Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5i Ultra Review — Thin, Light & OLED
This is the brand-new Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5i Ultra. It starts at $899, but the version I have is $1,249 with an Intel Core Ultra Series 2 processor. Lenovo and Intel sponsored this video — but right off the bat, this feels like a premium product. Full aluminum chassis, a D-cover that's 100% recycled aluminum, thin (11.9mm on the OLED model), and light (1.06kg). Let's get into it.
Quick Verdict
The IdeaPad Slim 5i Ultra is the one you buy when you want a thin, light, genuinely nice-looking laptop that's quick enough for real everyday work. Starting under $1,000, you get an OLED option, a great backlit keyboard, face unlock, upgradeable storage, 14+ hours of battery, and triple the graphics of the Yoga 7i — plus MIL-STD 810H durability that's rare at this price. It's not perfect (I wish the OLED were brighter, there's no headphone jack, and it's not a performance monster), but for what it is, it's a very good laptop and a strong student pick.
Design and Build
It feels premium: a full aluminum chassis with a 100% recycled-aluminum D-cover, thin at 11.9mm and light at 1.06kg — easy to carry all day. Lid flex is right where I want it, and it's MIL-STD 810H tested, the durability standard you normally see on ThinkPads, not an IdeaPad — nice at this price. You can almost open it one-handed (the hinge is a touch tight near the top), screen wobble is well controlled, and the rounded edges make it comfortable to pick up.
The thing I love: it comes in a variety of colors — spicy gold, chill blue, zen green, radiant coral, and a dreamy violet in some markets (region-dependent). It's a fun break from the usual silver and black, especially for students.
Ports, Keyboard, and Webcam
You get three USB-C ports (two on the left, one on the right next to the power button), all at full 5Gbps — not slow, but not Thunderbolt or 10Gbps. The right port has a built-in DAC, so you can plug in USB-C headphones and actually listen to audio, which matters since there's no headphone jack. For most people 5Gbps is fine, but if you're dumping big video files off a fast external SSD all day, consider a ThinkPad with Thunderbolt 4. The display lies completely flat so you can tuck it under a monitor, and the speakers fire upward (with Dolby Audio) rather than down — much better.
The keyboard feels great — 1.3mm of travel, Lenovo's U-shaped keys, and it's backlit (which shouldn't be worth mentioning in 2026, but here we are — looking at you, MacBook Neo). The touchpad is a big mechanical glass pad (not haptic, which is fine at this price) with a nice click. There's no fingerprint scanner, but you get Windows Hello facial recognition (my preference — it just sees me and I'm in) plus a physical privacy shutter for the 1080p webcam.
Display
At this price the display is really good: a 14-inch 16:10 panel with an OLED option like my unit — deeper blacks, punchier colors, better accuracy, and 100% DCI-P3, great for watching content or color-sensitive work. The trade-off: it's 60Hz and just over 300 nits, so it's fine indoors but not for bright outdoor use. The upside of the IdeaPad line is choice — if you'd rather have brightness or refresh rate over contrast, there are IPS options including a 120Hz panel and a 500-nit touchscreen.
Performance
My SKU uses the Intel Core Ultra 7 256V. (Quick PSA: if you find a Windows laptop with only 8GB of RAM, upgrade to 16 — 8GB on Windows just isn't worth it right now.) Here's how it stacks against two other Lenovos so you can see what stepping up or down gets you:
| Test | Slim 5i Ultra | Yoga 7i | Slim 7 Ultra |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cinebench R26 single | 418 | 568 | 505 |
| Cinebench R26 multi | 1,837 | 2,539 | 4,315 |
| Firefox compile | 82 min | 64 min | 36 min |
| Speedometer | 34 | 25 | — |
| 3DMark Steel Nomad | 662 | 210 | — |
So it's the slowest of the three on raw CPU, but it wins where most people live — Speedometer (browsers and modern web apps) beats the Yoga's 25. It handles Photoshop (6,275, comfortable with multiple layers) and Premiere Pro (28,275) — not a 4K editing monster, but usable in a pinch, and totally fine for Reels/Shorts. Where it really shines is integrated graphics: 3DMark Steel Nomad of 662 is more than triple the Yoga 7i's 210, and Blender tells the same story — in a 1.06kg laptop. It's not a gaming machine (League of Legends is fine; Overwatch was ~20 FPS on low), so set expectations there.
Thermals are excellent — it runs cool, averaging core temps in the 60s°C, boosting to ~40W then settling around 20W under sustained load with a single fan. It's quiet too: 41dB at its loudest in performance mode, dropping into the 30s on adaptive or silent — great for a classroom.
Battery and Upgradeability
Battery life is strong: 14 hours 12 minutes in the PCMark Modern Office test — it nudges past the Yoga 7i (though not the pricier Slim 7i Ultra). It also has rapid charge: 15 minutes on the plug gets you about 2 hours, which is plenty between classes. Inside, it's just four screws to open, and there's a swappable Wi-Fi card plus a second NVMe slot so you can expand storage later.
The Bottom Line
The Slim 5i Ultra is the lightest of the three, the only one you can get with OLED at this price, and it packs triple the graphics of the Yoga 7i, 14+ hours of battery, a backlit keyboard, face unlock, three ports you can charge from either side, and — most importantly — an upgradeable SSD. Is it perfect? No: I wish the OLED were brighter, a headphone jack would be nice, and more performance is always welcome. But starting under $1,000, this is a genuinely good laptop — a great everyday and student machine.
Where to Buy
This was a sponsored review — Lenovo and Intel partnered on this video.
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Published: September 2026
