CES 2026 has a habit of turning laptops into theatre props, but Intel’s Panther Lake launch at The Venetian gave the category a sharper plotline: thinner machines that don’t behave like thin machines. On the sidelines of Intel’s press conference, I used Lenovo’s Yoga Slim 7i Aura Edition for around 15 minutes, and the first impression is disarmingly simple. It feels almost weightless, yet it doesn’t feel flimsy. It feels like Lenovo is taking a serious swing at the MacBook Air’s cultural monopoly on “effortless portability”, and doing it with the one advantage Apple can’t copy: Lenovo’s long, obsessive history of getting keyboards right.
What’s New In 15 Minutes
The Yoga Slim 7i Aura Edition is the sort of laptop that makes you double-check your bag, because your shoulder isn’t doing that familiar “yes, I’m carrying a computer” narration. It is stunningly slim and light—less than a kilogram—and in hand it has that rare, confidence-inducing balance where the chassis feels engineered, not dieted down. It’s a proper premium thin-and-light: the kind you’d actually want to carry all day, not the kind you admire at a demo table and then avoid in real life.
Lenovo also hasn’t forgotten what made it Lenovo. The keyboard is superb—crisp, controlled, and instantly familiar if you’ve ever typed on the company’s best machines. The trackpad is equally strong, and together they feel like lineage rather than coincidence. In a world where everyone is selling “AI PCs”, it’s refreshing to meet a laptop that still sweats the fundamentals.
Display, Input, And The ‘Feel’ Of The Machine
The display is a 14-inch 2.8K OLED with a 120Hz refresh rate, and it looks gorgeous. Under unforgiving CES lighting, it still holds its colour and contrast with the kind of easy confidence that makes LCD panels feel a bit like they’re still buffering. The higher refresh rate gives scrolling and motion that extra smoothness—subtle, but once you notice it, you stop wanting to go back.
There’s a small design flourish here too: the webcam juts out slightly above the screen. It’s a visual quirk, sure, but it also gives you a natural grip point for opening the lid. In the 15-minute window I had, it read as purposeful rather than accidental—like a tiny periscope that’s doing double duty as ergonomics.
And then you return to the inputs. Lenovo’s keyboard is the star because it doesn’t demand attention. You just type. No drama. No learning curve. No “why do my fingers feel like they’re negotiating?”. It’s the kind of keyboard that quietly makes you more productive, which is a far more valuable superpower than most headline specs.
Performance And Battery Claims—What Lenovo Promises vs What I Can Confirm
This Yoga is running Intel’s Core Ultra 3 platform—specifically the Core Ultra 7 355 chipset—and the immediate vibe is speed without fuss. In Lenovo’s demo, the machine was running more than 15 tabs while simultaneously handling an AI workload, with the webcam running as well. That combination matters because it mirrors how people actually work now: browser chaos, calls, and some form of AI-assisted multitasking happening in the background.
Now, a 15-minute hands-on is not a benchmark suite, and it’s not a battery test. What I can responsibly say is that it felt responsive and composed in the moment. Nothing stuttered. Nothing looked strained. The machine carried itself like it expected to be doing that workload, not like it was being forced into it for the camera.
Battery, meanwhile, is the kind of CES claim that should always be read with a raised eyebrow and a smile. Lenovo is pairing this machine with a 75KWH battery and quoting up to 18 hours of battery life. If that holds up in real use, it changes the relationship you have with the charger. It turns the charger from a daily habit into an occasional precaution. But again, that’s exactly the sort of promise a first impression can’t verify in a convention centre. Consider this the thesis statement, not the conclusion.
Why This Matters In The 2026 PC Market
The thin-and-light segment is back in a serious way because the market has changed. Hybrid work is no longer novel, video calls are permanent, and “performance” increasingly means staying quick under messy multitasking rather than winning a clean, synthetic race. The AI PC wave is also forcing laptop makers to rethink the baseline. It’s no longer enough to be slim; you have to be slim while keeping the system calm when the workload gets chaotic.
In that context, the Yoga Slim 7i Aura Edition feels like Lenovo betting on the right combination: extreme portability, a genuinely premium OLED screen, and the kind of everyday usability that doesn’t require you to adapt your life to the machine. If you’re shopping in the MacBook Air mental category but want Windows flexibility, this is exactly the sort of product you want Lenovo to take seriously.
CES Context: Why Lenovo Is Selling ‘Aura’ Now
CES is where brands try to attach a feeling to a product line, and “Aura Edition” is Lenovo’s attempt to bottle a specific vibe: light, polished, and quietly powerful. Intel’s Panther Lake moment provides the technical backdrop, but Lenovo’s actual pitch is emotional. It’s saying: you can have something that looks and feels beautiful, without sacrificing the practical bits that matter when you’re travelling, working, or simply trying to get through a day without hunting for a power socket like it’s side-quest loot.
There’s also a subtle flex here. While some thin-and-lights chase minimalism to the point of inconvenience, Lenovo is leaning on “usefulness”. Three Type-C ports with Thunderbolt 4 support is a real-world feature, not a showroom feature. It’s the difference between a laptop that photographs well and a laptop that lives well.
Price, Configurations, And What’s Still Unknown
Lenovo has not announced US pricing for the Yoga Slim 7i Aura Edition in the information provided here. India pricing has not been announced. Until pricing lands, the buying decision is incomplete, because the thin-and-light market is brutally sensitive to value.
There are also the questions that only time can answer. Sustained performance. Thermals over a long video call followed by creative work. Whether the 18-hour claim matches real-world behaviour with brightness cranked and tabs multiplying. Whether the “weightless” magic stays delightful after a week of commuting, rather than just in a 15-minute CES sprint. This machine feels like it has the bones of something special. The next step is seeing if it can keep that composure when nobody’s watching.
Verdict So Far
In the space of 15 minutes at The Venetian, Lenovo’s Yoga Slim 7i Aura Edition did what a good first impression should do: it made me want to spend more time with it. It feels stunningly portable, looks genuinely premium thanks to that 2.8K OLED 120Hz panel, and backs it all with Lenovo’s keyboard-and-trackpad craft—the kind that makes you trust the machine before you’ve even finished your first paragraph. If you’ve been shopping for a MacBook Air alternative but want Windows, ports, and a more work-first input experience, this is now firmly one to watch. Not a verdict. A very confident opening act. |
