Best Lenovo laptops: Best overall, best battery life, and more

ThinkPads are generally hailed as being awesome business laptops because of their comfortable keyboards and silent operation. With its quiet keyboard, security features, and booming audio, the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 9 is one such laptop. It’s packing a quad-core Core i7-1185G7, 16GB of RAM, and integrated Iris Xe graphics. That means it’s well-equipped to handle “Office and other productivity apps” and “a variety of multitasking scenarios.” The real star of the show is the 16:10 display, though, as it gives you plenty of room to work with. If you consider yourself a business professional, you’ll definitely want to pick this one up.

The Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 7 has a lot to offer. Not only is it affordable (well under a grand), but it also features discrete graphics. That’s a pretty unique combination right there. Between the Core i5 processor and the discrete Nvidia GeForce MX350, you can expect a good amount of productivity power out of this machine. It can handle “Office and daily PC duties with ease.” And, as with most Lenovo laptops, the keyboard is an absolute dream to type on. According to our tester, “the keys themselves offer plenty of travel and keystrokes feel snappy and springy.” Battery life is mediocre, but aside from that, it’s a great laptop for all of the features you’re getting.

The Lenovo Yoga 9i is a fantastic convertible. It has an attractive design, a dazzling OLED display, and great sound quality. Plus, the 12th-gen Intel processor really boosts performance. According to our tester, the processor “packs four performance cores and eight efficiency cores.” That’s quite a bit of power. The 74 watt-hour battery is quite large for a compact 2-in-1 as well. When we put the laptop through our battery test, it died in about 12 hours. You can expect this laptop to last through the work day. There’s a couple of minor nitpicks to be aware of, though. The 19:9 aspect ratio makes the screen feel a bit squished and the touchpad is smaller than we like. If you can live with those small drawbacks, the Yoga 9i is well worth considering.

If you’re looking for all-day battery life, you’ve come to the right place. The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Nano lasted about sixteen hours during our battery test, in which we looped 4K video. That’s pretty impressive for a 48-Watt-hour battery. And, weighing just shy of two pounds, the Nano is also shockingly lightweight. In our review, the tester “loved toting it around” from room to room. If you’re looking for a portable laptop with fantastic battery life, the Nano is a great option.

If you prefer using Chrome OS over anything else, you’ll want to check out Lenovo’s Chromebook Flex 5. It has a 1080p IPS display, a responsive keyboard, and an Intel Core i3-1011U processor. Personally, I like Chromebooks because they’re largely virus free and they make great productivity machines. While the Flex 5 isn’t the most powerful laptop in the world, the “processor is a cut above the Pentium- and Celeron-powered machines that sell in the $200 to $300 range.” The 13-inch touchscreen display also produces sharp visuals and can swing around 360-degrees. The fact that this Chromebook is a convertible makes it much more versatile.

When it comes to the Lenovo Flex 5G laptop, there’s a lot to love. It has blazingly fast 5G data speeds, a bright FHD display, and super long battery life. What more can you ask for? When we put the Flex 5G through our battery test, which simulates real-world use, it lasted a whopping 27 hours. While that’s all well and good, the laptop weighs around three pounds, as it needs more space to house the massive 60 Watt-hour battery. That means it’s won’t weigh down your backpack, but it’s not the lightest ultraportable laptop around. The Arm-based Qualcomm Snapdragon processor also can run into some software compatibility problems with applications that don’t come from the Microsoft Store in Windows. That said, if you stick mostly to browser and Office-type work and prioritize all day battery life with on-the-go mobile connectivity, the Flex 5G is a great laptop.

If you need a basic business laptop, the Lenovo ThinkPad E13 is a good option. It comes equipped with an Intel Core i5-1135G7 processor, Iris Xe graphics, 16GB of RAM, and a 256GB SSD. The 14-inch 1080p IPS matte finish display is visible in direct sunlight, but the “300-nit brightness level is on the dim side for a higher-end laptop.” The keyboard offers plenty of tactile feedback and the port selection is diverse. The ThinkPad E14 does surprisingly well under heavier loads, too. That said, the trackpad is a bit small and battery life is relatively unimpressive. These tradeoffs don’t come as a surprise, though, as the E14 is an entry-level model.

If you’re working with a tight budget, the Lenovo ThinkBook 14s Yoga is a more affordable option. It delivers solid mid-range performance like office productivity tasks, web browsing, video conferencing, and so on. Like most Lenovo laptops, the keyboard feels “snappy and quiet when pressed.” It’s a good keyboard for long typing sessions, that’s for sure. But there are a few trade-offs. According to our tester, the Yoga runs a bit warm and battery life is less-than-stellar. We managed to squeeze out about seven hours on a single charge, which is far from a fully work day. The 1080 IPS touchscreen display is pretty dim, too.

From zippy multimedia performance to punchy audio, the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 7 Carbon has a lot to offer. The real star of the show is the 14-inch 2880-by-1800 OLED display. According to the reviewer, “the contrast is outstanding, with the deepest blacks and brightest whites.” As for colors, they’re “accurate and noticeably vibrant.” The screen is a perfect fit for creative professionals who do a lot of photo editing. In addition to the stunning panel, it also weighs just a little over two pounds, making it a capable travel laptop. There are a few minor shortcomings, though. The keyboard isn’t the best and battery life is less-than-stellar. However, we feel the pros really outweigh the cons here.

Lenovo’s Legion 5 Pro delivers impressive game performance with a 12th-gen Intel processor and an RTX 3070 Ti GPU. But where this laptop really shines is its astounding array of ports. It somehow finds room for a Thunderbolt 4/USB-C 4 port, two USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 ports, two USB-A ports, an HDMI 2.1 port, an ethernet port, and a 3.5mm audio jack.

The display does have a rather flat color profile, which means it can oftentimes lack vividness and contrast. However, with the terrific price-to-performance and outstanding connectivity features, the Legion 5 Pro makes for a great option.