Top 7 Intel Core i7 11th Generation Laptops

Nathan Guides
11 min readFeb 24, 2021

We are finally getting around to see Laptops out with intel’s new 11th Gen Tiger Lake mobile processors starting with the Core i7 1165G7 the CPU that will be seen in most mainstream high-end ultraportable laptops. The core i7 1165G7 is an overhaul of intel’s previous mobile offerings in particular ice lake which launched with a rather mediocre performance last year with AMD storming into the mobile market in early 2020 with their ZEN 2 based Ryzen 4000 lineup which in most instances destroyed intel’s previous offerings in terms of performance Tiger Lake is intel’s big response that’s filled with new features.

Perhaps the biggest update for Intel is the new 10-nanometer SuperFin process. 10 nanometers has been problematic for Intel over the last few years but for a low-power mobile CPU 10 nanometers SuperFin finally seems up to the task for next-generation CPU architectures. On this node Intel able to significantly increase both CPU and GPU clock speeds compared to 10-nanometer isolate products, at the same power class which provides the bulk of the performance improvements on offer with the Core i7 1165G7 over the Core i7 1065G7.

On top of this, there have been some minor updates to the CPU core design moving from Sunny Cove up to Willow cove most notably cache sizes have increased from 8 MB of L3 on previous top-end quad cores up to 12 MB. We also get a much larger GPU design based on intel’s New XC architecture packing 96 execution units higher frequency memory support new features like Thunderbolt 4.0 and PCI 4.0 and better hardware acceleration for video encoding and decoding.

7 Best Intel Core i7 11th Generation Laptops

  • Dell XPS 13 930
  • Asus Zenbook Flip S
  • Asus Zenbook 14
  • Dell Inspiron 5000
  • Acer Swift 5

1. Dell XPS 13 9310

Dell XPS 13 two in one is the follow-up to last year’s premium convertible and it’s really impressive. They’ve upgraded it to the 11th gen tiger lake processor it also has integrated Iris XE graphics a definite improvement over the integrated iris plus graphics from last year. A gorgeous full HD plus resolution with a 16:10 aspect ratio with all-day battery life.

This really is one of the most portable machines of 2021 a strong rival to MacBook air and thankful to the sleek aluminum frame which is seriously impressively tough. For added durability, you’ve even got gorilla glass 6 on-screen and scratch-resistant Dell’s design hasn’t really changed that much versus older XPS laptops you still get that simple silver finish on the outside plus that lovable soft-touch interior which is very pleasing on your palms.

The 11th gen intel core i7 1165G7 or 1185G7 inside, we also have Intel IRIS XE graphics as a shared graphics memory, of course, that’s a bump over the intel IRIS Plus graphics and we now have two thunderbolts 4 ports that support data charge and display out that is definitely an upgrade over the thunderbolt 3. Intel’s tiger lake processor based on the intel Evo platform meaning it’s certified that it has a certain minimum amount of specs that it had to meet.

With the new intel tiger lake 11th gen processor, it is more of evolution it’s not a revolution but I will say this in terms of thermal management I did find things were a bit better than the 10th Gen 9300 model. Following again not revolutionary but it is going to be plenty powerful for most tasks everyday browsing, web watching videos, graphic designing some computer coding, it’s going to be plenty powerful enough for video editing for sure.

Specifications:

CPU: 11th-Generation Intel Core i7–1165G7–1185G7
Graphics: Intel Iris XE Graphics
RAM: 16GB — 32Gb
Screen: 13.4 inches 16:10 4K UHD WLED Touch Display
Storage: 1TB 2 TB SSD NVME
Average Battery Life: 15 hours

Pros

  • All Metal Premium Design
  • Thin and Light
  • Good Port Selection
  • Gorgeous Infinity Edge Display

Cons

  • No USB-A Port you need to use a dongle
  • User Upgradeability

2. Asus Zenbook Flip S

One of the first thin and light notebooks to feature Intel’s new Tiger Lake CPUs with XE graphics. It actually is a 2 in 1 device so you can use it either in tablet mode or in laptop mode I’m typically not a fan of two-in-one devices but I’m sure it has its own niche market.

Intel’s EVO branding which is where the Zenbook Flip S is classified under, remember project Athena it was a program designed by intel to work closely with OEM manufacturers to design thin and light notebooks that can meet the demands of real-world users so that means a snappy performance extended battery life and also being able to get the most bandwidth out of a thin light form factor it according to intel the Zenbook flip s meets all the requirements like supporting quick charge thunderbolt 4, wi-fi 6 instant wake functionality.

The design and build quality and to be honest it looks a lot similar to the Hp Spectre x360 everything from the copper accent colors on the edges to the interior keyboard layout and the font choice.

Specifications:

CPU: 11th-Generation Intel Core i7–1165G7
Graphics: Intel Iris Xe Graphics
RAM: 16GB
Screen: 13.3 4K OLED Display
Storage: 1TB SSD
Average Battery Life: 15 hours

Pros

  • Fantastic Display
  • Sleek finish and great design
  • AI Noise Cancelling
  • Good battery life
  • Reliable Performance

Cons

  • HD Camera
  • Lack of headphone jack

3. Asus ZenBook 14 UX425EA

While holding Zenbook 14 you will feel a very premium high-end, all-metal design with a pine gray finish which is very sleek and modern. On the left side we get one HDMI port two thunderbolts 4 ports that do data charge and display out now the thunderbolt 4 port can support up to two 4k monitors or one 8k monitor, on the right side you get a micro sd card reader for storage expansion and USB A port but one thing missing is that 3.5-millimeter Audio jack you have to use the included dongle.

As for User-upgradable SSD and RAM is soldered in as well as the wi-fi card. The display one of the most favorite parts of this laptop it’s a really nice display with a very thin side bezel, a very thin top bezel and it also has a full HD resolution that means you’re getting a resolution of 1920 by 1080. The Screen Size is a 16 to 9 aspect ratio which of course is great for watching media such as Netflix, Amazon, and Youtube, it has some really deep blacks excellent contrast good white points and it has a really good color accuracy with a Delta-E score of 1.29 it also covers the color gamut really well 92 sRGB 70 adobe RGB and 70 of the p3 white color gamut and 64 NTSC making this a good choice for those content creators that do lightroom photoshop and of course video editing it’s also a matte display so that means you don’t get any unnecessary glare or reflections.

This device really shines in its battery life it has a 67-watt hour battery and it did 13 hours and 11 minutes on continuous web surfing definitely giving you all-day battery life and the great news is the included 65-watt USB-c power adapter only took an hour and a half for a full charge.

Specifications:

CPU: 11th-Generation Intel Core i7–1165G7
Graphics: Intel Iris Xe Graphics
RAM: 16GB
Screen: 14" FHD 1920 x 1080 IPS Display
Storage: 512 GB SSD, 32GB Intel Optane Memory
Average Battery Life: 13–15 hour

Pros

  • Good selection of Ports
  • Rugged lightweight design
  • The beautiful 1-watt 14-inch display
  • Amazing Battery Life

Cons

  • Fingerprint Magnet
  • Narrow Trackpad
  • No Support for Thunderbolt 3

4. Dell Inspiron 5000

The laptop itself fairly premium looking given its price range it weighs 3.8 pounds approximately and on the top side, you can see it’s a metallic surface very cool to the touch, super smooth minimal. You have the dell branding in the dead center and no over-complicated textures no excessive fanciness. There is a rather limited but useful set of O port so on one side you have the dc charging port you have an HDMI port a USB 3.0 port and a USB type-c port on the other side you have the headphone jack another USB 3.0 port and also a Micro SD card reader. On the bottom of the laptop, there are a bunch of passive vents this portion of the laptop is made of hard TPU and that’s perfectly fine given that it’s hidden from sight.

The trackpad looks premium when you click on it it feels cheap and flimsy it feels like a bunch of pieces of plastic are coming together every time you apply pressure towards a left or right-click I don’t know why dell cheaped out on this but you’ll definitely feel this and it does take away from the immersion. Thankfully the keyboard on the Inspiron 5000 is absolutely amazing it has nice tactile feedback 1.5-millimeter travel also fully backlit with a two-tier setting system, a full 10 key number pad and you also have a fingerprint scanner that doubles as the power button. The Two-tier hinge system is super solid on the Dell Inspiron 5000 it’s not flimsy and designed to last for years to come.

Dell does a pretty good job at trying to modernize the display fitting so you have super thin bezels you do have a webcam with a dual array microphone, unfortunately, the webcam quality is pretty lackluster running at 720p at 30 frames per second but in terms of display quality the Inspiron 5000 has a decent display but I wouldn’t call it good. It has a reasonable 1080p resolution with a 141 pixel per inch also you have a modest 60 Hz, now that’s where things start going down in terms of color accuracy you have just above 58 sRGB coverage which is quite lackluster that means if you’re doing any graphics-intensive tasks like color grading or if you’re doing photoshop editing or any photo editing, in general, this might not be the right display for you given the high color and accuracy you’ll experience.

Specifications:

CPU: 11th-Generation Intel Core i7–1165G7
Graphics: Intel Iris Xe Graphics
RAM: 8 GB, 16 GB, 32 GB
Screen: 15.6-inch FHD 1920 x 1080 Anti-glare LED
Storage: 256 GB, 512 GB , 1 TB, 2 TB M.2 PCIe NVMe
Average Battery Life: 13–15 hour

Pros

  • Premium metallic exterior
  • Sleek design
  • Decent Build Quality
  • Good Keyboard
  • Affordability

Cons

  • Spongy Click Pad
  • Poor Color Accuracy
  • Dim Display

5. HP Spectre X360

The hp Spectre x360 14 inches not the 13 inches anymore so what they’ve done here is they’ve given us a 3:2 aspect ratio display like Microsoft surface products. You have an option between an IPS full HD plus or an OLED model. Intel 11th Gen CPUs inside with faster IRIS XE graphics, a pen included in the box that magnetically attaches over left side though the aspect ratio has changed and this is a little bit deeper depending on how you look at it than the previous generation the design is largely the same and because that Spectre x360 Gem cut look is really pretty and the build quality is excellent on it just as it has been color selection is the same too we have the nightfall black which is obviously a little bit towards the brown color with some copper accents. The Poseidon blue that we’ve seen before has the more like light brass accents and then just the staid silver for those who want to look chill and not too designer.

One of the gem cuts on the back has a USB-C Thunderbolt 4 port we’ve got two Thunderbolt 4 ports we have a micro-sd card slot and a USB A port which I do appreciate because I don’t have to resort to dongle life within two minutes of unboxing and wanting to plug in a mouse or something.

Specifications:

CPU: 11th-Generation Intel Core i7–1165G7
Graphics: Intel Iris Xe Graphics
RAM: 16GB
Screen: 15.6 Inch 4K UHD (3840 x 2160)
Storage: 12GB PCIe NVMe SSD, 32GB Intel Optane
Average Battery Life: 13.5 hour

6. MSI Summit E15

It has the latest 11th gen core i7 processor from Intel along with a dedicated graphics card with the GTX 1650 ti. It has a USB type-c power connector they didn’t go with a proprietary connection and it came with a USB type A to ethernet connections so you can actually plug it into a router or modem.

The summit e15 comes with15.6 an inch display and a 1080p resolution however they do have a 4k option and a touch screen option. It has that anti-glare technology so it’s more of a matte look to the display. This MSI is center for business and productivity where you can change a group of different things screen brightness keyboard brightness you can change to a high-performance mode which of course will use a little bit more battery if you need it to be silent you can go into silent mode or super battery if you want the longest possible battery life built into this laptop is noise cancellation where it uses the MSI AI engine and you can turn it on for speaker, noise-canceling and microphone.

Specifications:

CPU: 11th-Generation Intel Core i7–1185G7
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX1650Ti
RAM: 16GB Support up to 64 GB
Screen: 15.6" FHD IPS or 4K
Storage: 1TB NVMe SSD
Average Battery Life: 16 hour

7. Acer Swift 5

This is a 14-inch laptop that supports the intel Evo platform so it has the 11th Gen core i7 processor also has an anti-microbial solution applied to it, things like the keyboard, touchpad, touch screen all have this solution.

A very light laptop only 2.31 pounds so fairly light 14-inch laptop let’s take a close look at it on the left side is your charging port HDMI slots you have a USB 3.0 type A slot and USB thunderbolt 4 connection and on the right-side headphone jack some led indicators and another USB 3.0 slot A.

For the display it has14 an inch 1080p IPS LCD display with antimicrobial Corning Gorilla glass, one more thing at the top is the webcam this is a 720p webcam. The screen has a 16:9 aspect ratio which is pretty perfect for watching a lot of different video content because it will fill up the entire display. Worth mentioning this 14-inch display has a 90% screen-to-body ratio so overall the bezels are very minimal it looks really clean.

Specifications:

CPU: 11th-Generation Intel Core i7–1165G7
Graphics: Intel Iris Xe Graphics
RAM: 16GB/8GB
Screen: 14 Inch IPS 1920 x 1080
Storage: 256GB/1TB NVMe SSD
Average Battery Life: 15 hour

Pros

  • Lightweight
  • Powerful hardware
  • High performance
  • Good Keyboard

Cons

  • Overheats while using
  • Mediocre speakers
  • High price

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Nathan Guides

I am a Tech Savvy Person, Day by day learning new things, trying to be a Good Father, Enjoying Life…TECH NOMAD