Lenovo 720S-13ARR Review

Nearly a year ago showed AMD a prototype of a thin laptop containing a Ryzen Mobile processor, the manufacturer wanted to indicate that his new laptop chips are suitable for devices with a thickness of less than 1.5 cm, not unimportant, because thin and light 13.3 ” – and 14 “laptops are an important segment, and AMD has not had a competitive chip for years.
With the arrival of Ryzen Mobile that had to change, it took a while, because the first laptops with AMD’s new processor were still hefty 15.6 “models: the HP Envy x360 and Acer Swift 3 which we have tested before. Now we have also tested Lenovo’s 720S-13ARR: a 13.3 “laptop with Ryzen Mobile which is just under 14mm thick.

Housing

The 13.3″ version of the Lenovo 720S is not only thin, but also weighs 1100 grams. Lenovo has made the housing largely of aluminum, and the whole is well assembled and feels solid. The lid is thin, but it does not spring in easily when you press it.
Despite its small thickness, Lenovo has found room for USB 3.0 connectors with type-a-connector. There is one on both the left and the right side. Furthermore, the 720S has two USB-C connections and Lenovo also supplies a USB-C charger. It is unfortunate that Lenovo has omitted a card reader, while there seems to be enough room for it.
Both USB-c connections are on the left and both ports can be used to charge the laptop. The included charger does so at a voltage of twenty volts. Furthermore, we managed to charge the laptop with other chargers that deliver a voltage of nine or fifteen volts. With 5V chargers, which are common in smartphones, it is not possible to charge the 720S. Only the second USB-c socket, which is located right next to the USB port, is suitable for connecting a monitor by means of an adapter or hub.

Keyboard and touch pad

The keyboard is absolutely an plus of the 720S. For a small laptop the keys tick quite nicely, with a good amount travel and fine feedback. The keyboard is also firmly recessed in the housing. If you press it firmly, it hardly springs. The keys have backlight with two brightness modes. The touchpad is a so-called precision touchpad, for which Microsoft supplies the drivers. As a result, multi-touch gestures work perfectly in Windows 10. In addition, the surface is smooth and the touch pad impresses with a clear click.
Lenovo also has a fingerprint scanner built in. It is in a handy location, on the right side of the housing. With some other laptops, the scanner is processed in the touchpad and that can be inconvenient when operating the mouse cursor. Lenovo has therefore better solved this; in addition, the Synaptics scanner works fast.

Versions

Lenovo makes many different 720S laptops. There are models with a 13.3 “screen and slightly larger 14” variants. The Ryzen Mobile processors are currently only in the smallest versions and in the Benelux two models are for sale. We have tested the model with the Ryzen 7 2700U, which costs about a thousand euros. A variant with the Ryzen 5 2500U is one hundred euros cheaper. Lenovo offers on its own website the same laptops with Intel CPUs . A variant with Core i5 costs 949 euro and an i7 version costs 1049 euro, but it also has a 512GB ssd.