On my left, weighing in at 3.3 pounds is Lenovo Flex 5i. And on my right, weighing in at 3.1
pounds is Lenovo Yoga 7i. Welcome to the 2021 ultimate 2-in-1 convertible touchscreen laptop
grand finale. Today's match is a showdown between 2 lenovo laptops. Both these laptops will battle
each other in a 5 round knockout match. Only one will come out on top and be crowned the
champion. BTW I have already reviewed both these laptops here on this channel and you can find
links to those videos below. Also if you are interested in the latest pricing
and availability of these laptops, please checkout the country specific links that I
have put in the video description below. So without further ado, let's get started!
Yoga 7i is a premium looking laptop sporting an all metal construction. Both its top and
bottom half are made from Aluminium giving this laptop plenty of structural rigidity
and dimensional stability. Flex 5i on the other hand is made from a combination of metal
and plastic. Its top half is made from aluminium but the bottom half is built using 30% fibre
glass reinforced polycarbonate material, which is a fancy description for plastic. So in terms
of structural integrity, Yoga 7i definitely feels stronger and more resistant to flex than Flex 5i.
Both these laptops are using high quality metallic hinges that transform them from
a traditional clamshell device to a tablet and anything in between. Both laptops use an island
style backlit enabled keyboard that offers decent key-travel and a satisfying clicky feedback during
typing. Let's move on to the touchpad. Yoga 7i comes with a premium glass touchpad whose surface
is incredibly smooth making scrolling, swiping and executing various windows gestures a joy.
Flex 5i on the other hand uses a plastic touchpad with Mylar coating which isn't bad but pales in
comparison next to the Yoga 7i. Both laptops come with a fingerprint sensor for passwordless login
which is awesome. Regarding looks and aesthetics, I dig the slate grey matte finish on Yoga 7i. Its
Rose Gold colored "yoga" logo on the top lid looks very premium. Flex 5i on the other hand sports a
simple platinum grey color finish which lacks the pizzazz and oomph of Yoga 7i. So this round
is an easy win for Yoga 7i. It has a superior build quality and a far more premium styling. So
Both Lenovo Flex 5i & Yoga 7i use a 14" Full HD multi-touch screen that supports an active stylus
pen. Both these displays use an LED backlit IPS panel that provides great viewing angles. But Yoga
7i comes with a brighter panel that delivers 300 nits of brightness, which is much higher
than Flex 5i's 250 nits. Yoga 7i also delivers 72% NTSC color gamut which is higher than 45%
delivered by Flex 5i. Yoga 7i's screen is built using Dragontrail glass which is light-weight and
scratch resistant, while Flex 5i's screen is using a traditional glass. Both these laptop screens use
a glossy panel which generates bright images and vibrant colors making pictures and videos pop
out. Both laptop screens use active electrostatic digitizer technology from Wacom for writing and
drawing on screen. They both come with identical Lenovo Active Pen which provides over 2000 levels
of pressure sensitivity creating very natural brush strokes while sketching, painting and
writing. Both laptop's screen digitisers offer low latency and excellent palm rejection resulting
in a great note-taking experience. But since Yoga 7i's screen is more scratch resistant,
brighter and delivers higher color gamut, I will award this round to Yoga 7i. So after round 2,
Yoga 7i has established an impressive 2-0 lead over Flex 5i. But guys, we still have 3 more
rounds to go. So, can Flex 5i make a comeback and knockout Yoga 7i? Keep watching to find out!
Both Yoga 7i and Flex 5i are Intel only laptops. Infact the 'i' in their name denotes Intel. You
have the option of picking either Intel Core i5-1135G7 or Core i7-1165G7 processor. While
there is no AMD Ryzen model of Yoga 7i, you can pick a 13" Yoga 6 with Ryzen 5000 series CPUs.
Similarly there is a Ryzen configuration of Flex 5 that I have already reviewed here on this channel.
Now regarding the CPU performance, both the 11th gen Intel Core-i5 and Core-i7 processors
beat AMD Ryzen 4000 and 5000 series processors in Cinebench single core benchmark but lose the
multi-core benchmark. Regardless, Both Yogi 7i and Flex 5i deliver great performance.
Day today tasks like internet surfing, running office productivity apps like word processor,
excel and powerpoint is a breeze. They also handle complex tasks like software development,
video editing and Photoshop with ease. Regarding graphics, the integrated Intel Iris Xe graphics
outperforms the AMD Radeon graphics in iGPU FP32 benchmark. For casual gaming,
both these laptops do a good job. Now let's talk about the other hardware upgrade options.
Unfortunately both these laptops have their RAM soldered to the motherboard,
so you cannot upgrade the memory. But the PCIe NVME SSD drive can be easily upgraded by opening
the back of the laptop. So when it comes to hardware specs, there really isn't much separating
these two laptops. As a result this round ends in a tie and I will award half points to each
contender. Yoga-7i now leads with 2.5 points while Flex-5i is trailing behind with only 0.5 points.
We still have 2 more rounds to go, but it's going to be an uphill battle for Flex5i from here on!
Both laptops come with a 720p webcam that offers around 85-degree field of view. It's
fine for a zoom conference call but if you want to step up the quality of your videos,
I would recommend picking an external 1080p USB webcam. Both laptops offer top firing stereo
speakers that deliver a total 4 Watt audio. In laptop mode these are surprisingly loud for
watching videos and listening to music. Regarding ports, Yoga 7i comes with 1 USB 3.2 Gen 1 port and
2 USB Type-C Thunderbolt-4 ports that support data transfer, Power Delivery 3.0 and DisplayPort 1.4.
But there is no HDMI port, no SD card slot, no ethernet jack and no old-school USB 2.0 port.
Flex 5i comes with 2 USB 3.1 Gen 1 ports and 1 USB Type-C 3.1 Gen 1 port that supports power delivery
but not displayport. But you do get an HDMI port and a full size SD card reader. Both laptops offer
the latest WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.1 support. So this is a close round. While I love the 2
USB Type-C Thunderbolt-4 ports on Yoga 7i, the lack of HDMI and SD card slot sucks. You will
need a USB Type-C hub to connect this laptop to an external monitor and read SD cards. So I
will award this round to Flex 5i, because it still offers legacy ports which I use on a daily basis.
So with this win Flex 5i narrows the gap but still trails Yoga 7i by 2.5 to 1.5 points
Yoga 7i is a part of Intel's EVO branding which promises thin and light laptops with great CPU and
GPU performance, and a long battery life. It ships with a beefy 3 Cell 71 Whr battery while Flex 5i
ships with a 52.5 Whr battery. So it's no surprise that Yoga 7i delivers a much longer battery life.
I got about 12 hours of battery life doing typical light-weight browsing on Yoga 7i while Flex
5i delivered under 8 hours. Both these laptops ship with a 65-Watt USB Type C fast charger. A
15 min charge will give you an extra 3 hours of battery life on Yoga 7i and 2 hours on Flex 5i.
Now regarding thermal heat dissipation, Both Yoga 7i and Flex 5i use 1 large cooling fan and a dual
pipe heat-sink to keep the CPU and other internal components cool. In my testing, the Intel version
of both Yoga 7i and Flex 5i ran cool, while the 8-core Ryzen 7 4700u model ran noticeably warmer.
I stress tested the Intel Core i5-1135G7 chip and it ran at a turbo boost clock frequency of 3.5 GHz
in the beginning before settling to 3.0 GHz which is much higher than its base clock frequency of
2.4 GHz. It never throttled which tells me that these 11th gen intel chips are really power
efficient. Since Yoga 7i is part of Intel Evo platform and delivers an all day 12 hour battery
life, it easily takes this round. So with win, Yoga 7i delivers the knockout punch and demolishes
Flex 5i to take the crown of the best 2-in-1 convertible laptop title. Flex 5i tried its best
but in the end it was no match for Yoga 7i So which laptop would you have declared the
winner of this contest? Let me know in the comment section below. BTW I have put country specific
links for both Lenovo Yoga 7i and Flex 5i in the video description below. Please click on these
links to get the latest price and availability of both these laptops in your region. If you found
this video useful please smash the like button. It encourages the Youtube algorithm to recommend this
video and help grow this channel. Also checkout technopandareviews.com for more reviews focusing
on laptops and gaming PCs. Thanks for watching guys and I will see you in the next one. Bye!