Lenovo Legion Pro 5i (Gen 9, 16”) Review

There are lots of options when it comes to gaming laptops, and one that stands out in the crowd is the Legion lineup from Lenovo.

Perhaps, aside from the competitive price-to-performance ratio, another main selling point of Legion laptops is their superb build quality. From the keyboard and trackpad to thermals and chassis, one can expect a laptop that’s built to last.

Now for 2024, Lenovo expands its portfolio by bringing over its Legion Pro 5i (Gen 9) in the Philippines. This iteration is now equipped with the latest 14th Gen Intel Core i9 processor paired with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 discrete graphics.

Packing more powerful internals with seemingly the same design language as last year, we put this gaming laptop to the test. So, without further ado, here’s our full review of the Legion Pro 5i, and let’s dive right in!

Design and Construction

In terms of appearance, this one looks exactly like last year’s model, which isn’t really a bad thing. “Don’t fix what ain’t broken” is somewhat Lenovo’s mantra for this one, am I right?

Anyways, this just goes to show how effective this design really is. There’s the aluminum top lid with some Lenovo and Legion monikers complemented with a premium polycarbonate chassis.

The lid comes in a satin finish which is quite a fingerprint magnet. Although, you don’t really touch that part often, so it’s more of a nitpick.

Flip it over and you’ll see the intake vents at the bottom and with the output facing the rear and sides of the laptop. With that, you can already imagine how good this laptop is when it comes to heat dissipation.

With a 16-inch display and being a gaming laptop that it is, expect a bit of heft which is about 2.5 kilograms. Perhaps, because of its weight, you can easily open the lid with just one hand.

The tension feels nice when closing and opening the lid thanks to that durable looking hinge. I must say, I like that there is hardly any wobble here, and this is the same case with the keyboard deck with seeming no flex at all.

Speaking of the keyboard, well, there is one design change — a really small change — and that’s the Copilot button (image above) taking the place of the previously left Ctrl button.

I/Os and Connectivity

Moving on, I like the fact that this laptop comes with plenty of ports, and not to mention, the port layout is genius.

To lessen the clutter, most of the ports are placed at the rear, including the reversible rectangular shaped DC charging port that supports up to a blazing fast 300W charging; there are also two USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A ports; an HDMI 2.1; a USB-C that also supports PowerDelivery of up to 140W; and an Ethernet port.

That USB-C PowerDelivery is so useful. If I don’t feel like bringing a chonker 300W charging brick around when I’m out and bout, I can just get a different 140W laptop charger that’s significantly lighter and smaller.

The sides aren’t left empty handed either. On the left, there’s a USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A along with a USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C port for data transfer; and on the right, there is another USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A port, and the privacy e-shutter switch is also here just beside the 3.5 mm combo jack.

Connectivity-wise, the laptop offers Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.1, both of which have been reliable in my experience. Of course, you have the RJ45 port at your disposal for a direct connection to your router.

Display and Multimedia

Now onto one of the most important features to look for in a laptop is its display. The Legion Pro 5i comes with a crisp and very, very smooth 16-inch screen.

The panel features a Quad HD+ or 2K+ resolution that translates to 2560 x 1600 pixels and is default to 240Hz refresh rate. Given that it’s an IPS LCD panel, the viewing angles are still good, and it should save on power consumption too.

Color coverage is also commendable, it comes with 100% sRGB, 80% DCI-P3 and 70% Adobe RGB color space. It even supports Dolby Vision for a more immersive viewing experience along with X-Rite’s Color Management Tool pre-installed.

The levels of color gamut that this laptop covers should also be useful for creators who prioritize color accuracy.

Adding to that, I like that the screen comes with an anti-glare coating. And if this info matters, the lid can go almost 180 degrees.

My visual experience has been enjoyable, except the sound stage is not giving enough bass. There are two speakers here on both sides with an audio output that’s decent at best. They are good enough for casual viewing but they’re nowhere near MacBook level of audio quality.

While it gets loud at max volume and can fill up a small room, I can hardly hear the lows. The mids are there, but the highs are certainly more elevated.

I did use my own pair of wired headphones to have a more enjoyable sound stage, thanks to that nifty audio jack.

The 1080p camera is in the usual spot here at the top center of the screen. The lid that houses the camera extends slightly, doubling as a handle for easy opening.

As you would expect in these types of laptops, camera quality is something you’ll shrug off.

Keyboard and Trackpad

Another commendable feature of the Legion Pro 5i is its keyboard. It’s a full size one and the typing experience is satisfying as always for a Lenovo laptop.

It has a 1.5 mm key travel and typing is almost silent and yet tactile and soft enough for me that it wouldn’t tire my fingers that much.

In fact, the whole script for this video was written entirely using this laptop. I did not feel any fatigue to my fingers after a long writing session.

The keyboard is also backlit in RGB giving that gamer aesthetic.

As for the trackpad, it’s size is decent enough that it doesn’t obstruct the palm rest. While Windows trackpad gestures work just as intended, I hoped that they added more gesture shortcuts, say volume or brightness slider, but that just me nitpicking again.

I also liked where the power button is located, dead center on the upper portion of the keyboard. It’s easy to see and it also lights up depending on the power modes you set.

Easily switch between Quiet, Balanced, and Performance modes with just a simple keyboard shortcut: Fn key + Q. That’s definitely a faster way to switch power modes rather than digging into the Lenovo Vantage app.

Performance and Benchmarks

Speaking of performance, the Lenovo Legion Pro 5i does not disappoint.

Like I said earlier, it boasts the top-of-the-line Intel Core i9-14900HX processor with clock speeds up to 5.8 GHz.

Notice the “HX” suffix? Well, this indicates a “highest performance” designation, making it comparable to desktop-grade processors.

With a maximum of 24 cores and 32 threads, this machine effortlessly handles demanding tasks like AAA gaming, streaming, and content creation.

This comes paired with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Laptop GPU with 8GB of GDDR6 memory and a Total Graphics Power (or TGP) rated at up to 140W. With a TGP as high as this, users can expect a smooth triple-A gaming experience at higher resolutions.

For config, it has two sticks of 16GB of DDR5 memory (that makes it 32GB in total) combined with a generous 1TB of SSD storage. Our unit came with a Samsung SSD pre-installed.

While the laptop comes with discrete GPU, it still has an Intel UHD integrated graphics in which the laptop can use to lessen power consumption. This can be done using the virtual mux switch through the keyboard shortcut Fn + Q that I mentioned earlier.

So, I just left the system in hybrid mode for it to automatically switch to the discrete graphics only when necessary.

I tried editing a motion graphic heavy video using this laptop and it was absolutely smooth. There were no major stutters in media playback of Premiere Pro and 4K export of a six-minute video took no more than eight minutes.

Gaming is a breeze! The Legion Pro 5i achieved more than favorable frame rates in our gameplay testing. In GTA V, it got an average of about 60 fps running in high graphics and a maximum resolution of 2560 by 1600.

It’s even better with less demanding games such as Zenless Zone Zero (ZZZ) where the average frame rate is at 100 fps in very high graphics settings.

Competitive titles like Valorant and Tekken 8 also ran with no issues on this machine. Averaging at an impressive 300 and 60 frames per second, respectively in their highest graphics settings running on the display panel’s native resolution.

In addition, the laptop also utilizes the LA1 AI chip that further boosts the frame rates in playing games. Its so-called Lenovo AI Engine+ optimizes gameplay in real time pushing more fps output which should be really useful for first person shooter games like Valorant.

Take note that the laptop is set to Performance mode throughout our testing, and this mode can only be activated when the laptop is plugged into the charging.

Fan noise gets riled up but it’s bearable, considering I’m using headphones throughout my gameplay. However, say you happen to be at a cafe and doing some heavy tasks on the laptop, people would definitely notice. So, keep that in mind.

Temperatures also get warmer but not hot enough to throttle performance. However, when I tried to play in Balanced mode and unplugged, I saw some noticeable stutters in both GTA V and ZZZ.

This doesn’t happen in Performance mode, so it’s better to tune down the graphic settings if trying to play games when the laptop is unplugged. For the most part though, you may have to keep it plugged and charging, and you’ll see why later in this article.

As always, here are the benchmark scores that we got in both Balanced and Performance modes:

Lenovo Legion Pro 5i (Gen 9)
CPU: 14th Gen Intel Core i9-14900HX
dGPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 (Mobile)

For actual benchmark screenshots, check them out here.

Battery Life and Charging

Now on the subject of battery life, the laptop gets a decent ~2 hours and 12 minutes of screen time in my testing. The laptop packs an 80Wh of battery capacity, mind you, and Lenovo advertises it to have up to eight hours of battery life.

It was initially set to Balanced mode from 100% and then I switched to Quiet mode when it dropped to less than 50%. That’s just using it with a simple workload like working on a document with music playback in the background while connected to Wi-Fi, and it’s down to 10% already in two hours.

As you would also expect, standby time is also not that great just like most Windows laptops out there. (Except the new Snapdragon- and Intel Core Ultra 200V-powered ones, I guess?)

When I closed the lid and left the laptop in my bag for nearly two hours, the battery dropped from 100% to 49%.

The laptop compromises though with a crazy fast charging of 300W that’s able to fully charge the laptop in just about an hour. And if you leave it charging without any tasks running in the background, it could charge the laptop even faster at about 30 minutes.

OS, Software

On the software side of things, the laptop runs on Windows 11 Home. It’s kind of a bummer that it’s not the Pro version but there’s no major advantage to be honest.

Bloatware on Windows systems are much more bearable now. Gone are the days where it ships with a bunch of unnecessary apps like Candy Crush on the Start screen.

As for Lenovo, they only added two programs of their own. The first one is the Lenovo Vantage where you can primarily set different power modes, color profiles, and performance monitoring among others. Then, there’s the Lenovo Arena that collates all your games from different store fronts in one place.

My one gripe is probably when opening and closing the lid while the laptop is still running. As I open it again, there is about five second delay before the screen pops back in.

Apparently, this only happens in Hybrid Mode. When I tried to set it to dGPU only (via the Lenovo Vantage app), the issue doesn’t occur at all.

I hope this is only an isolated issue, but it would be much better if it can be fixed with a future optimization update.

Price

Now let’s move over to price. The 2024 Lenovo Legion Pro 5i (Gen 9, 16”) sets you back PHP 133,995USD 2,283INR 193,569EUR 2,175CNY 16,629.

To recap, our unit is configured with Intel Core i9-14900HX paired with NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Laptop GPU; 32GB DDR5 RAM and 1TB of SSD storage.

Verdict

While not much has changed in this iteration, this just proves that their design works wonders. Thermal management looks good and build quality is still great — all the while offering more powerful internals.

Portability might not be its strongest suit (which is pretty usual in other gaming laptops as well), the Lenovo Legion Pro 5i is still absolutely useful for gamers and creators out there like me who want a powerful gear that I can still be able to comfortably move around with.

Just make sure you bring a charger with you and you’re good to go!

What we liked:

• Crisp and smooth QHD+ display
• Great build quality
• Comfortable typing experience
• Plenty of I/Os
• Fast 300W charging

What we didn’t like:

• Underwhelming battery life
• Opening the laptop (from standby mode) leaves a five-second delay before the screen pops back in

Lenovo Legion Pro 5i (16IRX9) specs
16-inch WQXGA IPS LCD
2560 x 1600 pixels, 240Hz refresh rate
500 nits peak brightness
14th Gen Intel Core i9-14900HX
7nm, 24 cores and 32 threads, up to 5.8GHz
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Laptop GPU
8GB GDDR6, 2175MHz boost clock
140W TGP
32GB (2x16GB) DDR5 5600MHz RAM
1TB PCIe 4.0 SSD storage
1080p webcam
WiFi 6E (802.11ax)
Bluetooth 5.1
I/Os:
• Rear: DC port, 2x USB 3.2 Gen1 Type-A, HDMI 2.1, 1x USB-C (PowerDelivery)
• Left: 1x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A, 1x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C
• Right: 1x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A, privacy e-shutter switch, 3.5mm combo jack
Lenovo LA1 chip, Lenovo AI+ Engine
Windows 11 Home
80Wh battery
300W charging
0.88″-1.05″ x 14.3″ x 10.25″ (dimensions)
2.5kg/ 5.51lbs (weight)
Onyx Grey (colorway)