Not cheap, but incredibly well-balanced, the Lenovo Legion 5 16IRX9 claims to be one of the best gaming laptops in its price category, although there are some things to criticize about this model. Although there were a few minor nuances during the two weeks of use, the laptop performed well in work and video games, which will be discussed in more detail in this review.
Content
| Technical characteristics | |
| Screen | 16″ IPS 2560×1600 165 Hz |
| Processor | Intel Core i7-14650HX |
| RAM | 32 GB DDR5 5600 MT/s |
| Drive | 1 TB SSD PCI-E 4.0 |
| Video card | NVIDIA RTX 4070 8 GB 140 W |
| Wireless interfaces | Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.2 |
| Card reader | Micro SD |
| USB connectors | 3 x Type A 3.2 gen1 |
| 2 x Type C 3.2 gen2 | |
| Video connector | 1 x HDMI 2.1 |
| Audio jack | 1 x 3.5 mm jack |
| Network connector | 1 x RJ-45 1 Gbit/s |
| Camera | Full HD 1080p |
| Audio | 2 x 2 W Nahimic Audio |
| Power supply | 300 W |
| Battery | 80 W*h |
| Additionally | RGB backlighting of the keyboard |
| Warranty 2 years | |
| USB Power Delivery | |
| Material | Aluminum / plastic |
| Weight | 2.36 kg |
| Dimensions | 360x262x25 mm |
| Operating system | Without OS |
Despite its high price, the Lenovo Legion 5 16IRX9 comes in a very modest cardboard box. Inside is the laptop itself, sandwiched between two foam seals, a thin pouch to wipe the laptop, paperwork, and a 300W power supply.
The power supply is large, flat, and has a proprietary power connector, but you can also charge the hero of the review from a regular USB Type C, though the laptop will not work at full capacity in such conditions.
The operating system is not included, and the version with licensed Windows 11 is unreasonably expensive (the difference is more than 10 thousand hryvnias for the OS alone). There are no additional accessories. The manufacturer gives a two-year warranty and also offers to buy another three years of warranty for an additional fee.
Modern gaming laptops — are no longer those old plastic «snags» 2010-2015, but for the most part are quite nice and elegant. The Lenovo Legion 5 16IRX9 has a beautiful design. If MacBook owners used to laugh at those who came to work with a 35 mm «freak», then no one will dare to say that about the hero of the review.
The weight is moderate (2.3 kg), the thickness is also (25 mm), and the body is made of aluminum and plastic, the build quality is high, there are no nuances. The top cover can be opened with one hand, the mechanism is smooth and has little resistance. Below the keyboard, the manufacturer was not too lazy to replace the space with colored stickers, which spoils the aesthetic appearance.
The top lid is sturdy and hardly bends when pressed with a finger in the middle, but the surface with the keyboard and touchpad deforms more under physical impact. Below, we see a huge radiator grille and high rubber feet — the laptop stands well on the table, it doesn’t slip.
The bezels of the screen are small, even the chin is of moderate size, although the part with the display is slightly raised. The webcam creates a slight bump on top, which still doesn’t spoil the overall look of the device because it’s convenient to hold on to this protrusion when opening the laptop.
Moving the HDMI and power connectors to the rear panel were the best solution. They are located far from each other between the cooling grilles. On the left, we have two high-speed USB Type C 3.2 Gen2, one classic USB Type A 3.1, and a combined 3.5 mm jack.
On the right, there are two more USB Type A, one USB Type C, a Gigabit LAN RJ-45, a micro SD card slot, and a physical webcam switch. We should definitely praise the designer who thought of arranging the connectors in this way, and not otherwise. Everything looks nice, neat, and the ergonomics are on top.
Subjectively, the placement is almost perfect, except the closely spaced USB Type A on the right panel. A large gamepad receiver and an old-style flash drive do not physically fit at the same time due to the proximity of the connectors.
The Wi-Fi module transmits data (Steam games over a local network) at a speed of 700 Mbps with a budget router. Of course, with a top-of-the-line router, we would have better results, but this is enough for fast data transfer on the local network.
The touch panel is small, clicks loudly when pressed, is sensitive, and supports gestures. Compared to other gaming models, it’s okay, although after ultrabooks, it’s not so convenient to use such a touchpad for a long time. Obviously, the owner of Lenovo Legion 5 16IRX9 will use the mouse more, especially in games.
The keyboard has a number pad, the arrows are not paired, the buttons are large, comfortable, quiet, and have RGB backlighting with several colors and intensity levels. A separate combination of Fn + Q can be used to call up the proprietary overlay for quick settings. The power button is located a little higher up.
The IPS screen with a matte finish and 350 nits brightness adequately copes with light on sunny days, viewing angles are also excellent. The minimum brightness is very low, which allows you to work with the laptop without eye fatigue in the dark.
The resolution of 2560×1600 for a 16-inch matrix is more than enough — the pixel density is high, the fonts are smooth. The black color gives off a grayish tint, especially at night, but without strong flare at the edges. The refresh rate is 165 Hz, the animations are smooth, although there are friezes from the battery in Windows OS, which is discussed in a separate section.
The colorimeter showed full coverage of the sRGB color space. The picture is realistic, pleasant, the brightness margin is sufficient, and the minimum backlight level was a pleasant surprise — it is very low, which allows you to use the laptop at night without eye fatigue.
The camera is Full HD, it takes good pictures during the day, but in the evening it’s better to take care of the lighting. The sound is flat, especially against Apple MacBooks or any high-end Windows ultrabooks. Although this is a gaming model, I would like to see better sound from a laptop for almost two thousand dollars.
| Benchmark / Mode | BATTERY | PSU |
| Geekbench Single | 2057 | 2643 |
| Geekbench Multi | 12798 | 16627 |
| CPU-Z Single | 630 | 822 |
| CPU-Z Multi | 7759 | 9800 |
| Cinebench 2024 Single | 89 | 113 |
| Cinebench 2024 Multi | 855 | 1207 |
| Cinebench 2024 GPU | 8259 | 11712 |
| Blender Benchmark CPU | 220 | 289 |
| Blender Benchmark GPU | 2655 | 3687 |
| Corona 1.3, s | 83 | 64 |
| Speedometer 3 | 22,4 | 28,2 |
| Google Octane 2.0 | 74902 | 102397 |
| WebXPRT | 253 | 340 |
| RTX Geekbench Open CL | 97981 | 114955 |
| RTX Geekbench Vulkan | 87119 | 99754 |
| UHD Geekbench Open CL | 4230 | 4288 |
| UHD Geekbench Vulkan | 4761 | 4875 |
| SSD Read MB/s | 7055 | 7009 |
| SSD Write MB/s | 6463 | 6131 |
| AIDA RAM Read MB/s | 72087 | 79068 |
| AIDA RAM Write MB/s | 68581 | 68973 |
| Stable Diffusion 5x 512×512, s | 50 | 31 |
| Davinci Resolve 1080p x265, s | 6 min | 4 min 21 s |
| Gigapixel 5x test files x4 up, s | 6 min | 4 min 40 s |
| Lightroom 100x RAW> JPG, Quality 100%, s | 52 | 42 |
The Intel Core i7-14650HX processor with high-power consumption limits has proven itself in work tasks. In some benchmarks, it comes close to the Intel Core i9-14900HX, but most importantly, the Lenovo Legion 5 16IRX9 runs on battery power with minimal performance loss, of course, by the standards of gaming laptops.
The processor power drops slightly both per core and in multicore tests. The hero of the review works quickly in both modes and is not ashamed to go out with it «where there is no power outlet nearby. This is primarily a merit of the manufacturer because some other gaming laptops lose 50-60% of the processor performance if you disconnect the power supply.
In the browser, the processor is as fast as a desktop AMD Ryzen 9 7900, and the system feels lightning fast overall. This is exactly the case when a laptop easily replaces a large system unit when connected to a monitor. Most users of desktop gaming PCs can only dream of such performance.
The integrated Intel UHD graphics card does a great job in the browser, helping the processor without using a discrete RTX 4070. We emphasize the iGPU because it has a positive effect on battery life — the laptop holds a good charge in office programs.
The Nvidia RTX 4070 Laptop discrete graphics has a power consumption limit of 140 watts, so it delivers the best results among its competitors. It’s not as good as the RTX 4060 Laptop, but it’s still significantly better than the top-end RTX 4080/4090 Laptop models, which have very poor performance for the same price.
The fact is that the higher up the mobile graphics card class we go, the greater the performance loss relative to desktop counterparts. If RTX 4060 Laptop is almost the same as RTX 4060, then the graphics adapter in Lenovo Legion 5 16IRX9 is 40-50% weaker than the full-fledged». Only a high-power limit and a good cooling system save the hero of the review because the GPU temperatures were a pleasant surprise.
The DDR5 RAM is mid-range, showing typical results with average latency. Almost 80 GB/s for a mobile platform is still a good indicator. 32 GB is enough for games, neural networks, virtual machines, and almost anything else.
The PCI-E 4.0 drive delivers excellent results. The SSD is fast for writing and reading, stable, and moderately heated. The 1 TB capacity appears to be enough for most users, although during testing we had to uninstall some video games because they no longer fit.
The Lenovo Legion 5 16IRX9 copes with neural networks perfectly. With the RTX 4070 Laptop 140W, it can handle Stable Diffusion, where images fly out every 7-10 seconds, or Gigapixel AI (upscaling five photos to 280 MP took less than five minutes). In Adobe Lightroom, photos are exported at breakneck speed — 100 shots in 40-50 seconds with overlaid effects.
Video export is also lightning fast — just 4 minutes and 21 seconds and a 10 GB movie is ready. On battery power, this value increases to 6 minutes, which is still very fast. Thanks to the hardware acceleration, the Lenovo Legion 5 16IRX9 is able to work with 4K videos of much larger sizes.
We tested the Lenovo Legion 5 16IRX9 in nine games with different graphics settings, and additionally conducted repeated tests with the modes «Quite», «Auto», «Performance». We tested at the native resolution of 2560×1600 and using DLSS Quality.
Alan Wake 2 with ultra ray tracing works well, but only from the power supply. With the frame rate generator, the FPS is high, although it feels «jelly» in control. Without RT, it’s comfortable to play from the PSU or battery.
Baldur`s Gate III on the laptop has a good performance margin. It is recommended to turn on DLSS Quality because the picture quality does not drop, and the FPS increases significantly.
Battlefield 2042 works smoothly and stably. With eSports graphics settings, we have 150+ FPS. You can still play from the battery, although the frame rate is 2.5 times lower.
Black Myth: Wukong with graphics «Cinematic» produces a cinematic frame rate. The frame generator is a bit more pleasant, although it has input delays. For a comfortable game, it is recommended to lower the graphics a bit.
Call of Duty Black Ops 6 we recommend playing around with mixed graphics settings. Ultra settings do not give any advantage, on the contrary, they distract and reduce efficiency in online matches. Battery play is still comfortable.
Cyberpunk 2077 it is impossible to play only with Path Tracing, but all other graphics settings, including «classic» Ray Tracing, are within the power of Lenovo Legion 5 16IRX9.
Forza Horizon 5 has the most unnecessary frame generator of all the games because it gives almost no increase in smoothness. But is it really necessary when the FPS is already over a hundred?
В Starfield you can also set DLSS Balanced because with the Quality profile the picture is still very clear. It is comfortable to play in any power mode.
In the eSports fun Valorant the laptop delivers up to 400-600 FPS, depending on the location. In offline mode, the frame rate is several times lower, and random freezes appear. Very strange behavior in such an undemanding game.
In addition, video games were tested with different power modes to see the difference between the allocated power consumption limits. This will allow us to draw an approximate picture of how other laptops with similar characteristics but lower TDP limits will behave.
The previous chart compared the gaming performance from the battery and power supply with the maximum possible power consumption, and this one shows the results of the three modes offered by Lenovo: «Quite», «Auto», «Performance».
It takes only 30 minutes to charge the Lenovo Legion 5 16IRX9 from 0% to 80%, and it takes almost an hour to get 100%. In demanding video games with maximum brightness, the laptop lasts 50-60 minutes.
Watching a YouTube video in 4K resolution and maximum backlight level will drain the battery in 3 hours and 40 minutes. In economy mode (minimum brightness), the laptop lasts 7 hours and 20 minutes during «office» low-load use.
In the Aida 64 test, the case heats up to 45-50 °C, and the pyrometer records 62 °C on the radiator itself. The sensors show up to 84-85 °C on the CPU and 90 °C on the Hotsop GPU. The video card chip itself heats up to 75-77 °C in synthetic tests, and is slightly colder in games.
When charging, the laptop draws 100-140 watts, depending on the current battery level. The laptop’s power consumption in the Aida 64 stress test in economy mode is 140 W, in automatic mode 175 W, and without performance limitations up to 230 W.
Under heavy CPU load, the power consumption of the video card will be less than 140 watts because otherwise the cooling system would not be able to cope. This is not to say that Lenovo Legion 5 16IRX9 is hot or cold. For such TDP limits, these are normal indicators.
When idle, the laptop’s Lenovo fans do not work, so it is silent in light tasks. In the economy mode «Quite», the laptop emits only 33-40 dB, depending on the distance to the listener. Under maximum load, the cooling system produces 47-55 dB half a meter from the laptop, and 60 dB above the keyboard itself.
Everything seems to be balanced in the Lenovo Legion 5 16IRX9: adequate battery life, slight battery performance loss, low noise, and a massive cooling system with moderate temperatures.
The version of Lenovo Legion 5 16IRX9 without the operating system is significantly cheaper, so it’s better to choose this model to install the OS yourself. We tested the laptop with Windows 11, and there were no serious nuances, except for a few unpleasant moments.
The Lenovo Legion 5 16IRX9 is fast as a rocket from the power supply, the battery also showed good results in the tests, but the interface has noticeable lag, freezes, and so on. For example, window minimization animations can sometimes sag in frame rate (on a 165 Hz screen, this is clearly visible).
Sometimes there are delays when creating a folder — you seem to have already clicked create, but it appears a second later, or delays when entering text. These problems are random and intermittent, although it was impossible not to notice them after two weeks of use.
Well, the stability of Windows 11 still leaves much to be desired. Although this system is recommended for gaming laptops, perfectionists will be dissatisfied (are there any PC gamers?).
If it weren’t for the occasional Windows interface freezes and better sound, the Lenovo Legion 5 16IRX9 could be called the best gaming laptop of 2024 in this price category. The device is really high-quality and nice, but as a fan of ultra-thin laptops, I don’t see much point in it.
Instead, gamers and just active people who want high performance without being tied to a location will be satisfied with the Lenovo Legion 5 16IRX9. It completely replaces a modern PC, speaking as the owner of a system unit with AMD Ryzen 9 7900 + RX 7900 XTX.
It’s a pleasant laptop in every sense of the word, almost devoid of flaws: the case feels solid and doesn’t bend like foil, the connectors are arranged conveniently and ergonomically, the keyboard is nice, albeit with a small touchpad, the sound is flat, the display is high-quality, and the performance is high in all use cases — what else is needed for complete happiness?
The official cost Lenovo Legion 5 16IRX9 is 79,000 UAH for the version without an operating system (the one in the review), if ordered on the official website. In third-party stores, the price is the same Lenovo Legion 5 16IRX9 costs 80,000 hryvnias.
There are also modifications with Intel Core i9-14900HX, Core i5-13450HX, Core i7-13650HX processors. It is recommended to buy only a model without Windows 11 included because the version with Microsoft’s operating system is more expensive by more than 10,000 hryvnias!
Massive Acer Predator Helios Neo 18 PHN18-71 with a huge 100% DCI-P3 display, weighing 3.4 kg, an Intel Core i7-14700HX and RTX 4070 140W processor can still be considered a competitor to the hero of the review. The unofficial price is 90,000 UAH.
An internal competitor Lenovo Legion Pro 5 16ARX8 with AMD Ryzen 7 7745HX from the hero of the review, is characterized by a bright 500 nits 240 Hz display. It’s a good option for those who need a higher refresh rate. The official price is 82,000 UAH.
HP Victus 16-s0000 with AMD Ryzen 7, the 7840HS has a few compromises compared to the hero of the review, but the laptop of a brand that completely withdrew from the hostile market back in 2022can be purchased for only UAH 63,000.
Acer Nitro 17 AN17-42 although it has a weak webcam and considerable dimensions (400x293x29 mm), is equipped with a top-end AMD Ryzen 9 8945HS 45W processor. This model is officially sold for 84,000 hryvnias.
Asus ROG Strix G16 2023 G614J — a direct competitor to the Lenovo Legion 5 16IRX9, although it is very difficult to find in Ukraine, even unofficially. For the version with Intel Core i7-13650HX and RTX 4070 140W, you need to pay 80,000 UAH.
