The Lenovo Legion Pro 7i is a feast for the eyes with its bright and smooth display. This gaming laptop is polished, powerful, and versatile enough for both work and play. The design, while unchanged from last year's, can be understated or eye-catching, depending on whether you enable the RGB LEDs. Overall, this is a top gaming notebook with almost no downsides — maybe except for the pricing.
Quick specs
- 16-inch 2,560 x 1,600-pixel display (60Hz, 120Hz, 240Hz)
- Intel Core i9-13900HX chip with Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 Laptop graphics
- 4x USB Type-A, 2x Thunderbolt 4, HDMI 2.1, Ethernet port, combo audio jack
- 99.9 watt-hour battery
The Legion Pro 7i has an excellent 16-inch screen that's great for gaming, entertainment, and even work. For starters, it's very bright, going up to 500 nits, and supports Dolby Vision. Its matte finish keeps reflections to a minimum, while the crisp 2,560 x 1,600 pixel resolution, and 16:10 aspect ratio are ideal for working on documents. The refresh rate goes up to 240Hz — you can manually choose between 60Hz, 120Hz, and 240Hz. There's even a convenient shortcut (Fn + R) to switch between 60Hz for normal use, and 240Hz for gaming. Alternatively, the laptop's Windows 11 display setting also lets you choose a dynamic refresh rate (120Hz or 240Hz). And like many Lenovo laptops, you can open the lid to lie flat at almost 180 degrees. In fact, the only upgrade I can think of is to change this IPS panel to an OLED one.
The notebook is fairly heavy (around 2.8kg), even if it doesn't look that chunky. Most of the ports are located at the back, with only a couple at the sides. The laptop has a generous total of six USB ports (two USB-C and four USB-A). Keyboard has good travel, and the per-key RGB lighting gets very bright. And just because it's a gaming PC, there's a RGB LED strip at the front of the laptop, but you can disable it. Minor grouse: No fingerprint sensor or facial recognition. You do get a bunch of webcam-powered eye-tracking features from Tobii that cover privacy, power-saving, and even digital wellbeing. But the Tobii gaming features e.g. aiming with your eyes seem gimmicky, and unreliable to me. Also, the version on the Legion Pro 7i only supports around 60 games, of which Far Cry 6 is probably the most well-known.
With its 13th-gen Intel Core i9 chip, and Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 graphics, the Legion Pro 7i is right up there with the best gaming laptops now. It produced 117fps in Watch Dogs: Legion at 1080p and Ultra setting. That's higher than my Core i7-powered Aftershock Nova 16X (109fps) review set (note that the retail Nova 16X has a Core i9). The Legion Pro 7i also managed 108fps in Metro Exodus using the RTX profile at 1080p, which is similar to the Nova 16X. But more importantly, Lenovo's cooling system is great. The Legion Pro 7i passed the 3DMark Time Spy Extreme stress test with barely any throttling. Peak temperatures for the graphics chip were typical at around 86 degrees Celsius. Fan noise is a given while running games, but the laptop's speakers help to mitigate it somewhat.
At almost S$5,000, the Lenovo Legion Pro 7i isn't cheap. It's reasonable enough for a high-end gaming laptop, though it costs more than the Aftershock Nova 16X. Besides its top-notch performance — aided by an excellent cooling system — the Legion Pro 7i also stands out with its display, and connectivity options. The build quality is solid, too. The Tobii head tracking features are nice to have, but not that useful from a gaming perspective. I think the biggest miss is the lack of a biometric security feature, but that's hardly a deal-breaker. Get the Legion Pro 7i now from Lazada, and Shopee.
Note: Review unit provided by Lenovo.
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