I tried Lenovo's new Legion Pro laptop and it's a powerhouse that beats pricier rivals

Price When Reviewed

$3,599

Best Prices Today: Lenovo Legion Pro 7i 16 Gen 10

$3799.95

Lenovo’s Legion laptop computer household has been setting a excessive bar for gaming laptops over the previous couple of years. While the Legion 9 collection could also be high canine in that household, the Legion Pro 7 collection tends to mark a stability of class-leading efficiency, construct high quality, and worth. The Lenovo Legion Pro 7i 16 Gen 10 continues that legacy properly, providing excessive CPU and GPU efficiency all in a strong chassis with a wonderful show. 

With a beginning worth of $2,849 and a bump as much as $3,599 to get the RTX 5080-equipped system examined right here, the Lenovo Legion Pro 7i 16 Gen 10 is solidly within the high-end gaming laptop computer class. But from our first benchmark to the final, it wastes no time cementing itself as probably the greatest gaming laptops you may get proper now. 

Lenovo Legion Pro 7i 16 Gen 10: Specs and options

• Model quantity: ‎82WQ002SUS
• CPU: Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX
• Memory: 32GB DDR5X-6400 CSODIMM
• Graphics/GPU: Nvidia RTX 5080 (175-watt TGP)
• Display: 16-inch 2560×1600 240Hz OLED, Anti-glare
• Storage: 2X 1TB PCIe Gen4 SSD
• Webcam: 5MP
• Connectivity: 1x Thunderbolt 4, 1x USB-C 10Gbps (with DP 2.1 and 140W PD enter), 1x USB-A 10Gbps, 2x USB-A 5Gbps, HDMI 2.1, 2.5GbE, 1x 3.5mm combo audio
• Networking: WiFi 7, Bluetooth 5.4
• Biometrics: n/a
• Battery capability: 99 watt-hours
• Dimensions: 14.35 x 10.9 x 1.05 inches
• Weight: 5.84 kilos
• MSRP: $3,599 as-tested ($2,849 base)

At the time of writing, the Lenovo Legion Pro 7i 16 Gen 10 is out there in only a few largely related configurations. The one examined right here prices $3,599 and is constructed across the RTX 5080. It is the one configuration listed on Lenovo’s web site, however B&H additionally has configurations that swap within the RTX 5070 Ti for $2,849 or the RTX 5090 for $3,999. Lenovo typically begins off a few of its laptop computer fashions with only a few configurations however expands on them afterward, so don’t be shocked if extra choices trickle in afterward. For now, all of those configurations embrace the identical 32GB of DDR5 reminiscence on two CSODIMM sticks, the identical pair of 1TB PCIe 4.0×4 SSDs, the identical OLED show, and the Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX. 

Lenovo Legion Pro 7i 16 Gen 10: Design and construct high quality

IDG / Mark Knapp

The Lenovo Legion Pro 7i 16 Gen 10 is a hulking machine, very similar to its predecessors. It packs loads inside and goals to let it run at excessive wattages, so the scale and weight make sense. Lenovo didn’t push a lot past the required bounds although, with the display screen that includes slender bezels and the rear of the laptop computer protruding simply an inch behind the show hinge to accommodate the beefier cooling required for this sort of utility. Unsurprisingly, the laptop computer finally ends up over an inch thick. 

The Lenovo Legion Pro 7i 16 Gen 10 is blacked out with a matte black aluminum body spanning the keyboard deck, show lid, and underside of the laptop computer. This metallic construct has some minor flex to it however altogether feels fairly sturdy. 

Despite being a gaming laptop computer, the Lenovo Legion Pro 7i 16 Gen 10 affords a tame look. There’s no needlessly aggressive embossing or angularity to many of the chassis. It has per-key RGB keyboard lighting and a skinny gentle bar on the entrance fringe of the deck, however past this lighting (which is simple to show off), the one actual trace to the Lenovo Legion Pro 7i 16 Gen 10’s gaming nature is the fighter-jet-like exhaust on the rear of the system, which homes an enormous radiator that spans your entire rear edge. 

There are three consumption followers tucked behind the underside grille — two giant ones on both facet and a smaller one barely offset from the middle that appears meant for the reminiscence modules. They pull air in from the underside and despatched it out of the aforementioned radiator. 

 While a few of Lenovo’s prior gaming laptops located additional ports alongside the again fringe of the system, the dedication to warmth dissipation within the rear meant Lenovo needed to shift all of its I/O to the facet of the laptop computer. 

Lenovo Legion Pro 7i 16 Gen 10: Keyboard, trackpad

IDG / Mark Knapp

The Lenovo Legion Pro 7i 16 Gen 10 affords a stable keyboard. The keys are evenly contoured, serving to me preserve my fingertips centered on them. They’re additionally very nicely stabilized for a laptop computer keyboard, serving to preserve the stroke even and avoiding rolling off the sting. They’re additionally not mushy and provide 1.6mm journey. Despite these high quality features of the keyboard, the deck is lengthy and might make it a bit uncomfortable to sort on except the ergonomics of the desk/desk are good. I used to be in a position to rise up to 116 phrases per minute with 97 % accuracy in Monkeytype, however this was a hair slower and extra error-prone than I’d prefer to see, and it required eradicating my watch to handle.

The remainder of the keyboard is kind of good as nicely. The backlighting is vivid and completely illuminates the important thing legends. Lenovo contains full-size arrow keys barely offset from the remainder of the keyboard, making them simple to make use of and really feel out — nice for fast navigation. There’s additionally a big quantity pad, and whereas the keys are barely narrower than the remainder of the keyboard, they nonetheless permit for handy contact typing.

The trackpad is a barely sore level within the inputs. It’s a wonderful trackpad, providing clean swiping and a satisfying tactile click on when depressed. But it’s fairly small for a system this huge, and it’s thus far to the left that I discover I’m virtually consistently right-clicking. This will not be a priority for those who’re left-handed, however righties will probably discover it a slight hassle reaching thus far over to make use of the trackpad. 

Lenovo Legion Pro 7i 16 Gen 10: Display, audio

IDG / Mark Knapp

The Lenovo Legion Pro 7i 16 Gen 10 contains a wonderful show. It’s splendidly sharp due to its 2560×1600 panel, and players will get loads out of its 240Hz refresh charge. Better nonetheless, it’s an OLED panel that successfully eliminates ghosting, which may be fairly a bit worse on laptop computer IPS shows than desktop ones in my expertise. That combines with infinite distinction, a daring peak brightness of 509.8 nits, 100 % protection of the DCI-P3 coloration house, and coloration accuracy with a most dE of 1.47 — ok for skilled makes use of. 

Lenovo says the show is anti-glare, and whereas it’s definitely no mirror, it’s not matte both. I can clearly see my reflection in it after I’m in vivid environments. It can get vivid sufficient to assist subdue some reflections, however that may draw extra energy and nonetheless depart reflections seen in darker areas of the display screen. 

The Lenovo Legion Pro 7i 16 Gen 10 boasts a set of 4 audio system. Two are located above the keyboard on an elevated shelf by the show hinge, and two are on the underside of the laptop computer. These pump out a ton of quantity with crisp mids and a pleasant little bit of bass. If you’re attempting to sport or watch motion pictures on the laptop computer, you gained’t instantly be operating for headphones or exterior audio system right here. They’re fairly glorious for laptop computer audio system.

Lenovo Legion Pro 7i 16 Gen 10: Webcam, microphone, biometrics

You’ll get a great-looking webcam on the Lenovo Legion Pro 7i 16 Gen 10. It affords 5MP decision stills and might report at 1440p/30FPS. Even with out good lighting, it’s surprisingly low on noise, and it does a powerful job exposing the image with out blowing out highlights. Its extensive discipline of view may even assist if you wish to report your self and a pal side-by-side. It comes paired with a stable microphone system as nicely. Even in a big room, my voice sounded clear and full to the mics, avoiding room echo. 

Unfortunately, you gained’t get any handy biometric login capabilities on the Lenovo Legion Pro 7i 16 Gen 10. There’s no fingerprint reader or facial recognition. 

Lenovo Legion Pro 7i 16 Gen 10: Connectivity

IDG / Mark Knapp

The Lenovo Legion Pro 7i 16 Gen 10 has respectable wired connectivity for a laptop computer of its dimension. It has USB-A ports on both facet, a 3.5mm jack and a pair of.5GbE port on the fitting facet, and two USB-C ports and an HDMI 2.1 port on the left facet. Only a type of USB-C ports is Thunderbolt 4, however the different not less than helps DisplayPort 2.1 and 140W PD enter. That USB PD enter really lets the Lenovo Legion Pro 7i 16 Gen 10 recharge over USB-C when it’s set in Hybrid Mode (the GPU would drain an excessive amount of energy in any other case), offering some bonus flexibility for those who don’t wish to carry the 400W charger in every single place you go. An SD card reader would have been addition given the system’s productiveness and inventive utility chops. 

Wireless connectivity is a powerful level, with the system supporting Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4. In testing, it had no points on the wi-fi entrance and provided loads of bandwidth when downloading video games on my Wi-Fi 6 community. 

Lenovo Legion Pro 7i 16 Gen 10: Performance

The Lenovo Legion Pro 7i 16 Gen 10 is equipped for main efficiency, and it’s no shock to see it zoom by our benchmarks with aplomb. It’s one of many first few gaming laptops powered by an RTX 50-series GPU that we’ve examined, so it presents alternative to not solely see the potential of the chips in cellular platforms but additionally see what enhancements have come over the prior era, if any. 

Lenovo tends to make well-rounded configurations with its Legion collection, and the Lenovo Legion Pro 7i 16 Gen 10 is not any exception. In the holistic PCMark 10 benchmark, we see robust general efficiency. By combining a quick CPU, GPU, reminiscence, and storage, it performs impressively in each take a look at that PCMark 10 throws at it, main the pack right here. That mentioned, it’s solely a minor uptick over the sooner Legion 9i Gen 9. Impressively, it beat the MSI Raider 18 HX A2XW — an even bigger, heavier laptop computer that must have benefitted from additional cooling to run sooner however confirmed a specific weak spot in workplace productiveness duties.

The Lenovo Legion Pro 7i 16 Gen 10 will get a high-end CPU, so it’s no shock to see it ripping away at encoding duties. It pulls off our 4K video encode in just below seven minutes — a powerful tempo that pulls forward of even the Core i9-14900HX in a few of its opponents. It didn’t fairly sustain with the MSI Raider 18 HX’s Core Ultra 9 285HX, which has the identical core configuration however advantages from barely sooner clock speeds. That mentioned, Lenovo didn’t let the MSI’s high-end CPU at all times take the lead.

In Cinebench R20 and R23, it really led the MSI Raider 18 HX in single- and multi-core efficiency, although MSI takes again the efficiency lead in Cinebench R24, which may profit from additional cooling due to its longer run time. While the Lenovo Legion Pro 7i 16 Gen 10 and MSI commerce blows with slender margins, providing excessive CPU efficiency, they merely blow the remainder of the pack out of the water right here with double-digit efficiency benefits. 

The Lenovo Legion Pro 7i 16 Gen 10’s CPU is matched nicely with its GPU. In 3DMark’s artificial gaming benchmark Port Royal, the Lenovo Legion Pro 7i 16 Gen 10 affords the quickest efficiency we’ve seen from a laptop computer. It not solely clears the MSI Raider 18 HX with its personal RTX 5080 but additionally beats the RTX 4090 within the Legion 9i and Gigabyte Aorus 17X. 

While artificial benchmarks are a helpful information for gaming efficiency, it at all times helps to see precise video games run on a GPU, so we put every gaming laptop computer by a battery of demanding sport benchmarks. Unsurprisingly, the Lenovo Legion Pro 7i 16 Gen 10 retains up its lead. Despite its age, Metro Exodus stays a demanding sport at its Extreme graphics setting due to its heavy use of ray-traced results. Still, the Lenovo Legion Pro 7i 16 Gen 10 is ready to run it at almost 100 fps on common, main the entire different techniques right here and but once more providing a number of the quickest laptop computer efficiency we’ve seen on this take a look at.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider additionally proves a fairly demanding sport however isn’t fairly as exhausting on the GPU and due to this fact lets the CPU assist push efficiency even additional. Here, the highly effective mixture of the Lenovo Legion Pro 7i 16 Gen 10’s Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX and RTX 5080 achieves a powerful common of 238 frames per second, almost topping our charts.

The Lenovo Legion Pro 7i 16 Gen 10 is even able to operating Cyberpunk 2077 at native 1080p with Ultra settings with out ray tracing or DLSS at 151 fps. That drops to only 41 fps with the totally path-traced RT Overdrive mode, however once more, that’s earlier than tapping into DLSS for any efficiency enhancements. 

The Lenovo Legion Pro 7i 16 Gen 10 will default to the efficiency energy profile when plugged in, serving to make sure you get probably the most out of it. But that’s to not say that is its peak. Lenovo’s Legion Space software program affords customizable efficiency settings that would see it eke out even greater speeds. 

All this efficiency does include some value: the followers kick up when the system goes into excessive gear. It’s not too shrill, but it surely’s pretty loud, and there’s nonetheless a excessive pitched component to it that may put on on you after lengthy. Also, the system depends on an enormous 400W energy brick.

Lenovo Legion Pro 7i 16 Gen 10: Battery life

To assist preserve battery, Lenovo has set the Legion Pro 7i 16 Gen 10 to go from Windows’ Performance mode when plugged in right down to its Balanced mode when it’s operating on battery. Not having to manually make this variation will help make sure you don’t discover out the laptop computer is needlessly churning by battery energy solely after it has wasted chunk of cost. And you’ll wish to preserve as a lot as you may. That mentioned, laptops have been bettering battery life in leaps and bounds, with some Windows machines scratching 24 hours.

While gaming laptops have made enhancements, they’re nonetheless missing on this space. With the show set between 250 and 260 nits and the system on airplane mode, the Lenovo Legion Pro 7i 16 Gen 10 managed a little bit beneath six hours of runtime in our native video playback take a look at. 

Bear in thoughts, video playback can provide some favorable outcomes the place the battery is worried, particularly when an OLED show will get to indicate letterboxes (black pixels don’t use energy, in spite of everything). In precise use, the battery life is shorter. Even with the dGPU disabled and efficiency set to balanced profiles in Windows and Lenovo’s LegionSpace, the system lasts nearer to 3 hours in regular use, searching the net and watching the occasional video. On the intense facet, the 400W charger can juice the Lenovo Legion Pro 7i 16 Gen 10 again up shortly.

Lenovo Legion Pro 7i 16 Gen 10: Conclusion

The Lenovo Legion Pro 7i 16 Gen 10 is an extreme-performance laptop computer. Its mixture of potent CPU and GPU readies it for intense gaming and heavy computing workloads alike. That comes with some additional bulk, weight, and noisy cooling, however the Lenovo Legion Pro 7i 16 Gen 10 continues to be comparatively robust subsequent to competing laptops. Lenovo has match all of that energy into a fantastic body, providing an above-average keyboard, a wonderful show, and a wholesome collection of ports for many makes use of. 

With all its packing, it’s not stunning to see the Lenovo Legion Pro 7i 16 Gen 10 prices a tidy sum. But at $3,499, it’s nonetheless a good worth. It’s cheaper than the prior-generation Legion 9i — a higher-tier system — and but it outperforms that system in most respects. It’s additionally fairly a bit cheaper than the $4,499 MSI Raider 18 HX A2XW, which it squares off towards, buying and selling blows and touchdown fairly just a few victories over. The Lenovo Legion Pro 7i 16 Gen 10 units the stage properly for high-end gaming laptops operating on the most recent GPUs.