Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5i review: A deceptively good deal

Price When Reviewed

$829

Best Prices Today: Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5i

The Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5i is a budget 16-inch laptop you might find for under $500. With a decent CPU, an aluminum chassis, a 1TB SSD, and 16GB of RAM, it’s an excellent value at that price. However, the full MSRP is supposedly $829. If you see this laptop at its full retail price, it doesn’t make as much sense. As I’m wrapping this review up, you can get it for $429.

Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5i: Specs

The Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5i has an Intel Core 5 210H CPU. I’m not a huge fan of these chips, which I see popping up on lots of laptops lately. These are based on Intel’s older Raptor Lake architecture and they use more power and run hotter.

They lack the neural processing unit found in newer Intel, AMD, and Qualcomm Snapdragon X chips, so you can’t get those Copilot+ PC AI features Microsoft is spending so much time on. It also has a very slow integrated GPU that comes far behind what other modern laptops are capable of, so this machine isn’t ideal for even casual gaming.

This machine’s 16GB of RAM feels great at the $429 mark. The 1TB solid-state drive also feels extremely generous at that low price point. Lots of laptops are more expensive and have smaller SSDs.

• Model: Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5i 16IRH10R
• CPU: Intel Core 5 210H
• Memory: 16GB DDR5-5600 RAM
• Graphics/GPU: Intel Graphics
• NPU: None
• Display: 16-inch 1920×1200 IPS display with 60Hz refresh rate
• Storage: 1TB PCIe Gen4 SSD
• Webcam: 1080p webcam
• Connectivity: 2x USB Type-C (USB 5Gbps), 2x USB Type-A (USB 5Gbps), 1x HDMI 1.4b, 1x combo audio jack, 1x microSD card reader
• Networking: Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.2
• Biometrics: IR camera for facial recognition
• Battery capacity: 60 Watt-hours
• Dimensions: 14.03 x 9.87 x 0.67 inches
• Weight: 4.08 pounds
• MSRP: $829 as tested ($429 on sale)

The bottom line is that the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5i is an excellent laptop for under $500, but you should probably look elsewhere at $829.

Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5i: Design and build quality

The Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5i has solid build quality. This machine has an aluminum chassis — no plastic — which makes it feel unexpectedly premium for a budget laptop. At 4.08 pounds, it’s a little on the heavy side, but it is a 16-inch machine.

Our review model came in a “Luna Gray” colorway, and it’s a very standard Lenovo laptop design with nice rounded edges. It looks good, and the use of metal instead of plastic means there’s no weird creaking or flex here.

The machine’s hinge feels extremely solid, so much so that I need two hands to open the laptop properly. It doesn’t move around as I type on it. The chassis feels designed and manufactured with more care than manufacturers normally put into laptops that cost less than $500.

Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5i: Keyboard and trackpad

The Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5i has a full-size keyboard with a number pad, and it feels reasonable to type on. It’s not the snappiest keyboard, the keys feel a little “rubbery” when they bottom out. But I can type fast on it without any problem, and there’s good typing feedback.

This machine’s trackpad is reasonable, although it’s perhaps a tad on the small side for a 16-inch laptop. The surface is responsive to slide your finger over. The click-down action is a tad loud — not ideal if you’ll be clicking your trackpad in a quiet room with other people around — and it doesn’t feel as satisfying as trackpads with clickier, crisper action. But it’s a reasonable trackpad, especially for a sale price around $429.

Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5i: Display and speakers

The Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5i has a 16-inch IPS display with a 1920×1200 resolution. It’s nice and big and looks fine, although it won’t blow your mind. It has a standard 60Hz refresh rate, which is nothing unusually fast.

At up to 300 nits of brightness, this display is on the dim side. Thankfully, because this isn’t a touch screen, this machine has a matte display and not a glossy one. This makes it more resistant to reflections — 300 nits of brightness on a glossy display is a real problem in challenging lighting conditions, but 300 nits on a matte display isn’t as bad. Still, this isn’t the ideal machine for use outdoors or in bright sunlight given the low maximum brightness.

This machine’s speakers are loud enough, but they’re flat and the audio isn’t rich. There’s very little bass, even for laptop speakers. I recommend headphones or external speakers.

Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5i: Webcam, microphone, biometrics

The Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5i has a 1080p webcam. It’s a little noisy, and it made me look pale and not particularly lifelike in a sunlit room on a cloudy day. While it’s better than the 720p webcam you find on many less expensive laptops, it’s not particularly impressive. It does have a physical webcam shutter switch, which is great to see.

The microphone setup on this machine is fine. It has good noise cancelation, but the speech it picked up was muffled. It’s usable for video meetings, but it’s not particularly high-end.

This machine has an IR camera for Windows Hello, so you can sign into your PC with your face just by opening your laptop. It doesn’t have a fingerprint reader.

Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5i: Connectivity

The Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5i has a good number of ports. On the left side, this machine has two USB Type-C ports (USB 5Gbps), a combo audio jack, and an HDMI 1.4b port. On the right side, it has two USB Type-A ports (USB 5Gbps) and a microSD card reader slot.

This laptop charges via USB Type-C, so you’ll always be plugging the charging cable in on the left side.

The ports are on the lower end in terms of specs: You don’t get Thunderbolt or USB4 here, and this is HDMI 1.4b instead of HDMI 2.1. This is fine for $429, but not ideal at $829.

This machine supports Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2. There’s no support for Wi-Fi 6E, Wi-Fi 7, or newer versions of Bluetooth here.

Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5i: Performance

The Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5i delivered fine performance in desktop apps: Web browsers like Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge, productivity tools like Word, and media apps like Spotify. While the Intel Core 5 210H is based on a somewhat dated architecture, it’s modern enough. And most modern CPUs are now reasonably snappy, especially when paired with an SSD and 16GB of RAM.

We ran the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5i through our standard benchmarks to see how it performs in more detail.

First, we run PCMark 10 to get an idea of overall system performance. With an overall PCMark 10 score of 5,697, the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5i is slower than higher-end laptops but put up good numbers against the Acer Aspire Go 15, a machine I thought was an excellent value.

At its current price as I’m finishing this review, the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5i matches the Acer Aspire Go 15’s sale price. It’s a better pick if you can find it on sale — with a faster CPU and better performance.

Next, we run Cinebench R20. This is a heavily multithreaded benchmark that focuses on overall CPU performance. It’s a quick benchmark, so cooling under extended workloads isn’t a factor. But, since it’s heavily multithreaded, CPUs with more cores have a huge advantage.

The Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5i racks up a multithreaded Cinebench R20 score of 3,849. That’s far ahead of the Acer Aspire Go 15, a machine I thought was a great deal. You don’t need this kind of multithreaded performance for lightweight computer use, so this machine will deliver more performance than many need for a budget laptop.

We also run an encode with Handbrake. This is another heavily multithreaded benchmark, but it runs over an extended period. This demands the laptop’s cooling kick in, and many laptops will throttle and slow down under load.

The Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5i completed the benchmark process in 1,703 seconds, which is over 28 minutes. That’s definitely on the slower side compared to many laptops, but this machine isn’t designed for long CPU-heavy tasks.

Next, we run a graphical benchmark. This isn’t a gaming laptop, but it’s still good to check how the GPU performs. We run 3DMark Time Spy, a graphical benchmark that focuses on GPU performance.

With a 3DMark Time Spy score of 1,181, this machine will not be suitable for lightweight gaming or professional apps that use the GPU. This older Intel integrated graphics is very slow.

Overall, the Lenovo IdeaPad 5i delivered impressive performance for a $429 price and middling performance for a $829 machine. The main problem will be the GPU performance, so you may want to avoid this machine if you want to play games.

Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5i: Battery life

The Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5i has a 60 Watt-hour battery. That’s not the largest battery, and this Intel Meteor Lake-based Core 5 210H chip isn’t the most efficient CPU. While battery life is fine, it won’t necessarily get you through a workday.

To benchmark the battery life, we play a 4K copy of Tears of Steel on repeat on Windows 11 with airplane mode enabled until the laptop suspends itself. We set the screen to 250 nits of brightness for our battery benchmarks, which meant cranking this display’s brightness way up. This is a best-case scenario for any laptop since local video playback is so efficient, and real battery life in day-to-day use is always going to be less than this.

The Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5i lasted 636 minutes on average before suspending itself — that’s about ten and a half hours. It’s not terrible. But, since real-world use where you’re using apps and connecting to the internet will be lower, this machine will likely not be able to make it to the 8 hour mark for most people. Plan to plug it in regularly.

Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5i: Conclusion

The Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5i is a good budget laptop. There’s nothing particularly bad here — aside from the GPU performance — and some parts of the experience are legitimately great. For a budget laptop, an aluminum chassis, 1 TB SSD, and Core 5 210H CPU is incredible. At a $429 price point, it’s excellent.

But is this really a $429 laptop? Laptop manufacturers want to have it both ways. They often set a high MSRP so they can sell a machine at a deep discount, making it look like an especially good deal. But then they want reviewers to judge the machine at its sale price and not its recommended retail price.

The reality is that B&H Photo Video’s website says there is a “limited supply” at the $429 price and that it’s a “holiday savings” price, so you may see a much higher price in the future when you read this review.

The bottom line is that the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5i is an excellent laptop for under $500, but you should probably look elsewhere at $829.