PCs can still be considered nascent since the full capabilities of AI-fueled applications (namely Microsoft’s Recall ) have yet to arrive (which is a story for another day). For now, the ARM-based processors are fast, run cool, and allow for fantastic AI performance via the NPU.

The Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x hits benchmarking numbers that are comparable to other Copilot+ PCs around the same price point, namely the Asus Vivobook S 15 . In Cinebench, I got a single-core score of 108, and a multicore score of 1,004. Conversely, in Geekbench, the Yoga Slim 7x scored 2,412 on the single-core test, and 13,677 on the multicore.

Also: Lenovo’s newest laptops have a clever solution for iPhone file transferring that you have to see for yourself

The Slim 7x also has an impressive 70Wh battery, which can easily power through a day of work and then some with more demanding workflows. During my testing of running a 4K livestream on YouTube over Wi-Fi with 50% brightness, I got over 15 hours before it conked out, putting it up near the top of other Copilot+ PCs. In terms of more actionable battery life, in my testing with intermittent use of work-related productivity apps, casual browsing, and light media playback, I got several days of use out of it.

Kyle Kucharski/ZDNET

If I had to highlight some of the things I didn’t love, I would first have to mention the port selection, which won’t be everyone’s cup of tea. Lenovo seems to have doubled down on its forward-looking design by giving the Slim 7x three USB-C Thunderbolt ports and nothing else – no HDMI, USB-A, or card slots. It seems a little puzzling to not drop just one of these for at least a USB-A port.

Also: The best 15-inch laptops of 2024: Expert tested and reviewed

The laptop’s trackpad is also not the most sensitive I’ve tested. While the keyboard looks and feels premium, the trackpad is a little too large and not super responsive. Also, the matte casing on the laptop attracts fingerprints left and right, which is certainly not something unique to this laptop, but it is nonetheless a bit of a personal pet peeve.

Compared to a MacBook, one could argue that the Yoga Slim 7x is at least better than the MacBook Pro M2 Max. It has a slightly shorter battery life than Apple’s device, comparable performance, a slimmer form factor, and a more affordable price. You’re not going to pay thousands for this machine.

The MacBook is better suited for the iOS ecosystem, however Lenovo has been making strides in developing a data transfer feature between its laptop and iPhones. So if you’re not sure which one to get, the Yoga Slim 7x might be the better long-term investment.

ZDNET’s buying advice

The Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x is a solid addition to the Copilot+ PC line and a laptop I’d recommend to remote workers, freelancers, and creators looking for a portable, 14-inch laptop with a gorgeous display. Its thin and light form factor makes it a solid option for anyone who travels frequently and might not have reliable access to an outlet.

If you’re looking for a less expensive Copilot+ PC (and are willing to significantly downgrade the display), the HP OmniBook X 14 will run you $949. If you like this laptop’s stats but want a bigger screen, check out the Asus Vivobook S 15 .

Creators might also appreciate the fact that Lenovo is also giving two free months of Adobe Creative Cloud with the purchase of any new Yoga laptop.