Lenovo Legion 5i Pro Review: Powerful Gaming in an Uninspired Design

Objectively, the Legion 5i Pro from Lenovo is as powerful as you can want from a gaming laptop. It not only performed well in a lot of our testing, but it often led the pack. However, this is a premium gaming laptop, and I wanted something more in some quality-of-life areas, like the webcam and trackpad. 

One thing to note; our model came with a 512GB SSD, but that configuration isn’t available on the Lenovo website right now. Instead, a nearly identical build with a big 2TB M.2 solid-state drive is on sale for a pretty decent $1,759 (although it was listed at a $2,469 “official price.”)

When it comes to performance, there is very little to quibble about with the Legion 5i Pro. In benchmarks, the Legion rates highly on just about every metric. The battery life is on the low end for video streaming, but the screen is bright and responsive, so I can stand the tradeoff of less battery for better quality. Especially as gaming laptops spend most of their time plugged in. 

Obviously, when playing games on battery power, you’re going to get much lower battery life. Gaming got me around 1 hour, 20 minutes, versus about 4 hours for simple video streaming. In the latter case, you’re only using the integrated graphics, not the more power-hungry discrete Nvidia GPU. 

The Legion’s battery will quick-charge from zero to 80% in 30 minutes, Lenovo claims, and I found that to be pretty accurate. Over multiple charging attempts, it took an average of about 40 minutes to get to 80%. I would still keep it plugged in as much as possible, but having that quick charge is helpful in a pinch.

Unlike a lot of newer non-gaming laptops, the Legion has plenty of ports. There are enough outputs to make this laptop your main workhorse at your desk. I especially appreciate the three USB-C ports as well as the Ethernet port. It’s also got Wi-Fi 6E. But you’ll have to look elsewhere for an SD card slot if that’s important to you. 

Keyboard and touchpad

I tried the Legion as my work computer — in fact, I’m writing this review on it — and with a keyboard, mouse and monitor attached it is indistinguishable from my main desktop PC. It takes up far less room, too. I especially enjoyed my time with the Legion when connected to external peripherals. Looking at it as a pure laptop, though, I found some things that faltered a bit. 

The keyboard is clearly designed to imitate the feel of a mechanical keyboard, even as it’s shallower than some other gaming laptop keyboards. Still, the travel time for registering each key press felt long, and I could feel the fatigue that comes with heavy typing. Pure gamers, however, may be looking for this kind of experience. The keyboard has four lighting zones you can define, but that’s not the same as per-key lighting. 

The trackpad feels similar. It is responsive enough, but every click feels like a heavy mechanical effort. It works, but it doesn’t have the grace and sophistication I expect in a premium product. Of course, as this is a gaming laptop you might not be doing as much writing and editing as I do. In those cases, the lackluster trackpad won’t bother you, as you’re probably gaming with a mouse or gamepad. 

Ready for gaming 

Outside of our standard benchmark testing games, my go-to games are Destiny 2 and Sea of Thieves. Both offer stunning vistas, and the 165Hz 16-inch screen on the Legion is visibly more crisp than my other monitors at home. I’ve never been one to worry too much about refresh rates; anything above 120Hz always felt unnecessary, but the Legion screen is a real champ. The screen resolution of 2,560×1,600 pixels is the sweet spot for 16-inch gaming laptops – better than typical FHD, but not the battery-draining overkill of 4K. 

While the Legion is equipped with Coldfront 4.0 – a proprietary system to reduce heat and minimize fan noise – it is still noisy when cranking up the Nvidia RTX 3070 Ti card. The noise actually translates into better cooling, and unlike the Acer Predator I reviewed, the surface never felt like it was hot enough to burn me.

The Lenovo Vantage software package allows access to some thermal modes, basic software GPU overclocking and control of the keyboard backlighting zones. 

A bit basic 

If you’re using it as your work computer, you’re likely to want to use the webcam. As with many gaming laptops, the quality is only so-so and a little grainy. Yes, it’s a 720p-resolution camera, like so many pre-pandemic laptops. Many PC makers moved to full-HD cameras, but gaming laptops seem to be behind on this trend. 

The built-in webcam also comes with a software shutter to disable the webcam, activated by a toggle switch on the side of the system. An actual physical shutter is my preferred way to ensure webcam privacy.

The all-aluminum body is also thick and heavy, even for a 16-inch gaming laptop, at just over one inch thick and 5.5 pounds. I’ve been traveling with it in my backpack, and constantly packing and unpacking it whenever I need to use it has already started to cause a tiny bit of wear on one of the corners. 

This is a beast of a machine, but I wish it had more of a premium look and feel, especially in the webcam and touchpad. That said, especially at the current discounted price, it represents an excellent value, and if you get one with upgraded internal storage, that will make it much easier to use as a full-time gaming machine.