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Lenovo’s Legion range of gaming laptops and PCs have been part of the video game enthusiasts festive wishlist ever since the Lenovo Legion Y540 came into the picture many years ago. Over the years, this lineup has remained an impressive mainstay for gaming, and this year’s offerings have been no different. I’ve been hooked to the Lenovo Legion Slim 5i, and here is how it fares.
Design
Lenovo Legion Slim 5i Review | Photo Credit: Bijoy Ghosh
The Lenovo Legion Slim 5i carries that very familiar gaming laptop vibe with its grey-metal finish, the lid is made of aluminium, while the bottom part of the laptop is made up of polycarbonate-ABS material. It weighs in at 2.4 kgs which isn’t exactly the lightest I’ve come across, and hence is likely to be a stationary workstation with the power brick in tow.
User experience
Lenovo Legion Slim 5i | Photo Credit: Bijoy Ghosh
The gaming laptop features a 16-inch 2560 x 1600(WQXGA) 240Hz display which delivers a great gaming experience. The 240Hz display is able to deliver super-smooth action on-screen, without any visual lags.
The display was also great to watch trailers of Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One from YouTube and Lupin on Netflix. The display supports up to 100 per cent sRGB color gamut and pictures and videos viewed on the display render close to real life. It was also ideal to try a bit of color grading on Davinci Resolve making this a content creator laptop.
The keyboard features Lenovo’s classic chiclet style keys which are comfortable and have a satisfactory amount of key travel. I felt that the keyboard was slightly cramped for my liking, but the fact that one gets a number pad also works well, especially if this is a device you’ll use for both work and play. The keyboard supports 4-zone LED lighting which can be customised using Lenovo Spectrum, accessible through Lenovo Vantage hub.
Performance
The Legion Slim 5i I reviewed features an Intel Core i7-13700H processor with 14 cores and 20 threads, with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 8GB GDDR6 140W Total Graphics Power (TGP), 32 GB RAM and a 1 TB SSD. These specs helped the Legion Slim 5i breeze through Cinebench R23 topping the listing on CPU( Single Core) with a score of 1,573 and 10,599 placing it fourth on CPU multi-core. During games, the laptop would ramp up its fans and that aural storm was difficult to ignore.
The Slim 5i was able to maintain a steady 120 FPS in Gotham Knights and 100 FPS in Halo: Infinite. The space below the keyboard tended to feel warm while playing games, indicating that the cooling system isn’t as effective in cooling this gaming beast in the longer run. Although I didn’t encounter any issues with stuttering, frame drops, or thermal throttling while playing these games, the consistent warmth below the WASDEC keys was somewhat bothersome.
Ports
Lenovo Legion Slim 5i | Photo Credit: Bijoy Ghosh
The Lenovo Legion Slim 5i has ample options for connectivity. It features a card reader, an Ethernet (RJ-45) port, an HDMI 2.1 (with support up to 8K/30Hz), a headphone mic combo jack, two USB 3.2 Gen, two USB-A, two USB-C 3.2 Gen 2, and DisplayPort 1.4 support. One thing that I like about the ports at the rear were the clear symbols indicating the specific ports which makes it easy to connect. It has also been a while since I spotted a card reader slot in a premium laptop which made it easy to transfer images post shooting the stills for this review.
Battery
The device I reviewed featured an 80Wh battery which lasted close to 3-4 hours on a full charge with lighter tasks such as document typing, watching YouTube videos and checking emails. With gaming, the laptop stayed on unplugged for around just about an hour. This battery life can be considered below average however, the fact that the laptop features a NVIDIA RTX 4070 might be one of the reasons for the power draw.
The laptop can be charged via a 230 Watt power brick which took about two hours to charge normally. The laptop also supports rapid charge which powers the laptop fully in an hour.
Conclusion
The Lenovo Legion Slim 5i more than impresses due to its great specifications, performance, and display. But with a below-average cooling system, a heavy form factor, and average acoustics, this gaming laptop might lag behind its peers, such as the HP Omen Transcend 16 and the Dell Alienware m16 R1, which offer better battery life and better performance respectively, in the same price range.
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