Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3i Review: Can Intel's Wildcat Lake Compete With The MacBook Neo?

We use BrowserBench.org's Speedometer test to take a holistic look at web application performance. This test automatically loads and runs a variety of sample web apps using the most popular web development frameworks around, including React, Angular, Ember.js, and even simple JavaScript. This test is an example of how systems cope with real-world, modern web apps. All tests were performed using the latest version of Chrome.


The Core 7 350-powered Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3i scored 34.8 on the Speedometer benchmark, putting its performance in-line with previous-gen Lunar Lake-based systems, but well behind modern Panther Lake-based systems and the MacBook Neo.

Geekbench v6.5 CPU Benchmark

The Geekbench CPU tests stress only the processor cores in a system (not the graphics card/GPU), with both single and multi-threaded workloads. The tests are comprised of encryption processing, image compression, HTML5 parsing, physics calculations and other general purpose compute processing workloads.


The Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3i offered single-thread performance roughly on-par with Lunar Lake, Core Ultra 200-based systems, but its 2P + 4E CPU core configuration and single-channel memory setup hold it back in the multi-thread test, where it finishes behind the rest of the systems. This is another cross-platform test where the MacBook Neo puts up numbers significantly better than the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3i.

Cinebench 2026 Benchmark Results With The Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3i

Next up is the latest-generation 3D rendering benchmark from Maxon, based on the Cinema 4D rendering engine. We ran the CPU-based test that doesn't make use of the graphics processor or NPU at all, which scales very well with additional CPU cores. We ran both single- and multi-threaded tests on all of the machines in the charts.


The Core 7 350 in the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3i put up a single-core score in-line with previous Gen Core Ultra 200 series (Luna Lake) processors, which puts it ahead of the original Snapdragon X and a couple of lower-power Intel chips. In the multi-threaded tests, the Core 7 350 obviously can't keep up with more powerful processors with additional cores / threads, but it does overtake the MacBook Neo.

The PCMark 10 Applications benchmark measures performance in the Microsoft Office suite, as well as in the Edge browser, offering native instruction set-compatible versions of the apps for optimal performance across a wide variety of workloads in tools office workers, students and home users utilize every day. The following results should show a view of performance with a best foot forward from all systems tested.


The Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3i is able to outrun the Snapdragon X-based HP Omnibook X in the PCMark 10 Applications benchmark, but it ultimately trails all of the other Intel and AMD processors we tested here.

Puget Bench For Creators: Davinci Resolve

Next up we have some video editing and encoding using the Puget Bench for Creators and Davinci Resolve. Puget Systems has been developing benchmarks that leverage real-world applications and workloads for a number of years now, which are highly regarded by creators using popular Adobe applications and Davinci Resolve. Here, we used the free version of Davinci Resolve (not the Studio edition) that features less hardware acceleration and relies heavily on CPU, GPU and memory performance.

UL Procyon AI Computer Vision Benchmark

The idea of "edge AI", or running AI workloads natively on your local devices, instead of in the cloud, is only just emerging on mainstream PCs. As such, repeatable, reliable benchmarks for these workloads aren't exactly prolific. Fortunately, UL has already built a few into its Procyon benchmark suite. The following is a look at how a few machines do in this benchmark suite's AI Computer Vision benchmark, which exercises the test subject's ability to handle machine vision workloads, which you'll find in everyday tasks like webcam background blur, subject tracking, eye gaze correction and other effects, for example.


The Core 7 350 in the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3i features a 17 TOP NPU (NPU 5 architecture). As such, it's able to overtake the older Meter Lake-based Core Ultra 7 165H, but it can't quite keep pace with the newer chips.

UL 3DMark Gaming Benchmarks

3DMark has a wide variety of graphics and gaming related tests available. For these tests, we chose to run the 3DMark CPU Profile benchmark, which steps through an array of physics calculations with a varying number of CPU threads, and Steel Nomad Lite, a modern DirectX 12 graphics test specifically designed for lower-power GPUs and integrated graphics engines.


The Core 7 350 in the IdeaPad Slim 3i was competitive with the other systems we tested up to the 4T mark; in fact, it put up the second best single-thread score here. Once the number of threads exceeded the processor's capacity though, the Core 7 350 falls behind the more powerful processors, as you would expect.

Intel's Core 3 series of processors features a basic two Xe-Core iGPU, with a maximum clock rate of 2.6GHz. Pair that small iGPU with single-channel memory and graphics performance isn't going to be stellar. As you ca see, the IdeaPad Slim 3i with Core 7 350 trails all of the other systems we tested in this graphics benchmark.

Game Benchmarks With F1 25 & The Talos Principle II

We also ran some fairly taxing gaming workloads on the laptops represented here with F1 25 and The Talos Principle II at a 1080p resolution. With F1 25 we used the game's "High" image quality preset, which uses high-quality graphics settings, without ray tracing. And for The Talos Principle II, we used the game's "Medium" quality preset. Resolution scaling was disabled in both games, to show the native framerate across all platforms and iGPUs.


The Intel Core Series 3, i.e. Wildcat Lake, isn't designed for gamers. In the two game tests we ran, the IdeaPad Slim 3i ends up trailing the pack and offering about half of the performance of the four Xe-Core iGPU in the Core Ultra 7 355, found in the XPS 14.

While these numbers don't paint a beautiful picture, we must note that the IdeaPad Slim 3i was capable of running these modern games just fine--with reduced graphics settings or resolution scaling enabled, some casual gaming is easily possible on this machine.

Although uses often keep their laptops and notebooks plugged into AC power, they are designed to be used while mobile, on battery power. Many systems, however, offer vastly different performance profiles when running on AC (plugged in) or DC (battery) power. With that in mind, we re-ran a couple of tests to see how much performance the IdeaPad Slim 3i lost--if any--while utilizing its battery.

We ran two tests on battery power, at opposite ends of the spectrum. Speedometer is lightly-threaded and heavily influenced by CPU frequency and latency and Cinebench 26's multi-thread test, which is all about maximum processor throughput. The Core 7 350, as configured in the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3i bleeds off about 5 - 11% of performance when operating on battery power, which is better than most previous-gen systems.