Lenovo Legion 5i Gen 9

For the past few weeks - in between Gamescom appointments and other trips - I've been taking my time with the Lenovo Legion 5i Gen 9. Lenovo Legion is a brand lauded within the world of gaming laptops for years now, and so that means there are certain expectations when opening up a new one out of the box. Lenovo has to consistently top itself in this regard, which can prove a tricky challenge.

The Lenovo Legion 5i Gen 9 is a sizeable 16" laptop, and yet it feels very light without feeling cheap. The design is what Lenovo calls Luna Grey in colour, and comes across as professional, eloquent. If you're like me and don't love a laptop telling everyone in a five-mile radius you're a massive gamer with its design, then you're in luck. If you are a fan of bright lights and flashing colours, you get them in the keyboard, which can be customised to your liking if you've got a specific colour theme you're always going for.

For its weight, this laptop packs a serious punch when it comes to performance. A 14th-generation Intel i9-14900HX is included alongside an RTX 4070, which made even the latest games like Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine II run without breaking a sweat at max settings. The performance of this laptop is seriously beastly, and it gave me a stark reminder I really should upgrade the tower I've currently got sitting under my desk. Also, it managed this performance incredibly quietly compared to other gaming laptops I've reviewed with similar specifications. Lenovo really has the cooling right with its Legion ColdFront Hyper thermal control, which meant that my lap never started burning while I was gaming nor did I believe there was a jet engine starting up in my flat while I was playing some games.

The performance provided by the GPU and CPU inside is supported heavily by the display of the Lenovo Legion 5i Gen 9. A 2500x1600 aspect ratio was something that took a minute to get used to with previous laptops, but now it does feel like the superior way to play games in this portable format. Details are really vivid in this IPS, 240Hz screen, with 500 nits on offer. The anti-glare was rather impressive, too, allowing me to game away without worrying about the glare of the sun from the last few days of summer. The Nahimic speakers from SteelSeries were also a grand addition. They're not going to provide the booming surround sound of some tower speakers, but they gave out clear, crisp audio that helped with the overall immersion of a gameplay session.

Now, onto the things that keep this laptop from being a perfect recommendation. While the Lenovo Legion 5i Gen 9 does offer very, very good gaming performance, which could be all you're looking for, there are a couple of problems with it being the best gaming laptop out there. The first issue is the price point. While you can get the 4060 version of this laptop for ~£1600, the RTX 4070 version costs £2000. Considering that you can get an RTX 4070 laptop with a similar screen, CPU, and more storage for hundreds of pounds less than that nowadays, it's hard to say why you'd choose the Lenovo Legion 5i Gen 9, even if its performance is still tremendous.

As mentioned, the storage here is weirdly small. Just 512GB of an SSD might store around 5 modern AAA games, which isn't a lot. You'd expect a terabyte at least nowadays, especially with games getting bigger and the cost you're paying. It is worth mentioning the SSD storage in the Lenovo Legion 5i Gen 9 is super quick. If you don't mind not having a bunch of games installed, then this might not be an issue, but the biggest problem I had with my time with the Lenovo Legion 5i Gen 9 was its battery life. Even putting the laptop on battery saving mode wouldn't get much more than 90 minutes to a couple of hours of gaming time, which means that it essentially becomes a small, more portable tower that needs plugging in all the time. It feels like a strange trade for the performance, as you won't get to experience the heights of this laptop unless you plug it in.

Still, the Lenovo Legion 5i Gen 9 is a solid addition to Lenovo's Legion line. It's one of the best laptops I've reviewed when it comes to gaming performance, but there are some tradeoffs you'll have to take into account if you want to make the most of that performance, including taking a hit to battery life, storage and paying a good deal more than you would for some other RTX 4070 laptops that are on the market right now. But, if you don't mind any of that, then you'll be more than happy with the Lenovo Legion 5i Gen 9.