Lenovo Legion Pro 5i (16”, 9) 2024 Review: A budget gaming powerhouse

85%

Powerful

• Design

The ninth generation Lenovo Legion Pro 5i was announced earlier this year at CES. There’s been a focus on AI powered laptops, but sometimes it’s nice to kick back and play some games and the Lenovo Australia team have sent across one of their Legion Pro 5i 2024 models over for review.

The Legion Pro 5i (16”, 9) we’ve received is the full business, including a 14th gen Intel Core i9-14900HX processor, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Laptop GPU, 32GB of DDR5 RAM and a 1TB gen 4 M.2 SSD.

It’s a lot of hardware and carries a $4,489 AUD RRP – but you can find good deals if you shop around. 

I’ve had a great time with the Legion Pro 5i for a couple of weeks now and here’s how it went.  

Hardware

Design

The Legion Pro 5i in its 9th generation hasn’t changed much since last years model, offering the same grey colour option with that look and feel of a Lenovo Legion laptop. 

Like most gaming laptops, the Legion Pro 5i is fairly chunky in design with a thick profile that also extends back beyond the hinge giving it a slightly thicc(?) rear end. That bump gives you more room for both ports and cooling exhaust. 

As a gaming machine you can definitely expect a focus on cooling with hexagonal vents on the base drawing air in, and exiting through the vents on the back and sides. 

 

It’s a pretty loud experience when you crank the performance up. The new Lenovo ColdFront cooling system is in effect though, offering a software based system which uses the dual fans and heat pipe to be quieter – though in performance mode, I can tell you it moves a lot of air and isn’t quiet.

There’s a vast array of ports on the Legion Pro 5i, with an ethernet jack, USB Type C and dual USB Type A ports alongside a HDMI port and the proprietary power connector port on the rear. There’s ports on the sides too, a USB Type A and Type C ports on the left, and USB Type A port on the right along with the combo audio jack and privacy shutter for the webcam. 

The large 16” display is in 16:10 aspect ratio and defines the overall shape of the laptop. The only large bezels around the display are at the top where a slight lip protrudes to make opening the laptop easier, as well as fitting in the 1080p webcam.

Unfortunately you’ll be typing in your password every time you login, as the webcam doesn’t support Windows Hello, and there’s also no fingerprint reader.

I do like the full-sized Lenovo Legion ‘TrueStrike’ keyboard on the lower deck which includes a numeric keypad. I like the raised guides on the S key for centring your fingers during games, and the abrasion resistant paint on the keyboard should keep it looking schmick for a long time.

The keyboard is backlit, including a 4-zone RGB system that can be tuned through the Legion Vantage software.

 

Display and Audio

The 16″ WQXGA (2560 x 1600) resolution IPS panel is paired with a dual speaker system tuned by Nahimic Audio.

The 16” display is nice and big with excellent viewing angles. The IPS panel can support up to 240Hz refresh and supports NVIDIA G-Sync which looks great. I like the viewing angles on the IPS panel, but I would like to see an option for an OLED panel to give deeper blacks and a little more pop to the colours as I find this to be a little muted. 

Overall though it’s a decent display that can be seen in almost any lighting conditions, with the matte finish a great help to eliminate reflections and glare. 

The audio is surprisingly good for a 2-speaker system, though running 2W speakers is a great way to do it. There’s plenty of power in the speakers, which isn’t a problem with the Nahimic Audio tuning delivering a clear sound full of crystal clear mids and highs, with a satisfying low end that while it isn’t super bass heavy, delivers more than I’m used to on a laptop. 

Performance

Stacked to the gills, there’s little more you could want from a gaming laptop. There’s an Intel Core i9-14900HX processor, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Laptop GPU, 32GB of DDR5 RAM and 1TB gen 4 M.2 SSD.

The Legion Pro 5i will eat up any office work, web browsing or video watching, and works well for any creators with video editing or 3D rendering.

Gamers will love the experience on the Legion Pro 5i with the RTX4070 able to produce a solid 60fps on a slew of games including Cyberpunk 2077, Sons of the Forest and Fortnite.

That performance obviously comes at a price and that price is cooling with the Legion Pro 5i getting quite loud when under load. 

As usual we sent it through 3DMark and here’s how it went

 

Battery and Charging

The 80Whr battery in the Lenovo Legion Pro 5i can be charged using the simply massive 300W charger included in the box. 

The 80Whr battery would normally be massive in any ultraportable, however you get around six hours of use doing fairly mundane office work, web browsing and YouTube. As a gaming laptop though, you’ll want to play some games on the go – but be warned, you can drain the battery on performance mode in just under an hour. 

The good news is that the 300W charger is fast, getting you up to 50% charge in just 15 minutes before getting to 100% full in under an hour. 

Software

The Lenovo Legion Pro 5i includes a copy of Windows 11 Home with an assortment of pre-installed apps and utilities. 

The pre-installed apps include the usual suspects: MS Office 365 trial, McAfee Livesafe 30-day trial (which it will remind you is about to expire constantly), as well as some Lenovo utilities.

The list of Lenovo utilities includes Lenovo Now, a sort of hub for Lenovo services. You also get apps for all those services including Lenovo Vantage which is used to manage your laptop or get support, Lenovo Hotkeys, a place to set custom functions like changing the power profile or refresh rate, Legion Arena for managing your games.

While there’s a lot there, I generally use Lenovo Vantage the most. It’s easy to use and changing settings is relatively pain free. I’ve often changed to the dGPU only for gaming before switching back to the integrated GPU for simple office work – it helps with fan noise. 

 

Should you buy it?

As far as pure performance goes, the Lenovo Legion Pro 5i has got absolute boat loads of it. 

For gamers there’s not a lot to wish for in the laundry list of specs, however the battery life is on the low side if you’re really wanting to play games on the go and it’s very loud when under load. The display is also a little muted on colours, but at 16”, it’s still big and bright and that’s what you need. 

All that said, if you have the money to spend – and some time to check out some deals, the Lenovo Legion Pro 5i is a great laptop for gamers. 

You can check it out over on the Lenovo online store.