Lenovo Legion 9i (Gen 8) Review

When you think of the most powerful gaming laptops, you’d imagine them to be big, bulky, and heavy. And you’re not wrong to think that way—most of the top-spec gaming laptops we’ve reviewed in the past fit that category. Simply put, they’re not the most practical to bring around when traveling or working out of the office.

But somehow, Lenovo made a gaming laptop powered by a 13th Gen Intel i9 and an RTX4090 GPU that you wouldn’t mind bringing around when you travel. Not to mention, it also has liquid cooling.

It’s still not as light as the MacBook Pro nor as compact, but it is portable for something of this caliber. Today, we’ll review the Lenovo Legion 9i (Gen 8), and whether it could be your next gaming laptop.

Design and Construction

Compared to past Legion laptops I’ve tried and seen, the Legion 9i (Gen 8) is easily one of the best-looking models in the lineup. It features an all-black design, which makes the laptop look very sleek. There are no overly tacky design cues, which helps it maintain a clean styling.

Instead, all your attention is drawn to the beautiful forged carbon fiber lid. It’s easily the centerpiece of the Lenovo Legion 9i in terms of styling. Since it is forged carbon, you can easily see all of the carbon fiber pieces laid out at random. In comparison, the usual carbon fiber pattern you see is the weave.

If you’re into cars, then this forged carbon lid is something you’ll find yourself talking about to your peers often. Maybe it even matches your car if you have some carbon fiber parts fitted onto it.

Integrated along with the forged carbon lid is the Legion logo which lights up in RGB. On the topic of RGB, there is a lot of RGB lighting to be found on the laptop – from the keyboard to the rear strip and even the front under panel.

The chassis of the Legion 9i itself is made out of recycled aluminum, and paired with the forged carbon lid, you get a sturdy laptop. Despite being a gaming laptop, it’s rather thin too measuring just 14.08 x 10.93 x 0.89 inches (18.99mm x 356.7mm x 277.7mm). As for the weight, it is still a bit heavy at 5.51 pounds or around 2.5kg. At least it’s not heavy enough that you feel like you’re working out every time you bring it out of your backpack.

Despite the 14-inch frame, Lenovo also managed to cram a 16-inch (diagonal) display into the Legion 9i thanks to the very thin borders. But we’ll discuss more on that later in the display section. Even with the slim borders, there is a 1080P webcam at the top of the screen. The screen doesn’t open a full 180 degrees, but it’s enough to make it comfortable to use in various angles and positions.

In terms of I/O and ports, there are a decent number of ports you can utilize on the Lenovo Legion 9i. On the right edge, you’ll find a USB-A and a USB-C port together with a switch for the webcam, while on the left there’s a 3.5mm audio port, and interestingly an SD card slot.

Having a built-in SD slot makes it easier for photographers and videographers like me to dump files so great initiative from Lenovo there.

At the back, you’ll find the rest of the ports. These include two more USB-C ports, both of which come with Thunderbolt 4 support, another USB-A port, an HDMI port, a LAN port, and a charging port.

To make life easier, Lenovo also added upward-facing LED icons above the ports to know which is which. As a result, you don’t have to turn the laptop around just to plug stuff in. Instead, you can look over and see which goes where, and even which one is available for use.

Overall, I don’t find the need for more USB ports on the Lenovo Legion 9i. They’re properly placed too like the USB-A on the right side for the mouse and the 3.5mm audio port on the left for your earphones/headphones.

For the keyboard, you get a full-sized keyboard to work, meaning you get a number pad on the right side. The keys themselves are scalloped, and they have just the right amount of travel, making it easy to type if you plan on writing documents with the Legion 9i.

Some might not like this layout, but I personally don’t mind. The RGB on the keyboard can also be customized to your liking via Lenovo Vantage.

One thing I don’t like about this laptop is the trackpad. It’s tiny and offset to the left making it almost unusable. If you plan on doing typing work, your palm is bound to accidentally hit the trackpad too. As such, I really recommend using a mouse when using this laptop.

Display and Multimedia

Open up the forged carbon fiber lid, and you’re greeted by the 16-inch screen. Despite the small frame, Lenovo managed to cram a 16:10 display with 3200x2000px resolution into the Legion 9i. It’s not a full 4K display, but it’s great enough considering you do get a 165Hz refresh rate.

The screen is a mini LED panel as opposed to an OLED display, so you don’t get the very vivid colors and visual impact. However, it’s still very nice and sharp, and I didn’t find myself complaining. More importantly, the screen is bright and vibrant, and you get nice viewing angles all around.

Specifically, the screen on the Legion 9i has a maximum of 1,200 nits, making it useable in all kinds of environments. In fact, it might be a bit too bright. But even if you max out the brightness, the colors don’t appear washed out. Most of the time, I ended up using it with half brightness.

So whether you want to play games or watch videos, you’re bound to enjoy a lot with the integrated display. However, you can always plug it into a TV or monitor via the HDMI port if you want a bigger screen to work with.

Speaking of watching videos, the built-in speakers of the Legion 9i. You get two Harman tuned speakers which sound great. They’re loud and clear but do lack a bit of bass for my liking. For a better listening experience, I recommend plugging in your earphones or headphones. And if you’re gaming, chances are you will be using headphones more often. But for watching in a group, they’ll do the job.

Performance and Benchmarks

Our review unit of the Lenovo Legion 9i (Gen 8) is the top spec model available at the time. It runs a 13th Gen Intel Core i9-13980HX processor paired with 32GB of DDR5 RAM running at 6400Mhz and an RTX 4090 laptop GPU. It also comes with 2TB of storage space available for all the games, apps, and more. Not to mention there’s a liquid-cooling system in place to help keep the temperatures down.

With that, you can expect this laptop to run almost any AAA title you can think of. You can even adjust the performance settings on the laptop itself via the Lenovo Vantage app. I mainly played Genshin Impact and Call of Duty: Warzone, and with the recommended game settings, I was constantly able to get around 130-140FPS. As you would expect from Genshin Impact and Honkai Star Rail, these were maxed out.

Outside of gaming, it can also handle most, if not all of the heavy applications like Lightroom, Photoshop, and Premiere. I was able to run Genshin Impact, Lightroom, and Photoshop all at the same time, and I didn’t experience any slowing down. The downside is that you will hear the fans spin up at full blast.

From my experience, even if I did a batch export of 4K photos on Lightroom the laptop did not slow down. I could still watch videos and browse social media at the same time. Together with the bright screen, I didn’t have to worry about working on the go too much either. And when it’s time to take a break, I just load up my favorite titles and unwind.

For the benchmarks, we ran the Lenovo Legion 9i on Performance mode with the charger plugged in since this is the mode you’ll probably be using more often than not. Check out the scores we were able to get below.

Battery and Connectivity

The battery on the Lenovo Legion 9i is a 99.99Whr battery pack, which might seem like a lot but it’s not. One of the issues I found with this laptop, as with most gaming laptops I’ve tried, is the battery life.

Even if you adjust Lenovo Vantage to the lowest power settings, you don’t get that long battery life on the Legion 9i as I experienced myself. After just around 4 hours and 30 minutes of use work use, I found myself needing to plug into a power outlet just so I could continue to edit photos and write articles. So be sure to bring the charger with you at all times.

Fortunately, if you do need to charge it doesn’t take too long. The laptop comes with two chargers, but our review unit only came with the more powerful 330W GaN power adapter. With Super Rapid Charge, Lenovo claims 0-100% in just 30 minutes, and based on my experience, their claim doesn’t seem too far off.

In terms of connectivity, you do get a LAN port for a faster and more stable internet connection which is beneficial for gaming. But if you’re using a wireless connection, the Legion 9i (8th Gen) comes with Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.3 support. This ensures constant and fast internet access wherever you are. Not to mention the antennas have a good range too since they can pick up Wi-Fi points from a distance, and stay connected.

Conclusion

Lenovo markets the Legion 9i (8th Gen) as their flagship model catering to gaming enthusiast needs, and on that note it certainly delivers. You get the most powerful specs available paired with minimalist styling, and you can’t go wrong. It’s not that flashy, but it will catch people’s attention with the forged carbon lid.

At the same time, it’s perfectly sized too. Sure there are other gaming laptops out there that can perform just as well, but it’s hard to find one that’s as compact as this. The only issue this laptop has is the price. It starts at PHP 275,990USD 4,703INR 398,695EUR 4,479CNY 34,250, making it a very expensive purchase. But if you have the budget, you can’t go wrong with the Legion 9i.

Given the chance, this is a gaming laptop I would own.

What we liked:
* Top-level performance
* Beautiful forged carbon design
* Relatively compact and easy to carry around

What we didn’t like:
* Short battery life
* Quite expensive for its category
* Loud fans in performance mode

Lenovo Legion 9i Specs:
16-inch 3.2K mini-LED display
3200 x 2000 pixels, 165Hz, 1200 nits, 16:10
100% Adobe RGB, 100% DCI-P3
13th Gen Intel Core i9-13980HX
Up to NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Laptop GPU, 16GB GDDR6 (150W TGP)
32GB, 64GB 5600Mhz DDR5 RAM
Up to 2TB PCIe SSD (Gen 4)
FHD (1080p) webcam with e-Shutter
Up to Wi-Fi 7
Starts at Bluetooth 5.1
Up to Windows 11 Pro
99.99Whr battery
140W USB-C PD charging
18.99mm x 356.7mm x 277.7mm
Starting at 2.5kg
Carbon Black