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The Lenovo Legion 5i is a 15-inch gaming laptop for most enthusiast gamers. Granted, the GeForce RTX 5070 isn’t the highest-end GPU right now, but Lenovo pairs it with a high-end Intel Core i7 CPU along with a great cooling system in a fairly portable chassis. The result is a midrange gaming laptop that delivers fairly high performance for the hardware – and at a very reasonable sticker price.
For most gamers, the Legion 5i ticks most boxes as an ideal desktop replacement with more than enough power to run just about anything in PC games and at high settings for the most part. In fact, it delivers better gaming performance than the Asus ROG Strix G16 (2025) with an RTX 5060 GPU and Intel Core i7-14650HX CPU, but it’s at par with the MSI Katana 14 HX (Intel Core i9, RTX 5070) that I reviewed recently.
That said, there are some situations where you might need to tone down some settings – (sighs*Cyberpunk 2077*), partly due to the higher resolution OLED panel that needs a little more power than LED panels on competing laptops.
Starting for well under two grand, the Legion 5i comes with an Intel i7-14700HX CPU, Nvidia RTX 5070 GPU, a 15.1-inch 2560 x 1600 OLED display, 16GB RAM, and 1TB SSD storage. Of course, there are other variations of the same model with higher specs; there’s even the Lenovo Legion Pro 7i with a bigger 16-inch display and higher-end gaming specs. If you fancy a bigger 16:10 aspect ratio on a 16-inch screen, that’s where you should be looking at.
Along with the performance and glamour of an OLED screen are a nice assortment of ports, a full keyboard, and a responsive touchpad, but I just wish its battery life were longer to allow prolonged use untethered. Still, if you have the cash and need a gaming laptop that you won’t be carrying around often, the Lenovo Legion 5i is money well spent for the ultimate gaming experience.
Lenovo Legion 5i: Specs and features
- CPU: Intel Core i7-14700HX
- Memory: 16GB DDR5-5600
- Graphics/GPU: Nvidia RTX 5070
- Display: 15.1-inch, 2560 x 1600 OLED, 165Hz, 500 nits, 100 percent DCI-P3
- Storage: 1TB PCIe Gen4 SSD
- Webcam: 5MP w/ E-shutter
- Networking: Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4
- Biometrics: Windows Hello facial recognition
- Battery capacity: 80 watt-hours
- Dimensions: 13.58 x 10.05 x 0.78 inches
- Weight: 4.1pounds
The Lenovo Legion is a terrific all-around value, with an RTX 5070 GPU and 14th Gen Core i7 CPU at a very reasonable price.
Design & Features
The Legion 5i, like its bigger sibling, the Lenovo Legion Pro 7i, sports an understated design, but that doesn’t mean it’s ugly. We’ve seen some really suave gaming laptops like the Alienware Aurora 16 and the HP Omen Transcend, but the Legion 5i is more about performance and less about aesthetics. At just under an inch thick and 4.1 pounds in weight, it’s on the light and portable side. The chassis is all gray and black, the lid of the laptop is made of metal, while the bottom is all plastic.
Unlike most gaming laptops that come with RGBs all over the body, the only thing that tells this as being a gaming laptop is the word “LEGION” inscribed on the lid. However, the keyboard does have four different LED lighting zones – and that’s where you get the colorful gamer aesthetic, if you like it! It’s a full-size keyboard complete with a number pad, and the LED lighting is user configurable – one color, four different colors, animated transitions, or no backlight at all. The keys are good size, responsive, but this isn’t the snappiest keyboard I’ve used so far; it doesn’t feel like it has a lot of key travel.
The Lenovo Legion 5i includes a 15.1-inch OLED display with a 2560 x 1600 resolution and a 165Hz refresh rate. On paper, that’s a decent screen – and it looks even better when running games. It’s a good screen. The display is on the bright side, at 500 nits of brightness, which is far better than the 300 nits you get on most gaming and productivity laptops at this price range. More premium displays often deliver this level of screen brightness as well as higher refresh rates.
Finally, if you want to use the Legion 5i as a desktop replacement, you’ll be happy to know that it gets almost all the ports you’d ever need, at least for now. It comes with an HDMI 2.1 port, a Thunderbolt 4 port, and a USB-C port, both of which support DisplayPort 21. It also has three USB-A ports and an Ethernet port, along with an eShutter button for webcam privacy.
Gaming Performance
Our Lenovo Legion 5i unit features an Intel Core i7-14700HX processor, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 GPU, and 16GB of memory.
Playing Civilization 7 at 2560 x 1440 with everything set to High, it delivers frame rates in the mid-100s in open scenes. The game runs smoothly and stutter-free.
We’re stacking the Legion up against two 15-inch gaming laptops: the Asus ROG Strix 16 (Intel Core i7-14650HX, RTX 5060, 16GB RAM) and the MSI Katana 15 HX (Intel 14th Gen Core i9-14900HX, RTX 5070, 32GB RAM). While the Katana 15 HX commands a higher price with its Core i9 processor and 32GB RAM, its screen doesn’t get as bright as the OLED panel on the Legion 5i.
In Assassin’s Creed Shadows (High detail preset), the Legion hit 64 FPS at 1080p, landing in second place behind the MSI Katana 15 HX (67 FPS) and ahead of the Asus ROG Strix (51 FPS). The same level of performance is replicated in Cyberpunk 2077 (Ray Tracing Ultra preset, DLSS off), managing 46 FPS at 1080p and 27 FPS at 1440p.
That’s the same kind of playability you get on most modern titles, including Far Cry 6 and Borderlands 3, emphasizing the fact that the gaming experience gets better as you move from the base RTX 5050 to the top-tier GeForce RTX 5090. If you need the absolute immersive gaming experience on modern titles, including Cyberpunk 2077, investing in a PC with an RTX 5080 or RTX 5090 is the way to go.
The Legion’s gaming experience is slightly ahead of the Asus and almost at par with the MSI, which uses the same GPU wattage. That said, even the Lenovo and MSI show variations, suggesting multiple factors – cooling efficiency, drivers, display technology, and software optimizations all play a role in final performance.
The battery life on gaming laptops always takes a hit due to the demanding hardware packed inside. There are some exceptions, but a powerhouse rocking a 15.1-inch OLED screen with a 1600p resolution is not going to be in that list. Our review unit lasted just under five hours – not great at all, but it is not a new MacBook that lasts over 16 hours, nor is it supposed to be.
Lenovo Legion 5i Review: Bottom line
The Lenovo Legion 5i is an all-around high-quality gaming laptop and terrific value. It’s not the fastest, best-looking machine, but it is well priced for a gaming laptop with discrete Nvidia RTX 5070 graphics, a screaming fast Intel Core i7 CPU, 16GB RAM, an OLED display, and a 1TB solid-state drive.
While the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 graphics here is far from the fastest part, it’s better than the RTX 4070 it replaces, and the Legion 5i is set up to squeeze lots of gaming performance out of its hardware.
Laptops with higher-tier graphics – a GeForce RTX 5080 and up – will perform better in games even 4k at high settings, especially when compared with the latest-gen CPUs. But they’re also more expensive. Of course, most of these high-end gaming laptops with RTX 50-series parts are bound to get price cuts during the seasonal shopping events – Black Friday and Cyber Monday soon. But in the current market, the Lenovo Legion 5i is a good buy even at its retail price.
Price Comparison
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