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Lenovo Legion 5 and 5i Full Review with pros and cons
The new Lenovo Legion series has 2 versions, the 5 and the 5i, the difference being the 5 has AMD hardware and the 5i has intel hardware, all other aspects remain similar across both the 5 and the 5i.
The Legion is now updated with latest specs and we will find out if it continues to follow the legacy of its predecessor, which received a great appreciation for its sleek and clean look with great performance.
Build and Quality
The design is very similar to last year’s model being very clean and mature looking. This is still the cleanest looking gaming laptop in this price range. The legion logo doesn’t light up anymore but it has a king of shimmer when seen in different lighting conditions. The laptop has an all-plastic build which may seem cheap, but the quality of plastic is good. The build feels sturdy, albeit not as much as one with metal build, and there is not much screen or keyboard flex. The hinge feels sturdy and can be opened up to a full 180 degrees. The interior has this nice soft touch material which is really durable.
Ports, I/O and Connectivity
The ports are spread across 3 sides of the laptop and the ports on the sides are present in the middle for comfort. The laptop offers 4 USB ports including 3 Type A and 1 Type C which all support USB 3.2 Gen 1 standard. Unlike last time, they have added Thunderbolt 4 and support for HDMI 2.1 with 3.5mm head combo jack is cherry on the cake.
Maintenance
Getting into the laptop is relatively easy. By just removing the screws from the bottom panel and popping it off, one gets access to the 2x SODIMM slots, one of which is empty and available for upgrade, one 2.5-inch drive bay and one M.2 Storage slot. Removing the drive bay or the caddy also contains enough space for an extra SSD.
Input Devices
Keyboard –The keyboard in this device is good. It comes with a number pad if that’s what you are looking for. The key travel is decent with tactile keys and anyone will easily get used to this keyboard. It also has white clean backlight. RGB backlighting is also supported in a few models.
Touchpad –The Lenovo Legion 5 or the 5i’s touchpad supports Windows precision drivers and doesn’t comes with dedicated left and right click buttons. The touchpad is fairly precise and large enough for a gaming laptop and the click buttons feel consistent.
Display
The base panel is a 1080p 120 Hz,250 nits panel which we recommend as it can easily justify the high frame rates pushed by the dedicated GPU and will definitely give a great gaming experience. But due to less brightness, it may be a problem for a few.
There is also a 165 Hz panel option which has 300 nits of brightness which is better than the former 250 nits, but not from a huge margin. Consider this one only if you want even smoother experience.
Performance
The performance on this device is pretty good. The chassis is properly cooled and is able to handle the powerful hardware inside.
Both the AMD and the Intel version delivers with 60+ frame rates in modern triple A titles and 150+ fps on e-sport titles in high settings in 1080p.Creative load like video and photo editing can be done without hiccups due to the high core-count processors included.
NVIDIA GeForce® RTX™ 3050 4GB GDDR6 does its job perfectly. A NVIDIA GeForce® RTX™ 3070 option is also available which is cherry on cake.
We just feel that the Intel versions are slightly overpriced though
Storage
There are many variations in the storage options that you get with this device so you can choose any SSD and HDD combination that you want. If you want a recommendation then the 512 GB NVMe SSD model should be good enough for most users. A good thing about this laptop is that it comes with 2 M.2 slots that means you can have 1 SSD + 1 HDD or 2 NVMe SSDs at the same time if you remove the caddy which reveals the 2nd slot and enough space for the SSD.
Speakers
The speakers are good enough for a gaming laptop but the audio can feel a bit muddy at times. The bass is not the strong which is to be expected from such tiny speakers. It is still recommended to use a headset while gaming because the fans can overpower the audio from the speakers.
Battery Life
The battery life on this device is good. There is a 60 Wh cell which gives it around 6 hours in regular use with medium brightness which is good for a gaming laptop. The package includes a fairly lightweight 230W charger which takes 2 hours. If you enable fast charging with the Vantage app else it takes 2+ hours. There is also a 300W crazy fast charger option. It does not support USB C charging. Also, there is a higher version with 80 Wh battery which can give 7 to 8 hours of battery life with regular use.
- Pros
- Design and Build
- Dedicated graphics
- Fairly light weight
- Super fast charging
- Cons
- Speakers
- Display can be brighter
Lenovo Legion 5 and 5i (2022)
