Lenovo Ideapad 720S-15IKB (i7-7700HQ, GTX 1050 Ti Max-Q, SSD 512 GB) Laptop Review

As our size comparison chart demonstrates, the Lenovo Ideapad 720S-15IKB's measurements are typical for a 15.6-inch laptop in this price bracket. As this is true of the rest of our comparison devices as well, the differences in width, height and thickness add up to a matter of millimeters—and the laptops all weigh around 1.9 to 2 kg (~4.2-4.4 lbs). The Asus ZenBook Pro is the beefiest, closely followed by the likewise relatively stout HP Spectre. Overall, the Dell XPS 15 2018 is the most compact of the troupe, and at just 17 mm (~0.67 inches) high, it is also the thinnest.

One of the Lenovo laptop's glaring weaknesses is the dearth of connections/ports, further exacerbating dependence on Wi-Fi. We are especially dismayed at the lack of an external display port. Users can only connect an external display with a USB Type-C DisplayPort adapter (DisplayPort 1.2)—to be purchased separately to boot. If you need more than one USB Type-A port at the same time, you will have to turn to another (purchased) adapter. There is a card reader on board, but it only accepts microSD cards. Thunderbolt and USB Type-C are also one-in-the-same.

All of this is somewhat frustrating, seeing as competitors that are just as thin and lightweight—like the ones on our comparison list—come equipped with a much greater variety of ports. At the very least, a separate DisplayPort or HDMI output is a basic necessity for a device in this price range. Still, with the exception of the audio jack, all the ports are ergonomically positioned at the far back, leaving the ideal space for an external mouse blessedly free of sticks and cables. 

We always perform our memory card data transfer tests with a Toshiba Exceria Pro SDXC 64 GB UHS-II reference memory card. Among our comparison devices, only the HP and Dell laptops are equipped with a lightning-fast PCI Express connection. Lenovo and Asus stuck with USB 3.0. Even so, our Lenovo laptop's copying speed is sufficient to transfer large numbers of photos without trying the user's patience unduly. 

When it comes to Wi-Fi, Lenovo went for the not-so-new but tried-and-true Intel Wireless AC 8265 module, which comes integrated with Bluetooth 4.2 and can theoretically reach gross data transfer rates of 867 Mb/s (thanks to MIMO 2x2 antenna technology). Taking the usual overhead of about 200 Mb/s into account, especially with the weight on the all-important receive rate, the Ideapad 720 S falls far short of our expectations. In the realm of receiving, the Asus ZenBook Pro shows everyone else how to do it—but when sending the Asus lands in last place. The HP Spectre X360's receiving data throughput is certainly not the specified 62.3 Mb/s, but rather 623 Mb/s. We always run our WLAN tests in combination with our Linksys EA8500 reference router.

The Lenovo 720 S comes with an up-to-date Trusted Platform Module (TPM) version 2.0, as well as a fingerprint reader located beneath the Enter key on the right-hand side. With the help of Windows Hello, the reader is easy to set up and unlocks the laptop quickly and reliably. In the absence of Windows 10 Pro, buyers will have to do without BitLocker drive encryption. The manufacturer also left out a slot for a Kensington lock.

Besides the laptop and mandatory power supply, the 720 S's box contains nothing more than the usual quick-start guide and warranty documents. Lenovo is not currently selling any accessories specially designed for our test device.

Although there is no maintenance hatch to speak of and the battery cannot be removed from the outside, access to the laptop's inner workings is just 10 Torx screws away. All you have to do is remove the base plate. It is important to note, however, that meddling in there could very well void the warranty. Because our test device was lent to us courtesy of an online store, we did not open the base plate. The two RAM banks are occupied by a generous 8 GB stick each, making it fairly unproductive to switch them out.

The purchase price includes a two-year "depot" customer carry-in warranty in the EU. Lenovo also offers warranty extensions at additional cost. Because we could not locate the serial number, we were unable to determine precisely which warranty options are available for this device. As a general rule, the base manufacturer's warranty can be extended to three years (34.51 Euros, ~$40) or transferred to a two or three-year on-site warranty (35.70/59.50 Euros; ~$41/$69). Please see our Guarantees, Return policies and Warranties FAQ for country-specific information.

On an IPS panel, screen content looks substantially more accurate from myriad angles than on a TN panel. At this point, the latter only shows up in the most budget of budget laptops. IPS panels differ in the degree to which brightness and contrast diminish as the viewing angle gets smaller and smaller. Given that this phenomenon only occurs at relative flat viewing angles on our test device's Chi-Mei panel—and the effect is faint to boot—the Lenovo laptop's viewing-angle stability is slightly above average for an IPS panel.

The Intel Core i7-7700HQ is a fast quad-core processor based on the Kaby Lake architecture of a bygone era. The CPU supports Hyper-Threading and has a base clock rate of 2.8 GHz that can climb to 3.8 GHz with turbo. This processor resides in innumerable gaming laptops from a generation ago, but in those cases it is configured to the standard TDP of 45 watts. Our test device, on the other hand, is limited to 35 watts, curtailing its potential performance power. If we are interpreting the advanced settings options under the energy menu correctly, the base clock rate at a TDP of 35 watts is 1.7 GHz, while reducing the TDP even further to 25 watts supposedly raises the base clock rate to 2.8 GHz. Certainly, we are not the only ones to see this as counter-intuitive.

An Intel HD Graphics 630 graphics unit and a DDR4 RAM-compatible storage controller are integrated into the CPU. Despite the TDP limit, the CPU's performance should be sufficient for more demanding programs and extreme multitasking. Even when it comes to gaming, the processor should rarely act as a bottleneck. Instead, this role belongs to the GeForce GTX 1050 Ti.

Because we do not differentiate between various TDP configurations in our database, it also makes sense to assess the processor's performance compared to those of other CPU models. As expected, the 7700HQ in our test device proves to be one of the slowest processors of this kind we have reviewed, but in the Cinebench R15 multi-core benchmark it only lags behind the fastest processor by a margin of 9%. That being said, this only applies to the first benchmark cycle. The performance here is more or less on par with the CPU's Skylake predecessor, the i7-6700HQ, which has a somewhat lower clock speed (4x 2.6-3.5 GHz, Hyper-Threading, TDP 45 watts). 

With the help of our Cinebench R15 loop, we are able to determine how the computer's performance holds up under an extended period of realistic load. After the first cycle, the score sinks from 682 to 628 points and remains more or less stable for several cycles. After the seventh cycle, the performance drops again and then rebounds briefly. Several cycles later, it reaches its lowest point (561 points), tallying the performance decline at about 18% compared to the original score. For an Intel Core i7-7700HQ with a TDP of 45 watts, a decrease in clock speed of these proportions is more the exception than the rule. Disconnected from a power source, i.e. in battery mode, the Cinebench score is essentially the same (within a margin of error).

According to PCMark 8, the Lenovo Ideapad 720S-15 IKB's system performance is substantially higher than average for its price bracket. Despite the fact that its core components are different, our Lenovo and the rest of our comparison devices are on the same plane—with the exception of the HP laptop. But the Spectre's significantly worse results can be traced back to an obvious cause: Its system would only let the benchmark run on the CPU's integrated graphics card, rather than its dedicated graphics card.

PCMark 10 paints a somewhat different picture. Here our Lenovo 720 S falls slightly behind the Asus and Dell laptops, likely because of its limited TDP. In everyday use, however, the Lenovo always ran smooth as butter with minimal wait and load times. Thanks to its eight threads, even the most wanton multitasking poses no problem for our test device either.

As we mentioned at the start, Lenovo chose to equip the 720S with a Max-Q version of the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti—a card never selected purely for its performance capacity, but for its energy efficiency as well. The GTX 1050 Ti (Max-Q) is an upper mid-range graphics card based on Pascal architecture—which was just introduced in January 2018. Among other things, the GP107 chip offers support for DirectX 12.1, DisplayPort 1.4 (ready), HDMI 2.0b and HDR. The GDDR5 graphics memory effectively clocks at 7000 MHz, is connected via a 128-bit bus and it has a capacity of 4 GB.

For simplicity's sake, we will use the GTX 1050 Ti in the Asus ZenBook Pro to orient ourselves here. According to 3DMark 11, the 10% loss in performance is quite typical for a Max-Q graphics card. Even so, our test device's GPU holds a 7% lead over the GTX 1050 (without Ti) and computes 82% faster than the HP Spectre's Nvidia GeForce MX150. With these results, our graphics card's performance is nearly on equal footing with an average GPU of this kind. In battery mode, the overall score in the Fire Strike benchmark (3DMark 13) sinks by around 1000 points.  

The actual speed of a GTX 1050 Ti in practice is dependent on how well the laptop in question is able to cool its components. As a general rule, the performance is sufficient for Full HD resolution and high details, even in current games. At the maximum preset, the brand-new games The Crew 2 and Far Cry 5 reach frame rates just high enough to be playable (around 40 fps), while the Max-Q GPU only manages 34 fps at the high preset in Star Wars Battlefront 2. The small table below displays the frame rates our test device in particular reached at various presets.

We assume that Lenovo chose the Max-Q version of the 1050 Ti and reduced the processor's TDP in order to keep the laptop's heat and noise level in check. As always, we ran these tests alone in a quiet office under the computer's energy-saving profile ("balanced"). Even in idle mode, with no programs running and no user interaction to speak of, the fan started up from time to time. In this scenario, the fan always ran at its lowest speed and was only audible above the room's general background when we held our ear to the device. Nothing changed when we ran the Kraken 1.1 browser benchmark.

A few seconds after we activated our stress test (Prime95 + FurMark), the fan accelerated continuously until it reached maximum speed about 10 seconds later. In this instance, the fan noise was clearly audible from a distance of around a half meter (~1.6 feet), but the sound was relatively easy on the ears and was not accompanied by other bothersome noises (the whir of a conventional hard drive, for example). This is certainly not a case where the computer can be heard from several meters away. For a high-performance multimedia laptop with a Hyper-Threading quad-core processor, the Lenovo 720S is indeed a pleasantly quiet workhorse. 

The two downward-facing speakers reach a reasonably high maximum volume, loud enough to fill a small to medium-sized room. As a result of the relatively drastic compression, the sound is flattened substantially and has a somewhat unnatural feel. However, even at the highest volume, the sound is rarely distorted, and the volume does not fluctuate unpleasantly. In some cases, the playback can sound somewhat shrill—due to the lack of volume, true bass tones are non-existent. But the sound is dynamic and even somewhat full-bodied.

Heavy metal tracks with multiple instruments playing at high levels simultaneously turn into auditory mush. At lower volumes, the aforementioned problems are less relevant. All in all, for this class and price bracket, the sound system is fairly solid.

Estimating the Lenovo laptop's likely energy consumption rates is difficult, given that the particular features of its core hardware components are not frequently combined (CPU with reduced TDP, Max-Q graphics card). Because it hardly makes sense to compare our test device's energy consumption rates with those of its vastly different direct competitors, we searched our database for comparison devices of an identical size with a conventional Intel Core i7-7700HQ and the standard version of the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti (without Max-Q). After all, the chip's limited TDP should also lower the laptop's energy consumption rates.

We only found three multimedia laptops, all of which use more (or lots more) energy than the Lenovo Ideapad 720S-15 IKB in nearly every instance. Under an average level of load (load avg.), our test device usually leads by just a small margin; under full load (load max), on the other hand, it takes the top prize in efficiency. In idle avg.—a load status in which computers tend to spend a lot of time—our Lenovo device falls in the top 25% of all the multimedia laptops in our database.

Lenovo chose a big 79 Wh battery for the 720S. In combination with the laptop's relatively low energy consumption rates, this battery gives the computer lots of steam to keep on trucking. The batteries built into the HP Spectre X360 and the Asus ZenBook Pro have similar capacities, and since the laptops' similarity carries over to their display size as well, we will concentrate on these two rivals in this discipline. Our Dell with its gigantic 97 Wh battery does profit significantly from its bigger battery capacity in the WLAN test, but it is simply too different to be a good model for comparison.

In the WLAN test, our Ideapad comes in first with a small lead. Only the HP outstrips our test device in the load test. Almost 10 hours in our WLAN test—display brightness reduced to 150 cd/m², designed to simulate everyday use—should be more than enough for the majority of users.