Which laptop to keep?

[engbren]

Recently I purchased two Lenovo laptops that were both refurbished. I only intend to keep one, but after trying both out, I am very conflicted as to which one I should keep and which one I should sell. The intention for these laptops was to undetake some light gaming with my son, no AAA titles so no need for a dedicated GPU. I also found with the E14, it could do double duty as a work laptop. These are the laptops:

Lenovo Thinkpad E14 Gen 2 Intel

• Core i5-1135g7 with Iris XE GPU with 80 EU
• 14 inch 1080p 60Hz LCD, 400 nits, 45% SRGB, matte
• 512 GB m.2 PCIE 3 nvme SSD
• 16 GB RAM

Lenovo YOGA 7 14ARB7

• Ryzen 5 6600u with Radeon 660m
• 14 inch, 2.8k 90Hz OLED, 400 nits 100% DCI-P3, glossy
• 512 GB m.2 PCIE 4 nvme SSD
• 16 GB LPDDR5 RAM

The reasons for the conflict:

• GPU - slight win for YOGA 7 - I might get a few more FPS on the Ryzen 5 GPU vs Iris XE in the i5 but its not significantly different in the games I am playing;
• Screen - YOGA 7 maybe - Both are 14 inch screens. The YOGA 7 has an incredibly colour accurate screen, much higher resolution, is HDR certified and movies / TV shows look sensational. However, the glossy finish is almost mirror like and makes for some discomfort when using for extended periods vs the matte screen on the E14 which looks duller with less accurate colours but can be used for hours without feeling any discomfort;
• Speed - YOGA 7 - the clear winner in the speed category is the YOGA 7 - the Ryzen 5 6600u is noticably faster and cooler and has advantages in that it has a later, faster generation of RAM in LPDDR5 and the PCIe4 SSD which benchmarks as fast as my m1 MBA SSD. Apps launch faster, documents load and render faster. Browsing in general feels noticably faster. The Yoga feels on par with, if not faster than, my m1 MBA. The Thinkpad doesn't feel slow when I'm using it, but it is noticably slower for document loading/rendering and general browsing;
• Sound - Thinkpad 14 - despite the YOGA having Dolby Atmos certification and a four speaker system, something is just not right with its tuning and the sound profile is muddy, losing alot of detail. The two speaker system on the Thinkpad is vibrant in comparison although perhaps a bit too much treble.
• Reliability - Thinkpad E14 - the clear winner here is the Thinkpad E14, which just works in both Windows and Linux. The YOGA 7 has many quirks which need to be actively worked around, with some known issues around keyboard lag and semi-regular BSOD, of which my machine definitely has the keyboard lag issue. I've only experienced the one BSOD recently. The keyboard lag issue means that key presses are often dropped, making work difficult and gaming near impossible when experiencing the issue. I've also had the webcam cut out several times on work calls. Lenovo are actively working on a BIOS update to fix the keyboard lag and BSOD issues. I think the webcam issue was likely caused by the keyboard lag issue.

After saying all that, the head is saying to keep the Thinkpad E14 and focus on reliability and comfort while using for extended periods. The heart is saying to keep the YOGA 7 with its faster CPU, memory and storage and hope the Lenovo BIOS update arrives soon to make it a stable machine.

 

[Isamilis]

I just bought Yoga 7, and compare it with Thinkpad X1 Carbon. I finally choose Yoga 7 with some observation:

• It has aluminum case, silver, which is bright and better than the black in X1, and it‘s more similar with MacBook Air (which I am using now)
• The keyboard is also more modern than Thinkpad. It’s just weird to see the track ball (the red one) in the middle of the keyboard. It looks so old
• The screen in Yoga is bright, but my eyes got a little bit uncomfortable. The screen in Thinkpad is really nice. I finally add screen protector which has UV protection as well to reduce its effect

I didn‘t experience lag in Yoga, probably due to I just bought it yesterday. So far so good for now.

 

[maflynn]

and semi-regular BSOD,

Normally, I'd say go for the Yoga, but if it were me, and I was getting semi-regularly BSODs, I would not keep it. Before returning it, did you wipe and reinstall windows, to see if that cleared things up?

 

[engbren]

I just bought Yoga 7, and compare it with Thinkpad X1 Carbon. I finally choose Yoga 7 with some observation:

Yes, design wise, the Yoga 7 is much nicer than the Thinkpad. Did you buy the AMD Yoga 7, or the Intel Yoga 7i? I don't mind the Thinkpad nub - I used Thinkpad's about ten years ago and there's a muscle memory still there. I find it more useful than trackpad for some use cases but its not significant enough to be a factor in the decision.

 

[engbren]

Normally, I'd say go for the Yoga, but if it were me, and I was getting semi-regularly BSODs, I would not keep it. Before returning it, did you wipe and reinstall windows, to see if that cleared things up?

That's exactly the dillemma. I haven't done a fresh install as there's enough people on the Lenovo forum here: https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/Lenovo...or-when-Vantage-is-opened/m-p/5174991?page=22 that say that clean install doesn't help.

I haven't had many BSOD but I have had them, its enough to be annoying.

 

[velocityg4]

That's exactly the dillemma. I haven't done a fresh install as there's enough people on the Lenovo forum here: https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/Lenovo...or-when-Vantage-is-opened/m-p/5174991?page=22 that say that clean install doesn't help.

I haven't had many BSOD but I have had them, its enough to be annoying.

I'd do a clean install. Making a Vanilla installer by downloading Windows from Microsoft and putting on USB. Then I would not install any Lenovo Utilities. I'd just let Windows take care of drivers. Except the AMD drivers. I'd download those from AMD.
You can dig through device manager. To see if anything is missing. Then look up the ven and dev IDs to download those drivers directly from the manufacturers.

If you can only get a driver from Lenovo. Download and unpack with 7-zip. Then add the driver manually. So, you only get the driver without any additional utilities.

 

[1BadManVan]

If you could solve the bsod issue, I would say the yoga 7 as well. These newer AMD machines are quite powerful and efficient. I have a Slim 7 with the Ryzen 7 6800hs chip and it’s a great machine, well built and definitely runs much cooler than the Intels. Barely hear the fans turn on for most workloads

 

[maflynn]

I did a bit of googling, and it seems related to the AMD drivers and/or BIOS version. I saw one reddit post where they're getting more frequent BSODs after the recent set of AMD drivers and BIOS update.

As for the keyboard issue, it seems if you disable the HiD Sensor collection that fixes that issue.

If it was me, I'd probably take a step back and return both, and just take a deep breath and figure out how best to proceed.

 

[engbren]

I did a bit of googling, and it seems related to the AMD drivers and/or BIOS version. I saw one reddit post where they're getting more frequent BSODs after the recent set of AMD drivers and BIOS update.

As for the keyboard issue, it seems if you disable the HiD Sensor collection that fixes that issue.

If it was me, I'd probably take a step back and return both, and just take a deep breath and figure out how best to proceed.

Thanks for checking it out - It's a strange one - the keyboard issue definitely temporarily resolves when you install the latest AMD Chipset drivers from AMD rather than the chipset drivers from Lenovo. However, the issue re-occurs after a couple of reboots. Some users report that Windows update helpfully re-installs the Lenovo chipset drivers after a period and have scripted the reinstallation of the I2C driver to occur at login and a few other events to work around this. This causes me a flow on problem in that the wifi chip operates best on my wifi network when in Wifi 6/AC mode. Reinstalling the I2C driver places the wifi chip in AX/Wifi 6E mode which is unstable with my wifi router.

Similarly, the workaround to disable the HiD Sensor collection also works but totally disables the tablet mode of the YOGA until you re-enable the HID Sensor collection so is not without drawbacks.

Lenovo has issued a beta BIOS in their support forum which is supposed to fix both the keyboard issue and the BSOD. The beta BIOS fully resolves the keyboard lag issue for me but has not yet fully resolved the BSOD issue. I've sent the memory dumps from the BSODs to the Lenovo support team and they are investigating. The beta BIOS has made the typing experience on the laptop much better.

It's making me more confident to keep the YOGA 7 at this stage.

 

[engbren]

If you could solve the bsod issue, I would say the yoga 7 as well. These newer AMD machines are quite powerful and efficient. I have a Slim 7 with the Ryzen 7 6800hs chip and it’s a great machine, well built and definitely runs much cooler than the Intels. Barely hear the fans turn on for most workloads

Yes - its certainly impressive performance from the Ryzen 5 and as you say, it stays nice and cool with fan noise kept to a minimum, especially compared to the Intel Thinkpad. One of my regrets is the Radeon 680m GPU in the Ryzen 7 is significantly better than the Radeon 660m in the Ryzen 5. I don't have a use case that needs that extra GPU power yet and my budget didn't stretch to one of those models.

 

[1BadManVan]

Yes - its certainly impressive performance from the Ryzen 5 and as you say, it stays nice and cool with fan noise kept to a minimum, especially compared to the Intel Thinkpad. One of my regrets is the Radeon 680m GPU in the Ryzen 7 is significantly better than the Radeon 660m in the Ryzen 5. I don't have a use case that needs that extra GPU power yet and my budget didn't stretch to one of those models.

Yea fair enough, my slim 7 has an rtx 3050 in it so I don’t make any use of my 680m lol

 

[v0lume4]

Yea fair enough, my slim 7 has an rtx 3050 in it so I don’t make any use of my 680m lol

Is this basically the computer that you have?

Lenovo Slim Pro 7 14" 90Hz 2.5K Touch-Screen Laptop -AMD Ryzen 7 7735HS NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 with 16GB Memory 512GB SSD Storm Grey 83AX0000US - Best Buy

Shop Lenovo Slim Pro 7 14" 90Hz 2.5K Touch-Screen Laptop -AMD Ryzen 7 7735HS NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 with 16GB Memory 512GB SSD Storm Grey at Best Buy. Find low everyday prices and buy online for delivery or in-store pick-up. Price Match Guarantee.

www.bestbuy.com

The computer that I linked has a 7000 series processor, but it’s one of the rebranded 6000 series so I reckon it’s EXTREMELY close to what you’re rocking now.

I recently discovered the Slim 7 and am thinking of picking one up. Would you be willing to help me out with some questions I have, since you have first hand experience with the laptop?

• What’s the battery life like?
• What do the fans sound like? The pitch? You said they aren’t very loud. Do they have a turbine-like whine to them? I’m very sensitive to high pitched fan noise and most laptops have a turbine jet-engine sound to them. Some people genuinely cannot hear the high pitched frequency I’m referring to so you may not know what I’m talking about. My Asus Zenbook 14 is the only computer that has a clean ”whoosh” sound to the fans. Even Apple’s 13” M2 MacBook Pro has the turbine noise, so it’s an industry wide problem.
• How is the trackpad and the clicking? I tried it at Best Buy and it felt pretty cheap in spite of the rest of the laptop feeling quite premium. I’m hoping I’d get used to the trackpad. That keyboard though. Holy cow. Incredible.

 

[1BadManVan]

Is this basically the computer that you have?

Lenovo Slim Pro 7 14" 90Hz 2.5K Touch-Screen Laptop -AMD Ryzen 7 7735HS NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 with 16GB Memory 512GB SSD Storm Grey 83AX0000US - Best Buy

Shop Lenovo Slim Pro 7 14" 90Hz 2.5K Touch-Screen Laptop -AMD Ryzen 7 7735HS NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 with 16GB Memory 512GB SSD Storm Grey at Best Buy. Find low everyday prices and buy online for delivery or in-store pick-up. Price Match Guarantee.

www.bestbuy.com

The computer that I linked has a 7000 series processor, but it’s one of the rebranded 6000 series so I reckon it’s EXTREMELY close to what you’re rocking now.

I recently discovered the Slim 7 and am thinking of picking one up. Would you be willing to help me out with some questions I have, since you have first hand experience with the laptop?

• What’s the battery life like?
• What do the fans sound like? The pitch? You said they aren’t very loud. Do they have a turbine-like whine to them? I’m very sensitive to high pitched fan noise and most laptops have a turbine jet-engine sound to them. Some people genuinely cannot hear the high pitched frequency I’m referring to so you may not know what I’m talking about. My Asus Zenbook 14 is the only computer that has a clean ”whoosh” sound to the fans. Even Apple’s 13” M2 MacBook Pro has the turbine noise, so it’s an industry wide problem.
• How is the trackpad and the clicking? I tried it at Best Buy and it felt pretty cheap in spite of the rest of the laptop feeling quite premium. I’m hoping I’d get used to the trackpad. That keyboard though. Holy cow. Incredible.

I have a 16" Version of the Slim 7 with a 500 nit 165hz display. For me the fans are very quiet, not high pitch at all, even in extreme performance mode. I rarely run in extreme mode for my usage and it's very quiet for most of my usage. I enjoy everything about it, the trackpad is fairly good, I feel its quite even for a diving board style one. I obviously still like the trackpad better on my MacBook Air but for a windows laptop it's quite nice.

Battery life I get 4-5 hours from it but I also leave the screen at 75% brightness and keep it on 165hz as my room is quite bright. I generally use it plugged in as I have it hooked to my 27" monitor as well for my work. Battery life isn't my main concern for this set up as I have an M2 MacBook Air for my portable machine which goes for days on battery.

Here is a review of the laptop you're looking at:

This is mine:

Lenovo Slim 7 (16″ AMD) | Slim laptop with AMD Ryzen™ H-Series Mobile Processors

The Lenovo Slim 7 (16″ AMD) laptop is powerful and highly mobile laptop with a 16″ touchscreen display and AMD Ryzen™ 6000 Series Mobile Processors.

www.lenovo.com

 

[engbren]

I haven't updated this thread for a while - I ended up keeping the Yoga 7 and making some modifications to it. I replaced the SSD with a Samsung nvme SSD with known good firmware and replaced the horrid wifi chip with an intel. This along with the workaround of effectively disabling the tablet mode made the laptop passable. In the past week, Lenovo has finally issued a new BIOS/Firmware and while it does not reference the BSOD issue, there is some cryptic notes in the release notes about some thermal issues and AMD updates.

I've installed the BIOS/firmware and disabled the workaround for the HID Sensor Collection V2 (the thing that disabled tablet mode) and have not had a BSOD. I've used it in tablet mode, run Zwift on it, run it on battery and on power. I've found myself picking it up to use instead of my Macbook Air this week. This new firmware appears to have fixed another bugbear of mine too - resume behaviour was erratic - sometimes it would fast resume from sleep, but often it would slow resume and take 30 seconds to a minute to be in a ready state. When it slow resumed, it didn't lose context or state. Haven't had a slow resume since.

 

[BanjoDudeAhoy]

Nice to hear the problems seem to be sorted out

I used to have a Yoga Slim 7i 13.3". That was a really nice computer. Best Windows laptop I've ever had and it felt reasonably close to a MacBook Air. Also my first Windows laptop with a glass-topped trackpad.

Because I needed something with a dedicated graphics chip (and generally a bit more power) for work, I ended up selling it. And what do you know... I regret that. This beefier Windows laptop is big and heavy and loud, and I never take it off my desk, whereas with the Yoga, I would alternate between taking it or my MBA around with me.

 

[1BadManVan]

Nice to hear the problems seem to be sorted out

I used to have a Yoga Slim 7i 13.3". That was a really nice computer. Best Windows laptop I've ever had and it felt reasonably close to a MacBook Air. Also my first Windows laptop with a glass-topped trackpad.

Because I needed something with a dedicated graphics chip (and generally a bit more power) for work, I ended up selling it. And what do you know... I regret that. This beefier Windows laptop is big and heavy and loud, and I never take it off my desk, whereas with the Yoga, I would alternate between taking it or my MBA around with me.

I learned over the years with windows that if you need dedicated graphics and going to use it at a desk most of the time anyways to just go desktop. Just too much compromise

 

[BanjoDudeAhoy]

I learned over the years with windows that if you need dedicated graphics and going to use it at a desk most of the time anyways to just go desktop. Just too much compromise

Yeah, that’s not wrong. I was somewhat thinking about getting a desktop, too. But I will have to travel with the thing, so I would have needed a beefy (windows) laptop anyway. Personally, I also find it less cluttered to have a laptop. If I don’t need it, it goes in the drawer or whatever, whereas the desktop would require more storage space to make it disappear.

That last part is a subjective thing, though, and if the travel wasn’t a factor, a desktop would have absolutely been a smarter choice. Even just from a longevity point of view because I’d be able to upgrade it more easily.

 

[1BadManVan]

Yeah, that’s not wrong. I was somewhat thinking about getting a desktop, too. But I will have to travel with the thing, so I would have needed a beefy (windows) laptop anyway. Personally, I also find it less cluttered to have a laptop. If I don’t need it, it goes in the drawer or whatever, whereas the desktop would require more storage space to make it disappear.

That last part is a subjective thing, though, and if the travel wasn’t a factor, a desktop would have absolutely been a smarter choice. Even just from a longevity point of view because I’d be able to upgrade it more easily.

for sure, if you need it too travel then obviously a desktop is out of question. I tried a few different gaming laptops with the idea of being able to take my gaming with me while travelling but just couldn't find a good fit and finally sold my windows laptops and got a proper desktop and then my m2 air for travelling or just sitting on the couch at home.

Windows laptops are getting better, especially if you dont need a top of the line gpu in it, lots of more efficient rtx 4060/4070 laptops with some pretty good battery life and portability.

 

[Technerd108]

Recently I purchased two Lenovo laptops that were both refurbished. I only intend to keep one, but after trying both out, I am very conflicted as to which one I should keep and which one I should sell. The intention for these laptops was to undetake some light gaming with my son, no AAA titles so no need for a dedicated GPU. I also found with the E14, it could do double duty as a work laptop. These are the laptops:

Lenovo Thinkpad E14 Gen 2 Intel

• Core i5-1135g7 with Iris XE GPU with 80 EU
• 14 inch 1080p 60Hz LCD, 400 nits, 45% SRGB, matte
• 512 GB m.2 PCIE 3 nvme SSD
• 16 GB RAM

Lenovo YOGA 7 14ARB7

• Ryzen 5 6600u with Radeon 660m
• 14 inch, 2.8k 90Hz OLED, 400 nits 100% DCI-P3, glossy
• 512 GB m.2 PCIE 4 nvme SSD
• 16 GB LPDDR5 RAM

The reasons for the conflict:

• GPU - slight win for YOGA 7 - I might get a few more FPS on the Ryzen 5 GPU vs Iris XE in the i5 but its not significantly different in the games I am playing;
• Screen - YOGA 7 maybe - Both are 14 inch screens. The YOGA 7 has an incredibly colour accurate screen, much higher resolution, is HDR certified and movies / TV shows look sensational. However, the glossy finish is almost mirror like and makes for some discomfort when using for extended periods vs the matte screen on the E14 which looks duller with less accurate colours but can be used for hours without feeling any discomfort;
• Speed - YOGA 7 - the clear winner in the speed category is the YOGA 7 - the Ryzen 5 6600u is noticably faster and cooler and has advantages in that it has a later, faster generation of RAM in LPDDR5 and the PCIe4 SSD which benchmarks as fast as my m1 MBA SSD. Apps launch faster, documents load and render faster. Browsing in general feels noticably faster. The Yoga feels on par with, if not faster than, my m1 MBA. The Thinkpad doesn't feel slow when I'm using it, but it is noticably slower for document loading/rendering and general browsing;
• Sound - Thinkpad 14 - despite the YOGA having Dolby Atmos certification and a four speaker system, something is just not right with its tuning and the sound profile is muddy, losing alot of detail. The two speaker system on the Thinkpad is vibrant in comparison although perhaps a bit too much treble.
• Reliability - Thinkpad E14 - the clear winner here is the Thinkpad E14, which just works in both Windows and Linux. The YOGA 7 has many quirks which need to be actively worked around, with some known issues around keyboard lag and semi-regular BSOD, of which my machine definitely has the keyboard lag issue. I've only experienced the one BSOD recently. The keyboard lag issue means that key presses are often dropped, making work difficult and gaming near impossible when experiencing the issue. I've also had the webcam cut out several times on work calls. Lenovo are actively working on a BIOS update to fix the keyboard lag and BSOD issues. I think the webcam issue was likely caused by the keyboard lag issue.

After saying all that, the head is saying to keep the Thinkpad E14 and focus on reliability and comfort while using for extended periods. The heart is saying to keep the YOGA 7 with its faster CPU, memory and storage and hope the Lenovo BIOS update arrives soon to make it a stable machine.

Keep the thinkpad or spend more for an updated model.

I have had a few Yoga's and while the specs and build are great the reliability is not good. I had screen issues with two models and a mother board die in a few months. These are 2021-2022 models with processors similar or newer than what you are looking at. Never had a thinkpad have a motherboard die in a few months.

Thinkpads are crazy expensive for the specs but they are built like a tank and that makes a difference in a device you move around a lot and can drop.

Personally I would buy the ThinkPad but I would look for a Ryzen model. 11th gen Intel is a dinosaur now and I don't recommend you buy it. Even 4th gen Ryzen is better than 11th gen Intel IMHO.

 

[engbren]

Personally I would buy the ThinkPad but I would look for a Ryzen model. 11th gen Intel is a dinosaur now and I don't recommend you buy it. Even 4th gen Ryzen is better than 11th gen Intel IMHO.

The OP was from April last year. The Thinkpad was definitely more reliable than the Yoga but just felt less exciting. I ended up keeping the Yoga despite its issues and have found work arounds. If I was buying today, I would also look across other brands.