Lenovo Legion Pro 5i Review: A Gaming Powerhouse Lies Dormant Under the Subtle Exterior

Lenovo's mid-range Legion series consistently delivers some of the best performance for the price in the mid-range. The latest iteration to the series is the Legion Pro 5i (Gen 9), which sticks to tradition but upgrades to the all-powerful 14th Gen Intel processor.

Our model of the Lenovo Legion Pro 5i arrived with the Intel Core i7-14650HX and Nvidia GeForce 4060 laptop GPU. On paper, the Legion Pro 5i is quite the beast, but let's find out if it is worth the asking price of Rs 1,56,990.

PROS

• Excellent Sustained Performance
• Good Display for Gaming & Entertainment
• Solid Selection of Ports
• Comfortable Keyboard
• Reliable Webcam Video Quality

CONS

• Plastic Build
• Sub-par Battery Life
• On the Expensive Side

Design and Build

In terms of the design, Lenovo ditches the gamer aesthetics opting for a more subtle look for the Legion Pro 5i. But despite the lack of fancy exterior RGB lighting, the Legion Pro 5i still looks like a full-fledged gaming laptop thanks to its thick and hefty form factor. It comes in at nearly 25mm thick and weighs a little under 2.5kg.

However, the advantage to this heft is more room for cooling, ensuring better sustained performance. On the flip side, it isn't well suited for use on-the-go as I found out on a short trip from Mumbai to Delhi. I found the Legion Pro 5i inconvenient for work, be it at the airport or on the flight.

But no surprise there as most gaming laptops aren't designed with productivity in mind and the Legion Pro 5i is no exception. For its build, the Legion Pro 5i uses an aluminum lid with the Legion Logo and a plastic chassis. The overall build quality does feel sturdy, while the use of plastic does bring the weight of the machine down.

Connectivity

Moving on to the ports, which are mostly located on the back of the laptop, although there's are a couple of ports on the sides. On the back, the Legion Pro 5i features an Ethernet port, two USB Type-A ports, a USB Type-C port, and a charging port.

Additionally, there's another USB Type-A port and audio jack on the right as well as a USB Type-A port and USB Type-C port with DisplayPort 1.4 support on the left. The Legion Pro 5i has one of the strongest assortments of I/O of any gaming laptop in the segment.

Wireless connectivity options on the Legion Pro 5i include Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.1. Moreover, the laptop also features a 1080p webcam with dual microphones and a privacy shutter. The webcam is perfect for video calls, regardless of the lighting situation and I found it surprisingly good for a gaming laptop.

Keyword & Trackpad

The Lenovo Legion 5 Pro features a full-size backlit keyboard with a Number Pad and Lenovo's TrueStrike technology, offering a 1.5mm key travel distance for a satisfying tactile feel during gaming and typing. There's no keyboard flex, although the keys can feel cramped, leading to occasional typing errors. The keyboard has 4-Zone RGB backlighting that is customizable in the software.

The Precision touchpad is large with a matte finish, allowing fingers to glide smoothly and accurately register gestures. Sliding your palm across the touchpad doesn't move the cursor, which is convenient. The touchpad can be disabled with the FN + F10 command. Although I primarily used a mouse, the touchpad was comfortable and convenient when needed.

Display

One of the standout features of the Legion 5 Pro is its impressive display. The laptop boasts a 16-inch WQXGA (2560 x 1600 pixels) IPS display with a 16:10 aspect ratio, a 240Hz refresh rate, and a 3ms response time. It supports Dolby Vision and VESA DisplayHDR 400, with peak brightness reaching 500 nits and an anti-glare finish for comfortable outdoor use.

The screen offers excellent viewing angles and 100% sRGB coverage, enhanced by X-Rite Pantone color calibration, making it ideal for content creation. Additionally, the panel supports Nvidia G-Sync and AMD FreeSync to reduce screen tearing, ensuring an optimal gaming experience. Overall, the Legion 5 Pro's display excels in both gaming and professional use, making it one of the best in its class.

Performance

For performance, the Legion Pro 5i uses an Intel Core i7-14650HX processor paired with 16GB of DDR5 RAM and 1TB M.2 2280 PCIe Gen4 SSD. The Legion Pro 5i is equipped with a Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 laptop GPU with 8GB of GDDR6 VRAM. But how do these specs translate to real-world usage? Let's find out!

Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 managed an average frame rate of little over 100 with ray tracing set to medium and around 135 to 140fps without ray tracing. Black Ops 2 was tested on high settings. In Valorant, Legion Pro 5i averaged 350fps on the recommended settings. We also tested a few single player titles including Lords of the Fallen and Rise of the Tomb Raider on High settings, both of which averaged between 100 to 110 fps.

Moving on to the benchmarking results starting with Geekbench 6, where the Legion Pro 5i managed a single-core score of 2601 points and a multi-core score of 13,504 points. In the Cinebench R23 10-minute stress test, the Legion Pro 5i managed a single-core score of 1848 points and a multi-core score of 21,344 points. In 3Dmark Time Spy, the Legion Pro 5i recorded an overall score of 11,701 points.

Throughout our testing, the Legion Pro 5i stayed relatively cool under pressure thanks to Lenovo's AI-boosted Legion ColdFront 5.0 technology. During our testing, the Legion Pro 5i rarely crossed 90°C, ensuring rare instances of throttling. Overall, the Legion Pro 5i pushes its specifications to the max and is easily one of the best-performing laptops in the segment.

Battery

Despite the sizeable 80Wh Li-Polymer battery on the Legion Pro 5i, I found battery life to be abysmal. I got around three hours of battery life in the battery saver mode. My usage involved multitasking with six tabs opened on Chrome, including YouTube, and MS Word running simultaneously.

You can enable Optimus mode using the Lenovo Vantage software, allowing you to switch to the integrated GPU for extended battery life. Additionally, Nvidia Battery Boost helps preserve battery life. However, despite these tweaks, expect four to four and a half hours of battery at best.

Unfortunately, the Legion Pro 5i uses a heavy duty 230W power adapter that is by no means light. However, if you are using the laptop on-the-go, primarily for work, you can make do a smaller USB Type-C power adapter. While battery life isn't a strong suite of gaming laptops, the Legion Pro 5i is underwhelming even by those low standards.

Audio

The Legion 5 Pro is equipped with dual 2W downward-firing stereo speakers that can get quite loud. I would recommend using external audio devices for gaming or watching content but if you are in a jam, then the speakers here will get the job done. This is largely due to the Nahimic Audio app, which provides customizable audio options through an equalizer and various presets tailored for different activities.

Verdict

The Lenovo Legion Pro 5i packs a serious punch. The powerful hardware coupled with optimal cooling combine to deliver the best performance in the segment. Moreover, the high-res display offers the perfect balance between gaming and entertainment. The Legion Pro 5i also boasts a comfortable keyboard for gaming and typing, while the selection of ports is second to none.

Both the speakers and webcam are above average on the Legion Pro 5i. There are a few caveats here, like the abysmal battery life and the display isn't the best in its class. Then there's the plastic build, which is becoming common place in the segment.

Unfortunately, the Legion Pro 5i is more expensive than similar specced competitors, although not many of those more affordable competitors can take full advantage of their powerful specifications. However, these are just minor annoyances and don't take away from how good of a laptop the Legion Pro 5i is, earning it an easy recommendation.