The Lenovo Legion 5i Gen 9 is a sleeper agent that looks more suited for office presentations than a late-night gaming marathon. But don’t let its sophisticated exterior fool you. Beneath that sleek facade lies a powerhouse ready to take on demanding tasks. Read on to find out what we think of Lenovo’s newest gaming model.
Design: 5/5
At first glance, the Lenovo Legion 5i Gen 9 is unassuming. Unlike traditionally-conceived gaming laptops with obvious gamer aesthetics such as aggressive colors and angles, the Legion 5i’s design is more on the professional side. It has a sleek and matte Luna Grey color tone all around, with only the shiny “Lenovo” and “Legion” branding marks in silver breaking the monotone design. It’s blocky and mostly rectangular, and the only true giveaways of its power are the latter branding and the three hexagonal rear exhaust vents.
Open the lid and the same story goes for the inside. You have a full Lenovo Legion TrueStrike keyboard—which looks like a Lenovo ThinkPad’s by the way—with a half-sized “enter” key and a numpad. Being reminiscent of a ThinkPad, the design screams more “office” than “gaming” when the backlights are off. Should you want it to be flashier, there is a customizable 4-zone RGB backlighting available.
A huge trackpad sits below the keyboard, off-center to the left. The upper half of the clamshell folds down flat 180-degrees and is occupied by the huge 16-inch 16:10 display with reasonably slim bezels, as well as the webcam. Meanwhile, the laptop’s bottom has decently high rubber feet to let the bottom exhaust grille breathe, as well as bottom firing stereo speakers.
Taking a tour of the I/O around the edges, the bottom edge is bare. The left edge has the 3.5mm combo jack, two USB-C ports, and a full-sized USB 3.0 port. The right edge has another two USB 3.0 ports, a microSD card slot, a reset pinhole, a webcam privacy shutter toggle, and an RJ45 ethernet jack. Between the three exhaust grilles of the back edge are the full-size HDMI and charging ports.
It doesn’t look like a gaming laptop, but the minimalist in me is absolutely fine with that. After all, what use are gamer aesthetics if the laptop can’t actually perform strongly?
Hardware: 5/5
And perform strongly the Lenovo Legion 5i Gen 9 promises. The base model starts with an Intel Core i5-13450HX processor, an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4050 GPU with 6GB of GDDR6 VRAM, 8GB of RAM, a 512GB PCIe M.2 SSD, and white backlit keyboard; while the highest tier maxes out with an Intel Core i9-14900HX processor, an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 GPU with 8GB of GDDR6 VRAM, 32GB of 5600MHz DDR5 RAM, a 1TB PCIe M.2 SSD, a 4-zone RGB backlit keyboard; and webcam privacy e-shutter.
This latest line of Intel processors promises oodles of features that gamers will surely appreciate. First, it has what is branded as “Performance Hybrid Architecture,” where there are two types of cores on a single chip: performance-cores (P-cores) and efficiency-cores (E-cores). The former are physically bigger and are designed for sheer performance in single-core tasks such as gaming, editing, and animation. Meanwhile, the latter are ideal for less stringent multi-core tasks such as background processes. Second, these cores are managed by the Intel Thread Director which frees up system resources to ensure maximum gaming performance. Third, dynamic power sharing technology optimizes power delivery to the CPU and the GPU, boosting the type of performance you need when you need it.
All models have the same 16-inch WQXGA (2560 x 1600) IPS display with anti-glare coating, 100% sRGB coverage, 350 nits of peak brightness, HDR capability, 165 Hz refresh rate, and NVIDIA G-SYNC compatibility; 4 Cell Li-Polymer 80Wh battery and 230W charger which Lenovo claims to be able to charge 30% of battery life in just 10 minutes and 70% in 30 minutes; Intel Wi-Fi 6E 2×2 AX chip; and 1080P FHD camera with dual microphones.
Cooling is handled by Lenovo’s Legion Coldfront technology which features inward-spinning fans that draws cold air from the bottom then expels hot air out the rear instead of out the sides to your hands. The cooling system is also designed to keep the keyboard, trackpad, and wrist rest area comfortable to use even during extended loads.
All that hardware makes the Lenovo Legion 5i Gen 9 a backbreaker at 2.3kg, which could have been heavier if the entire body was built with aluminum. As it is, only the upper clamshell is metal, with all the equipment housed in the plastic bottom clamshell. Seeing as the plastic body itself is quite robust, I’d say the weight tradeoff is worth it.
While it may not be the highest spec’ed laptop out there, it is more than plenty enough to breeze through demanding games with most eye candy turned up.
User Experience: 5/5
My time with the Lenovo Legion 5i Gen 9 was fantastic. Reviewing the i7-14700HX model with an NVIDIA RTX 4070 GPU, I knew I was never going to be short of power for both my working and gaming scenarios.
Starting with the display, the huge 16-inch screen was sharp and vibrant, with excellent contrast, dynamic range, and color accuracy thanks to its HDR capability and 100% SRGB coverage. Viewing and editing multimedia was thus a great experience. The 16:10 aspect ratio was great for productivity as it provided more vertical space for editing timelines and document work. The high 165Hz refresh rate was also very nice, and though not critical for productivity, the fluidity of onscreen visuals definitely made work feel more exciting.
Another boon for productivity was the keyboard. I found it a joy to type on with its 1.5mm key travel, satisfying feel on click, as well as the aforementioned number pad. The huge trackpad was also nice to use with a shallow but satisfying click. Speakers get decently loud and are quite nice even at high volumes. The camera is serviceable enough and looks decent when you’re in a brightly lit environment.
Moving on to gaming, the Legion 5i Gen 9 handled the games I tested with ease. Middle Earth: Shadow of War, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, and Doom were all buttery smooth at an average of over 80fps, even at the highest graphics presets available. Meanwhile, Grand Theft Auto V kept a steady 40+ framerate, even with everything turned up to the possible maximum; though at this level of detail, graphic pop-ins were common. For synthetic benchmarks, it scored 2,310 on the 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 test and 7,555 on PCMark 10.
As for battery life, the Legion 5i Gen 9 lasted around 4 hours from 100% to empty with full brightness, battery saver mode on, and doing regular office work. For charging, it went from dead to 100% in just around an hour while in use. Don’t expect the same run times and charging speeds if you’re going to be using it for gaming.
Value: 4/5
Starting at around PHP95,000 for the base model, the Lenovo Legion 5i Gen 9 is undoubtedly positioned as a premium gaming laptop. While that price can make one go “ouch,” you are getting elite specs in a nicely designed package with Lenovo’s signature build quality. It certainly is not the most affordable gaming laptop in the market, but between its performance, sleek design, nice cooling system, and fantastic keyboard for typing, it’s more than just a gaming laptop—it’s an all around workhorse.
Specifications:
- Display: 16-inch WQXGA (2560 x 1600) IPS, Anti-Glare, 100% sRGB, 350 nits, HDR, 165Hz, G-SYNC
- Processor: Intel Core Raptor Lake i7-14700HX, 20-cores (8-performance + 12-efficient), 28-threads, P-core up to 5.5GHz, E-Core up to 3.9GHz, 33MB cache
- Integrated GPU: Intel UHD Graphics for 14th Gen Intel Processors
- Dedicated GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Laptop GPU, 8GB VRAM, 55W TDP
- RAM: 32GB GDDR5 (16GB x 2) 5600MHz
- Storage: Samsung MZVL21T0HCLR 1TB PCIe M.2 SSD
- Battery: 80Wh, with included 230W charger
- Connectivity: Intel Wi-Fi 6E AX211, RealTek Semiconductor RTL8168/8111 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet NIC
- I/O: 3x USB 3.0, 1x USB -C with PD, 1x USB-C 3.1 10Gbps, 1x HDMI, 1x Ethernet (RJ-45), 1x Headphone / microphone combo jack (3.5mm), 1x Power connector
- Dimensions: 25.2 x 359.7 x 262.3mm
- Weight: 2.3kg
What’s Hot:
- Performs like a desktop
- Huge, immersive, and fluid display
- Fantastic keyboard
- Minimalist design
What’s Not:
- Weighs like a desktop
- No Thunderbolt port
- Pricey
Bottomline:
If you are looking for a laptop for both work and play, look no further.
Reviewed and Photos by Chris Noel Hidalgo
Also published in GADGETS Magazine October 2024 Issue