Key Takeaways
- The Lenovo Legion Pro 5i 16 Gen 9 is a powerful, compact, and lightweight gaming laptop.
- It features exceptional battery life, a stunning 240Hz display, and plenty of I/O ports.
- Unfortunately, the laptop lacks Thunderbolt 4 or USB4, hindering the desktop replacement potential.
Lenovo’s Legion Pro line of gaming laptops aims to have it all, and the 5i 16 Gen 9almost does. It’s compact, powerful, and relatively lightweight. In fact, it even has decent battery life! However, the I/O is the one place this premium gaming laptop lacks, and it could be what holds it back from being my perfect on-the-go computer.
Lenovo Legion Pro 5i 16 Gen 9
The Lenovo Legion Pro 5i 16 Gen 9 delivers just about everything you could want in a gaming laptop. Packing the latest i9-14900HX processor and RTX 4070 graphics card, you’ll also find at least 1TB of SSD storage and 32GB of DDR5 RAM here, flanked by a 2560×1600 240Hz display. With six USB ports, HDMI 2.1, and Gigabit Ethernet, it also has plenty of I/O, only missing USB4 or Thunderbolt 4 in its lineup.
- Plenty of power for everyday tasks as well as gaming
- Beautiful 240Hz display
- Great battery life for a laptop
- HDMI 2.1 output for 8K60/4K144 gaming on an external display
Price and Availability
The Lenovo Legion Pro 5i 16 Gen 9 gaming laptop can be picked up at Best Buy for $1,829.99 with 1TB of SSD storage or $1,899.99 for those who need 2TB of storage.
On-The-Go Gaming Powerhouse
The Lenovo Legion Pro 5i 16 Gen 9 (I’ll call it the Legion Pro 5i for the rest of this review because the full name is a mouth full) is a pretty powerful laptop, all things considered. The top-tier i9-14900HX processor features 24 cores and 32 threads with a peak frequency of 5.8GHz, and the 32GB of DDR5 RAM comes clocked at 5600MHz. This basically is top-of-the-line specs paired with an RTX 4070.
At first glance, I wondered if the 4070 would hold the laptop back. However, after spending several weeks with the Legion Pro 5i, I can say that it does not.
I can’t think of a single task that I threw at this laptop that it didn’t excel in. 3D modeling/printing? Handled perfectly. Photo editing/graphics design? Not a single hiccup. Gaming? It played Call of Duty, Minecraft, and several other games at max settings without breaking a sweat, all while pushing, on average, 100FPS or more. I even used it to run all the CAD software I use for my small business without it stuttering once.
I honestly wasn’t let down by the RTX 4070, even though I initially expected to be. You see, my main Windows laptop is a Ryzen 9/RTX 4090, so it’s pretty beastly. And, really, in real-world use, I saw very little difference here. The Legion Pro 5i stood up to every test I put it through and passed with flying colors.
With the Legion Pro 5i, I didn’t want to put it through a ton of synthetic benchmarks. Those numbers can be nice, but at the end of the day, they don’t tell the real-world story of a laptop. Sure, the RTX 4070 might not bench quite as high as other graphics cards in other more powerful laptops. But, at the end of the day, I found that there was more than enough power in the Legion Pro 5i to handle everything I wanted to throw at it and then some.
Missing One Important Port
The Legion Pro 5i has quite the selection of ports. You’ll find Gigabit Ethernet on the back, an HDMI 2.1 output for 8K60/4K144 gaming on external monitors, and even a total of six USB ports across the USB-A and USB-C hookups. However, I feel like for a nearly $2,000 computer, Lenovo easily could have included Thunderbolt 4 or USB4, and let me tell you why this is a pretty big deal breaker, at least for me.
For years, I’ve used a single computer setup in my office. My MacBook Pro has run everything for me, and I’ve always loved it. With my recent transition out of full-time journalism and into running my small business, I’ve switched to Windows as my primary operating system, which means I run my desktop primarily now. It’s plenty powerful but not portable at all.
With the Legion Pro 5i, I could easily replace my desktop with this laptop, thanks to how powerful it is. However, without the inclusion of USB4 or Thunderbolt 4, it simply isn’t the best option to do that. There’s more than enough power here to use the laptop like a desktop, but to convert it into one would take several cables between display, USB, Ethernet, and power.
Had Lenovo gone one step further with the design and included even a single USB4 port, that could have all been condensed down into a single cable. Even if secondary power was required to run the laptop, since it has a 300W wall adapter, I would have been okay with that.
But, at nearly $2,000, Lenovo is charging a premium for this computer. A computer that has enough power to be people’s primary gaming desktop. And they decided not to include USB4 for whatever reason. I’ll never know why they didn’t, but this is the one thing that holds the Legion Pro 5i back from being my recommendation for a full-on gaming setup replacement.
Excels as a Gaming Laptop
While the Legion Pro 5i might not be the desktop replacement I hoped it would be, it’s a fantastic gaming laptop. The battery life is actually pretty spectacular. I could go a week or two with it asleep in my bag and pick it up to find 80-90% battery remaining. Then, I could proceed to get three to four hours of normal web browsing/emailing usage out of it before having to find a charger.
It even has great battery life for gamers, where it would easily last me one to two hours or longer on a charge when playing Minecraft away from a plug.
The screen is also gorgeous, clocking in at 2560×1600 with a 240Hz refresh rate. The display was impressive for a laptop, and was easy to use for both graphic design and gaming. While it hits 300 nits of brightness, which was fine for most things, I wish it got a little brighter for some scenarios when I was out in the sunlight or in a room with more glare. That’s a nitpicky thing, though, as it’s rare to find a gaming laptop that pushes higher than 300–400 nits.
Should You Buy the Lenovo Legion Pro 5i 16 Gen 9?
The Lenovo Legion Pro 5i 16 Gen 9 is a beast of a laptop. At $1,830, it’s definitely in a higher price class. However, the performance holds up in every area I could think of to test it in.
The one downside, however, is that the laptop has no Thunderbolt 4/USB4 ports. While it has six USB ports, Ethernet, and HDMI 2.1, the lack of a 40Gbps port means it’ll be relatively hard to hook this laptop into your desk with a single-cable solution. Compared to the Lenovo Legion 7i 16 Gen 9 that I reviewed earlier this year, which has Thunderbolt 4 and 140W charging over USB-C, and it costs just $170 more than the Pro 5i, this laptop is a little harder to recommend.
Overall, it is quite comparable to the 7i 16 Gen 9 outside of that single port. It has the same processor, storage, graphics card, and even a similar screen. This also begs the question, do you need Thunderbolt 4? Personally, for a nearly $2,000 laptop, I do. However, if you don’t, then save $170 and skip the Legion 7i 16 Gen 9 and just pick up the Legion Pro 5i 16 Gen 9.
Lenovo Legion Pro 5i 16 Gen 9
The Lenovo Legion Pro 5i 16 Gen 9 delivers just about everything you could want in a gaming laptop. Packing the latest i9-14900HX processor and RTX 4070 graphics card, you’ll also find at least 1TB of SSD storage and 32GB of DDR5 RAM here, flanked by a 2560×1600 240Hz display. With six USB ports, HDMI 2.1, and Gigabit Ethernet, it also has plenty of I/O, only missing USB4 or Thunderbolt 4 in its lineup.
