Big Gaming Fun in a Thoughtful Package

Lenovo is not the biggest name in gaming laptops and desktops, but its Legion brand has been quietly impressing since 2017. One of its latest laptop models, the Lenovo Legion Slim 7i Gen 8, might just be one of its most impressive gaming machines to date.

The grey all-metal design consisting of anodized, sandblasted aluminum and magnesium, has a subtle sheen and is offset by silver logos and white lettering. It’s a relatively sedate physical design for such a beast of a gaming laptop that wouldn’t look too out of place as one of Lenovo’s popular business laptops.

The Legion Slim 7i is a large, but not bulky, gaming laptop with tons of ports and smart design decisions. Of course, one of the most important factors with a gaming laptop is performance, and in that regard, the Legion Slim 7i doesn’t disappoint.

Design and Hardware: Big, Not Too Bold

• Dimensions: (H) 0.78in (19.9mm) x (W) 14.08in (357.7mm) x (D) 10.21in (259.3mm)
• Weight: 4.4lbs (2kg)
• Processor: 13th Generation Intel Core i9-13900H Processor (E-cores up to 4.10 GHz P-cores up to 5.40 GHz)
• Operating System: Windows 11 Home 64
• Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Laptop GPU 8GB GDDR6
• RAM: 16 GB DDR5-5200MHz (Soldered)
• Storage: 1 TB SSD M.2 2280 PCIe Gen4 TLC
• Power: 230W Slim AC Adapter

The Legion Slim 7i Gen 8 comes alive after power on thanks to its colorful RGB keyboard with per-key lighting. The next thing you’ll notice is the large display with thin bezels that is just stunning to look at. Even in a bright room and at less than 100% brightness, the Legion Slim 7i’s display is incredibly vibrant. It also features a versatile hinge that allows the display to lay completely flat in parallel with the laptop body.

There are indicator lights for each of the rear ports, including when receiving power from the included AC adapter. You can just make out the white LED indicator lights in the gap between the laptop body and the display when opened.

The laptop sports a 13th Gen Intel Core i9-13900H processor running at 2.60 GHz, which is considered a high-end mobile CPU for laptops and was announced in early 2023. Similarly high-end is the discrete graphics card, an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Laptop GPU with 8GB GDDR6 RAM. It’s also a relatively recent release and is considered excellent for getting high performance out of even the most demanding at or near the laptop’s native resolution.

While I would have loved to see what 32 GB of RAM would do on a machine this potent, the included 16 GB RAM is sufficient for most demanding applications. There’s no ability to upgrade the RAM any further.

Since this is a powerful gaming laptop, the 230W AC adapter means business. It’s large and flat, about 6.5in (165.1mm) long, and weighing a hefty 1.7lbs (.77kg). The Legion Slim 7i can use a USB-C power adapter, but a minimum output of 140W is recommended. On the plus side, the laptop can reach 30% battery capacity in 10 minutes and 70% in only 30 minutes through what Lenovo calls Super Rapid Charge technology.

You don’t buy a laptop like this for its battery life, and the Legion Slim 7i offers nothing to change that. The integrated 80Wh max battery life is less than 5 hours for local video playback at reduced screen brightness. If you’re gaming, expect just a few hours of battery life at best, particularly when the NVIDIA graphics card is engaged.

As is true for any powerful gaming system, the fan can really kick in when under load, but it’s never too overbearing. Heat is vented in various places, including through the speaker holes above the keyboard and to the left and right of the power button/fingerprint sensor. Lenovo calls its thermal management system ColdFront 5.0 with Hybrid Thermals, which sports an extra-wide vapor chamber to cover the cooling demands of both the CPU and GPU.

Input and Output: Almost All There

• Keyboard: Per-Key RGB Backlit, Storm Grey with Number Pad – English (US)
• Fingerprint Reader: In combination with the power button
• Wireless: Wi-Fi 6E 2×2 AX, Bluetooth 5.1 or above
• Ports: USB-A 3.2 Gen 2 (always-on 5V2A), USB-A 3.2 Gen 2, USB-A 3.2 Gen 1, HDMI 2.1, Power In, 4-in-1 SD Card Reader, Intel Thunderbolt 4 (USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 + Display Port 1.4 + 140W power delivery), USB-C (USB 3.2 Gen 2 + Display Port 1.4 + 140W power delivery), 3.5mm Audio Combo Jack

Although the well-shaped and -spaced keys on the keyboard have a slight bounce over their 1.5mm travel distance, the overall typing experience and responsiveness are good. The fact that there’s room for a ten-key number pad is great not only for number crunching but also providing additional input options. The cursor keys are similarly well-positioned in their own area just below the right shift key. Overall, the placement of all the keys is well thought out, along with a generous open area to the left and right of the touchpad to act as a wrist rest.

If left at the default settings, the keyboard will cycle through a rotation of its RGB color palette on the keyboard after power-up. It’s an impressive display of color that’s easily the match for the best discrete keyboards with an RGB lighting feature and one that’s also easy to customize in Lenovo Vantage.

The usual keyboard shortcuts, such as play, volume up/down, and brightness, are found primarily along the top row of the keyboard and activated with the FN (function) key. Some of the more useful machine-specific shortcuts are FN + Q, which switches between quiet (lower performance and fan noise), auto, and performance operating modes, FN + R to switch the display’s refresh rate between 60 Hz, 165 Hz, and 240 Hz, and FN + spacebar, which switches the keyboard backlight between six different user-definable presets.

While most gaming is typically performed with an appropriate mouse or gamepad, it’s nice to know that the included touchpad is smooth and responsive when you need it.

Where the Legion Slim 7i Gen 8 really wows is in its robust selection of ports. On the left side is a multi-purpose USB Type-C connector and a 3.5mm combo audio jack. On the right side is an SD card slot and camera (webcam) switch. On the rear is an always-on USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A connector, USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A connector, USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A connector, full-size HDMI connector, and power connector. In short, just about anything you could ever need is there.

The Legion Slim 7i automatically identified the fastest connection and enabled WPA3 security on my eero Pro 6E Wi-Fi 6 network gigabit connection. I consistently averaged 370 Mbps download speeds with 22 ms pings, providing for competitive online gaming. There’s no dedicated Ethernet port, but with the abundance of other ports, using an adapter is a viable option when needed.

The fingerprint sensor on the power button supports Windows Hello’s Fingerprint Recognition, providing a nice alternative to a pin code or password. It’s a good size for a fingerprint reader and I rarely had issues logging in on the first try.

Sights and Sounds: Killer Display, Good Audio

• Display: 16in WQXGA (2560 x 1600), IPS, Anti-Glare, Non-Touch, HDR 400, 100% sRGB, 500 nits, 240Hz, Narrow Bezel, Low Blue Light
• Camera: 1080P FHD with Dual Microphone and E-camera Shutter

Native resolution of the display is 2560 x 1600 (16:10 aspect ratio) at a blistering 240Hz refresh rate. The default scaling in Windows 11 Home is 150%, which makes for easy-to-read text, while still optimizing the roomy 16 inches of screen real estate.

The X-Rite Color Assistant profile lets you set various color profiles like Rec. 709 and sRGB. HDR-capable content is available on the display through the VESA DisplayHDR 400 (1.1) standard. Even regular sRGB content looks amazing on the display, thanks to its 100% color coverage.

Expect a brief system pause when allowing the computer to automatically switch between integrated graphics (Optimus), which allows for better battery life, and the NVIDIA GPU, which is required for gaming and other performance-based visuals, but is a bigger power draw. Alternatively, you can disable automatic switching and choose Optimus or NVIDIA GPU to be set to always on.

Overall sound from the built-in speakers was pretty good, which is not surprising because the laptop sports the “audio by HARMAN” label under the left CTRL key. The default sound profile produces slightly muddy sound above 80% maximum volume levels, but the speaker array does get quite loud even at 50%. Bass from the speakers is weak and flat. Surround sound simulation is surprisingly good with convincing movement. Like most of the other laptop’s features, the included Nahimic audio app lets you personalize the sound to an impressive level.

Of course, most gamers will use a good headset or external speakers. With the plethora of ports, including a 3.5mm audio combo jack and Bluetooth, every possible option is available.

Similarly, the 1080P FHD webcam with dual microphone is a solid performer, but not necessarily as versatile as an external option. The E-camera shutter switch, which allows you to disable the camera for privacy purposes, is located on the right side of the machine, just below the keyboard.

A nice bonus is that the camera supports Tobii Horizon, which is included and enables head tracking in more than 50 games like “Star Citizen” and “Elite Dangerous.” It also offers a few productivity and security features should you choose to use them. This power-hungry feature is only recommended when running the laptop off the AC adapter, which, besides having niche use cases, is one of the main reasons why it’s not active by default.

Software and Benchmarks: Performance-driven

There’s not a lot of pre-loaded software or genuine bloatware in the Windows 11 Home build, other than a McAfee LiveSafe trial, X-Rite Color Assistant, Nahimic app, Tobii Horizon, and two Lenovo-branded programs, Lenovo Vantage and Legion Arena.

Lenovo Vantage lets you personalize various settings, including performance tweaks and overclocking, that may be necessary to get optimal results from the most demanding games. It’s also how you adjust the keyboard’s RGB lights and enable the display’s adaptive refresh rate, which updates the screen to match the number of frames per second a game is producing.

For review and testing purposes, I made sure to keep all of the settings at their out-of-the-box defaults, but it’s important to remember that, like any good gaming PC, you can do a lot of manual performance tweaks. That said, Lenovo Vantage does seem to work well with the built-in Lenovo LA AI chip that powers the Lenovo AI Engine+ to automatically push performance when needed.

Legion Arena is Lenovo’s version of a centralized gaming hub, letting you organize and access your game library, including automatically from digital download services like Epic Games, Steam, Battle.net, Xbox, and Ubisoft.

In PCMark 10 Extended system workload tests, the overall score was 10,153, with 10,690 scored in Essentials, 11,384 scored in Digital Content Creation, and a whopping 22,201 scored in Gaming. Those results are better than 90% of all systems tested, placing the Legion Slim 7i above the capabilities of a high-end desktop gaming PC from 2020 (9,466) and just below a premium desktop gaming PC from 2020 (10,311), as well as nearly double that of a gaming laptop from 2020 (5773).

In 3DMark Advanced Edition, the Time Spy test, which is the DirectX 12 benchmark for gaming PCs, was run. The Legion Slim 7i Gen 8 scored 12,728, which was better than 73% of all results. For comparison, a high-end desktop gaming PC from 2020 scores an 11,085, while a premium desktop gaming from 2020 scores 19,781. A 2020 gaming laptop has less than half the performance with a score of only 5,730.

Although not an exact match for the native 2560 x 1600 resolution, the Time Spy results for various games running at 2560 x 1440p with Ultra settings were still impressive. Battlefield V was estimated to average over 120 fps, Apex Legends over 135 fps, GTA V over 80 fps, Red Dead Redemption 2 over 50 fps, and Fortnite over 65 fps. Outside of a more resource-intensive title like Red Dead Redemption 2, it’s impressive that many top games can easily get over 60 fps without the need to downgrade much, if any, visual fidelity, even at a high resolution.

VRMark Advanced Edition failed to successfully run any of its available tests, but spec-wise, the Lenovo Legion Slim 7i should have no trouble running virtual reality hardware and content in an optimal way. In fact, the many available ports make the laptop one of the better non-desktop VR-ready solutions.

Games: High Settings, Smooth Action

As the various benchmark results indicate, this is a system to be reckoned with, regardless of what you want to do with it. Of course, the Legion Slim 7i handles productivity apps like Microsoft Word and Adobe Photoshop with ease, but what about actual games? Gameplay smoothness and visuals across more than a dozen titles tested from Steam, Epic Games, and Xbox PC Game Pass impressed. Of course, as expected, the laptop’s fan was going full blast most of the time, so you’ll definitely want to make use of headphones with the more demanding titles. Two titles from the testing I’ll use as examples are “Fortnite” and “Death Stranding: Director’s Cut.”

Using the automatic settings, Fortnite was set to the native 2560 x 1600 (16:10) resolution and capped at 60 fps. Of the key variables, TSR was set to High, LUMEN was set to HIGH, Post Processing was set to EPIC, and Hardware Ray Tracing was OFF. Despite no use of ray tracing, the game still looked incredible, with occasionally only a few frames per second dip below 60 fps during gameplay.

The default settings in Death Stranding: Director’s Cut didn’t pick up the native resolution or any of the performance options, so I manually set the resolution to 2560 x 1600 (16:9) and all other options to maximum, including no cap on the frame rate up to 240 fps. I also turned on NVIDIA DLSS and set it to Ultra Performance. It’s a fantastic looking gaming regardless of what you play it on, but it really is next-level stuff on a screen of this quality. The frame rate remained consistent and it was a pleasure to play even with the black bars at the top and bottom of the screen because of the game’s fixed 16:9 aspect ratio versus the laptop’s native 16:10.

Should You Buy the Lenovo Legion Slim 7i Gen 8 Laptop?

At just over 4lbs (2 kg) and 14in (357mm) wide, the Lenovo Legion Slim 7i Gen 8 is hardly a compact machine, but it looks good and is well-balanced. The plethora of ports also negates the need to carry along a docking station and other accessories, saving room in your bag.

Performance is ultimately what matters most in a gaming laptop, and in that regard, the Legion Slim 7i has a particularly thoughtful design. Of course, as with any laptop with a discrete graphics card, even one with such a focus put on purportedly intelligent cooling, fan noise is ever-present when playing most games.

There are definitely things I wish were better with this laptop, such as battery life, keyboard, RAM, video RAM, and storage space, but I feel like that’s nitpicking. You always want more of a good thing, and, even at its regular retail price, this gaming laptop proves to be a very good thing.