Everything You Need but the Kitchen Sink

The Lenovo Legion Pro 7i 16 comes close to getting virtually every little thing you could want or need to have in a gaming laptop, virtually to the point of excess. There could not be a lot of people out there who demand numpad controls on a mobile device. Why? Due to the fact why not? The only issue it is missing is an SD card slot. Realizing just how a lot of items have been shoved into this beast of a laptop, I’m honestly shocked by its absence.

The dream for gaming laptops is, at some point, we’ll come across one particular that comes with the “everything but the kitchen sink” of functions, energy, battery, show, and portability. In a lot of strategies, this most recent version of the strong Legion Pro series comes the closest to that dream. My version of the 9th-gen Legion Pro 7i 16 came with an Intel Core i9-14400HX, a Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 with 12 GB of GDDR6 VRAM, and 32 GB of RAM. It is stuffed with energy. And although it nonetheless does not really feel as a great deal like a brick as I 1st assumed, it is not going to match in my backpack’s laptop holder thanks to that rear shelf behind the screen. It will not overheat even immediately after hours of gaming, but when set to efficiency mode the fans could get started to sound like a Boeing jet deposited but a further turbine subsequent to my window immediately after the company’s most recent botched takeoff.

Normally, the far more energy you place into a laptop, the far more you will get started to see the concessions and compromises, but what’s excellent about the Legion Pro 7i is that none of it ever feels like as well a great deal to bear. It has a excellent keyboard and a good, vibrant LCD screen that can also push 240 Hz refresh prices for all these titles that call for you to maximize framerates to “pro” levels. From the back, it does not appear as well garish, but inside you will nonetheless come across a complete RGB backlit keyboard with a host of entertaining preset or custom lighting effects.

With specs like these, you will Inevitably draw a comparison from the Legion Pro 7i to the Razer Blade 16. The significant momma of all gaming laptops comes with an OLED show that also pushes 240 Hz and goes for $four,000 with the RTX 4080 and just 1 TB of storage. Evaluate that to the Legion Pro 7i’s $three,220 MSRP with two 1 TB SSDs. You may come across some offers that will drop the cost of each machines, but at base, it is nonetheless a very good deal.

At 16 inches, you may also want to appear at the Alienware m16 R2, which is a a great deal far more transportable laptop that nonetheless puts out fair frames at sub-$two,000. You could opt for a significant boy like the 18-inch Alienware or the upcoming Razer Blade 18 for even far more screen genuine estate, but when the Legion Pro 7i functions so damn effectively at 16 inches, I do not personally see a great deal purpose to go significant unless you are committed to maintaining your laptop in the identical spot most of the time. And but, the Legion Pro is just a small as well significant and a bit as well bulky to want to take with you everywhere compared to far more compact gaming laptops.

Nevertheless, the Legion Pro does so effectively in all the vital categories that it is challenging not to propose. It is almost certainly the finest laptop at its cost point, and that is due to the fact Lenovo’s laptop feels so good to use you can ignore any niggling challenge that rears its head.

Lenovo Legion Pro 7i Develop High quality

Keeps Cool and Appears Cool

Seeking at it from the shell, the only issue that provides the Legion Pro 7i away as a gaming laptop is the substantial exhaust ports exposed in panels on the rear and flanks. It has a type of diesel engine appear to it that is not apparent till you get close. That, and the glowing RGB light casting the classic gamer glow among oneself and the laptop may give you away if you are attempting to be low-important.

Nevertheless, it is subdued sufficient that it could pass as a frequent perform laptop in a coffee shop, so extended as you do not overlook to turn off the RGB employing the slightly clunky Lenovo Vantage app that comes pre-installed. I want there had been a shortcut to turn off all the fancy lights like there is for the various thermal modes, but I personally do not care if anybody’s watching me form on my not-subtle-at-all keyboard. The Lenovo Spectrum solutions supply far more lighting modes than I’ve observed on a lot of other gaming laptops. My private favorites are the context-sensitive modes like “Type lighting” or “Audio ripple.”

The keyboard is unquestionably a standout. Lenovo calls this its “TrueStrike” keyboard, but all you genuinely need to have to know is the keys are nonetheless substantial sufficient for my medium-sized mitts in spite of the complete-sized numpad. The keys themselves have a fair bit of heft and 1.5mm of travel, which I discovered completely acceptable for each typing and gaming. The aluminum interior has a extremely little quantity of give to it, but not sufficient that you will come across your heavy palms sinking into the frame. All round, the laptop feels sturdy, even though I didn’t precisely come across the trackpad something to create dwelling about. I’ve encountered a couple of situations of poor palm rejection, but there was nothing at all as terrible as I’ve encountered on the Razer Blade.

It is not heavy, but you will really feel it if you have it pressing against the sides of your backpack. At five.77 pounds, you will not be holding it one particular-handed outstretched, and it will get started to really feel a small thick on your lap. It is quite thin for the scale of the Computer at .86 inches, but the shelf adds some further length and at ten.32 inches I discovered it quite challenging to pack. It is all doable, but once more the Legion will generally remind you of the compromises for carrying about a gaming laptop versus a perform Computer.

For the duration of gameplay, when I have the fans going at complete blast, I under no circumstances felt the Legion Pro becoming unmanageable. The keyboard itself only ever registered about 98 degrees Fahrenheit about the WASD keys. The fan vents on the sides closest to the screen registered among 115 and 125 in some areas, but other than creating your desk a bit toasty it under no circumstances impacted efficiency. All in all, the Legion was regularly the ol’ dependable I could rely on what ever the circumstance.

Lenovo Legion Pro 7i Efficiency and Battery Life

Handles Something You Can Throw At it, but It Will not Final Extended Unplugged

In my time with the Legion Pro, I under no circumstances discovered there was a moment I couldn’t play the games I wanted on a minimum of higher settings far beyond 60 FPS. Of course, that is anticipated with an RTX 4080 in tow, but the HX-series Intel CPU is no slouch either.

Geekbench and Cinebench scores had been about what I anticipated, meeting about 2800 in single-core and 16860 in multicore settings on Geekbench six. On Cinebench it is a comparable story, and it is clear that the Core i9-14400HX is also completely capable of rendering tasks. On our Geekbench test, exactly where we time the pc as it renders a single image of a BMW, the Legion managed to finish in about 1 minute and 40 seconds, just slightly slower than a MacBook Pro 16 with an M3 Max chip.

With the specs, there are extremely couple of games out there these days that will give you any difficulty. A title like Horizon Zero Dawn would simply hit more than one hundred FPS on the highest settings. Benchmarks in Cyberpunk 2077 pushed close to one hundred FPS on the highest settings, and it could hit just above 50 when I turned on all the extraneous ray tracing solutions. I played some other titles like Suicide Squad Kill the Justice League and Warhammer 40K: Darktide and discovered no difficulties pushing my framerates effectively above 90 in each titles even when pushing most of the settings to their limits.

You will not need to have all the Legion’s capabilities at all occasions, even for some pick games. Lenovo Vantage also comes with the alternative to enter GPU Functioning Mode, which enables the Computer to switch among the integrated GPU on the i9 or the RTX 4000 graphics card. You really should almost certainly have it on if you are attempting to get a bit far more out of your rather minimal battery life.

There’s a purpose beyond this laptop’s size and weight why it almost certainly will not turn out to be your on-the-go everyday driver. For the duration of frequent use, I’ve discovered it would final barely 4 hours ahead of going into low-energy mode and begging for a charge. I could squeeze out some far more juice on reduce energy settings although turning off a couple of unnecessary functions and lowering brightness, but off-cable I discovered I couldn’t even get to lunchtime devoid of getting an outlet nearby. At the extremely least, the 330W brick that comes with the laptop gives quick charging, and I could get it back to just below one hundred% in about 40 minutes. That is employing the proprietary port on the back of the Legion. It does help USB-C charging up to 135W but do not count on the identical charging time on the smaller sized cable.

Lenovo Legion Pro 7i Show

An Ultra-Speedy Screen That is Lots Vibrant, However it Feels a Bit As well Mundane

The Legion Pro’s IPS LCD 16-inch show capps out at 2560×1600 resolution, which is fair for its size but I wouldn’t contact it the prettiest screen I’ve had the pleasure of viewing on a gaming Computer. Fortunately, it is nonetheless extremely vibrant. Lenovo declares its screen’s peak brightness is 500 nits, but I recorded it at a complete screen of 520 nits. That is quite fair, and it does not appear terrible by any stretch considering the fact that it supports Dolby Vision along with a couple of added functions like G-Sync.

The principal promoting point is nonetheless the 240 Hz monitor if you can reduce the settings to attain that refresh price in the 1st spot. Would I choose a slightly far better-searching show with a reduce refresh price? Almost certainly, but I also envision an OLED show would bump up expenses by quite a few hundred dollars, so I’ll take what I can get. You can also fold out the screen a complete 90 degrees if that genuinely matters to you.

The bezels are not as little as feasible, but they’re relatively very good for this size of laptop. The webcam up best is an FHD camera at 1080p. It is fair sufficient, even though it is nonetheless grainy below my office’s fluorescent lights. The camera does come with a physical button to turn it off on the side, but no distinct shutter on the camera itself. Maybe that is due to how it is positioned as a notch that also acts as your signifies for cracking open the laptop.

There’s So Significantly to Like About the Legion Pro 7i

Although reviewing the Legion Pro 7i, I discovered myself so comfy so generally that I began actively attempting to appear for challenges. But there’s genuinely not a great deal to complain about. The 2024 edition of the Legion Pro feels damn very good, and there are so a lot of goodies packed inside you really feel like you can deal with something they throw at you.

But once more, all gaming laptops are a compromise to some degree, the Legion Pro 7i just manages to mask these challenges far better than most other mobile devices on the market place. It nonetheless does not have very good battery life, and the show is vibrant but a small as well mundane even with 240 Hz refresh prices. And then there are a couple of functions that may really feel a bit unnecessary, like the numpad. But I know there’s somebody out there searching for a complete-keyboard laptop with the sort of energy the Legion 7i is packing below the hood. If you are searching for Razer Blade-level efficiency devoid of the premium you spend for a Razer item, the Legion Pro 7i is a excellent compromise. Hell, if you just need to have the finest all-about laptop you can get that is also not a Mac, you will not do a great deal far better than Lenovo’s 16-inch beast.

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