Lenovo Ideapad 720S: 14'' 1080p IPS, i7-8550U, 8GB DDR4, 256GB SSD Expired

I've had the 720S (13" Ryzen) and also currently own the XPS 13 (9360). The XPS has slightly better build quality (the laptop just feels solid all-around), but the 720S is no slouch either. In fact, Lenovo's implementation balances a better/lighter weight at the same screen size. The XPS 13 (new, not refurb) that you may manage to get in this price range of ~$800 would be something like this. That one of course had a hefty rebate attached. You also won't be getting the dedicated MX150 graphics found in this Lenovo since the XPS 13 line is only integrated graphics.

The 720S has much better front webcam placement if that matters to you, as it is in the traditional spot vs the 9360 in the lower left corner (aka will look up your nose). The XPS 13, while not being the lightest 13" around, however has the smallest footprint of any 13"er.

The 720S in this deal is heftier at 3.4 lbs. (vs. 2.7 lbs for the XPS 13) but has the larger screen and footprint. You also get a full HDMI port here vs the XPS which you'll have to get a dongle/adapter for.

From the reviews I've read of this Lenovo, battery life seems to be from meh to decent (4-5 hours?). The XPS sans dedicated GPU comfortably wins on this front - I get 8+ hours with moderate use on my touchscreen model. For comparison's sake, the Lenovo is pushing a larger screen size but with a smaller battery (4 cell 55 WHr) vs XPS 13 (4 cell 60 WHr).

I prefer the trackpad of the XPS but like the keyboard of the Lenovo more (feels less mushy to me).

Although Lenovo states the Thunderbolt 3 port is 40 Gbps indicating 4 lanes, it seems like the controller itself is limited to 2 lanes: Link [youtube.com] Further proof [notebookreview.com] so on that front, the XPS and Lenovo are effectively tied at 2 lanes.

Lastly, a lot of owners complain about the fan noise with this model. See this thread [notebookreview.com]. On the XPS front, some owners complain about coil whine. Take your pick; I for one haven't noticed any coil whine on my XPS, but YMMV.

In the end, it comes down to:

Lenovo: larger screen/footprint/weight, dedicated GPU, middling battery life, fan noise, upgradeable RAM, HDMI

XPS: smaller, lighter but denser, all-day battery life, integrated graphics, non-upgradeable RAM, coil whine, no HDMI

Hands down, the Ideapad 720S will win on price to performance. You will pay a premium for the XPS line. I ended up keeping the XPS because battery life is one of my top priorities but that's just me. The value difference lessens if you get on one of the many frequent refurb XPS deals that pop up, assuming you're okay with refurbs.

And you did not get the point again. First of all, this one is single channel but user replaceable. So, you can upgrade it to 16GB.
Second point, which you failed to understand is why I was referring dual channel. Dual channel memory configuration does not improve CPU performance in real world for almost all applications and that has been proven by thousands of review. But it affects the performance of the integrated GPU by a very good margin as GPU needs as much bandwidth as system can provide for providing better performance. Now that is not a problem for this laptop because it has a dedicated GPU.
But for the Ryzen laptop, due to single channel nature of the Ram, VEGA 8 and VEGA10 GPU performance is almost half in this Ryzen Ideapad 720S compared to HP Envy 15 or Acer Swift 3 which has dual channel memory.

Ram is upgradable but it has only 1 slot. So, 16gb max.