Review of the Lenovo Legion 7i Gen 9

CONS

• Average battery life
• No G-Sync support

LENOVO LEGION 7I GEN 9 SPECS

The Lenovo Legion 7i Gen 9 gaming laptop, with a starting as tested, offers impressive performance for playing modern games in a compact 16-inch design. Equipped with an Intel Core i9 HX-class processor and Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 graphics, it delivers substantial power. Additionally, the laptop’s metal construction and customizable per-key RGB keyboard lighting provide a premium feel at a reasonable price point. Positioned between the midrange Alienware m16 R2 and the more expensive Legion Pro 7i Gen 9, the Legion 7i Gen 9 earns an Editors’ Choice award for 16-inch gaming laptops.

The configuration and design are sophisticated in Glacier White.

The Legion 7i Gen 9 priced at showcased here is a top choice configuration available at Best Buy, featuring a Core i9-14900HX processor, an 8GB GeForce RTX 4070 GPU, 32GB of RAM, and a 1TB NVMe SSD. It’s important to note that this model should not be mistaken for the more powerful Lenovo Legion Pro 7i Gen 9, which comes with RTX 4080 or 4090 graphics and Nvidia G-Sync support, starting at.

Lenovo offers a wide range of gaming laptops, with the Lenovo Legion Pro 5i Gen 9 priced at. This model features a less premium chassis, four-zone keyboard lighting instead of per-key lighting, and a dimmer display with a 165Hz refresh rate.

The Legion, dressed in shining Glacier White, exudes a sleek appearance without the typical “gamer” aesthetic. This color option is undeniably more striking compared to the Eclipse Black alternative. The anodized aluminum chassis adds to its durability. Simply handling this laptop conveys a sense of luxury and high quality.

The Legion, adorned in dazzling Glacier White, emanates a sophisticated look that avoids the typical “gamer” style. This color choice is undeniably more attention-grabbing than the Eclipse Black option. The anodized aluminum chassis enhances its robustness. Merely touching this laptop gives off a premium feel.

The Lenovo measures 0.78 by 14.1 by 10.3 inches (HWD) and weighs 4.9 pounds, making it quite compact despite its 16-inch screen. However, it is slightly bulkier than the Alienware m16 R2 (0.93 by 14.3 by 9.8 inches, 5.75 pounds) and the 2024 Acer Predator Helios Neo 16 (1.18 by 14.2 by 11 inches, 5.7 pounds).

The laptop’s edges are adorned with a sleek brushed aluminum finish. On the left side, you will find a USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A port with sleep and charge capabilities, a USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C port, a USB-C Thunderbolt 4 port, and a headphone/microphone audio jack.

To the right side, there is an SD card slot, a USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 port with 140-watt power delivery and DisplayPort output, and another USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 port. Additionally, there is a kill switch for the 1080p webcam positioned at the center above the screen. While the webcam does not have IR face recognition support, you can utilize Windows Hello for password-free logins thanks to the fingerprint reader integrated into the power button.

The rear of the laptop features an HDMI display output and the AC adapter port. It is equipped with Intel Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3 for wireless connectivity.

The Lenovo Legion 7i Gen 9 offers a top-tier display combined with comfortable input options.

The Legion’s standout feature is its impressive 16-inch IPS screen with a resolution of 2,560 by 1,600 pixels. While it lacks Nvidia’s G-Sync variable refresh rate, this omission doesn’t significantly impact the overall gaming experience. The screen boasts a 240Hz refresh rate, anti-glare coating, vibrant colors, and exceptional brightness, making it a top choice for gamers.

I discovered that the Legion’s keyboard is quite comfortable for extended typing sessions, allowing me to achieve a decent typing speed of 106 words per minute with 97% accuracy in the MonkeyType online typing test. The per-key RGB backlighting is exceptionally bright and stands out well against the white keycaps. While the narrow numeric keypad may require some adjustment, I appreciate that the company has separated the cursor arrow keys into their own cluster. Additionally, the touchpad provides a spacious surface and satisfying tactile feedback.

Legion Vantage serves as the primary preinstalled application, responsible for managing system settings and battery health. Additionally, it includes a Lenovo Spectrum module for regulating the keyboard backlighting, offering a variety of effects such as rainbow, color waves, pulsing, rippling, and audio bounce. Another beneficial feature is Legion Arena, which consolidates all installed games into a single location.

The lower panel of the Legion can be detached to allow users to upgrade, providing access to two DDR5-5600 SO-DIMM slots and two M.2 2280 (80mm) drive slots. The battery can also be replaced, and the fans can be cleaned. The fans do produce some noise during gaming, but it is not excessive compared to other laptops in the same category.

Testing the Lenovo Legion 7i Gen 9: Premium Performance for a Decent Price.

In summary, the Legion 7i Gen 9 from Best Buy is equipped with a Core i9-14900HX CPU (24 cores, up to 5.8GHz turbo), a GeForce RTX 4070 GPU running at 140W, 32GB of RAM, and a 1TB SSD. If you are open to choosing the low-key gray chassis instead of the Glacier White one, these specifications were obtainable directly from Lenovo.com for during our review period. (Please note that Lenovo’s online sales fluctuate weekly, so prices may vary.) Best Buy also offers a model priced at with a Core i7-14700HX processor, a GeForce RTX 4060, and 16GB of RAM.

We selected different gaming rigs for our benchmark comparisons, all of which are equipped with Nvidia’s RTX 4070 GPU. These include the Acer Predator Helios Neo 16  as tested), the Alienware m16 as tested), the HP Omen Transcend 16 as tested), and the more affordable MSI Katana 15 as tested). The Acer and HP models utilize Intel Core HX-class chips similar to our Legion, while the Alienware features a new Core Ultra and the MSI is equipped with a Core H-class chip. It is expected that the Core HX laptops will perform exceptionally well in the benchmarks.

Assessments on Productivity and Content Development.

We conduct identical productivity benchmarks on mobile and desktop systems. Our initial assessment involves UL’s PCMark 10, a tool that replicates various real-world productivity tasks and office workflows to evaluate overall system efficiency. It also includes a storage subtest for the main drive.

Three additional standards concentrate on the CPU, utilizing every core and thread to evaluate a computer’s capability for processor-heavy tasks. Maxon’s Cinebench R23 employs the Cinema 4D engine to render a intricate scene, while Geekbench 5.4 Pro by Primate Labs replicates common applications such as PDF rendering, speech recognition, and machine learning. Lastly, we employ the open-source video transcoder HandBrake 1.4 to convert a 12-minute video clip from 4K to 1080p resolution (shorter durations are preferable).

Ultimately, we conduct PugetBench for Photoshop developed by Puget Systems, a workstation manufacturer. This software utilizes Adobe’s renowned image editing software, Creative Cloud version 22, to assess the performance of a computer for content creation and multimedia applications. It is an automated tool that performs a range of general and GPU-accelerated Photoshop tasks, including opening, rotating, resizing, and saving images, as well as applying masks, gradient fills, and filters.

The Legion excelled in both PCMark assessments, outperforming the Predator and leaving the other competitors far behind. In addition to performing admirably in the CPU evaluations, it demonstrated exceptional results in Cinebench and narrowly surpassed the HP in Geekbench. The Legion also achieved the highest score in Photoshop. Undoubtedly, this laptop is a powerful device capable of handling any task effortlessly.

Assessments on Graphics and Gaming.

We conduct both synthetic and real-world gaming tests for gaming laptops and other mobile gaming devices. The synthetic tests consist of two DirectX 12 gaming simulations from UL’s 3DMark: Night Raid (designed for systems with integrated graphics, less demanding) and Time Spy (aimed at gaming rigs with discrete GPUs, more demanding). Additionally, we utilize the cross-platform GPU benchmark GFXBench 5 to evaluate OpenGL performance. The GFXBench tests are conducted offscreen to support various native display resolutions, with higher frames per second (fps) indicating better performance.

We conduct real-world game testing using the in-game benchmarks of F1 2021, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, and Rainbow Six Siege. These three games, all benchmarked at 1080p resolution, represent simulation, open-world action-adventure, and competitive/esports shooter games, respectively. Valhalla and Siege are tested twice (Valhalla at Medium and Ultra quality, Siege at Low and Ultra quality), while F1 2021 is tested twice at Ultra quality settings with and without AMD and Nvidia’s performance-boosting FSR and DLSS features enabled.

The Legion did not excel in 3DMark or GFXBench, which was not surprising considering that these laptops all have the same graphics card. Nevertheless, in real-world gaming tests, it frequently outperformed the competition, sometimes by a noticeable margin.

The Legion did not perform exceptionally well in 3DMark or GFXBench, as expected due to the shared graphics card among these laptops. However, during real-world gaming tests, it often surpassed the others, albeit not by a significant margin.

After retesting, the game benchmarks were also conducted at the Legion’s 2,560-by-1,600-pixel native resolution. The results showed 97fps in F1 2021 (Ultra High, DLSS off), 85fps in Assassin’s Creed (Ultra High), and 147fps in Rainbow Six (Ultra). These numbers are notably lower than its 1080p performance, but they still indicate that the Legion is more than capable of handling gaming at that resolution.

Tests on Battery and Display.

1. Each laptop and tablet undergoes a battery life test where we play a 720p video file (Tears of Steel, an open-source Blender movie) with the display brightness set at 50% and audio volume at 100%. Prior to the test, we make sure that the battery is fully charged and that Wi-Fi and keyboard backlighting are turned off.

In order to assess the display quality, we utilize a Datacolor SpyderX Elite monitor calibration sensor along with its Windows software to evaluate the color saturation of a laptop screen. This includes determining the percentage of the sRGB, Adobe RGB, and DCI-P3 color gamuts or palettes that the display is capable of showing, as well as measuring its 50% and peak brightness in nits (candelas per square meter).

The Legion laptop’s battery life fell in the middle of the pack and could be deemed satisfactory, given that its screen brightness at 50% was relatively dim. The Alienware, on the other hand, lasted significantly longer, although its screen appeared even dimmer at half brightness.

Nevertheless, the Omen Transcend 16 stood out with its exceptionally bright display when compared to the Legion. While the Legion’s color accuracy was similar to the Alienware, it fell short of the wide range offered by Acer and HP. In contrast, the MSI’s screen quality was disappointing, especially for a laptop in its price range.

Conclusion: Examining the High-End Gaming Laptop Criteria at a Lower Cost.

The Lenovo Legion 7i Gen 9 is a standout high-end gaming laptop that offers great value for its price. Despite not being the most budget-friendly option, it is relatively affordable considering its features. With a Core HX CPU and GeForce RTX 4070 GPU, it delivers top-notch performance in a sleek and lightweight design. The Glacier White model exudes luxury and durability, while the comfortable input devices and vibrant display enhance the overall user experience. While Nvidia G-Sync and longer battery life would be nice additions, the Legion remains a solid choice for a gaming setup priced at two thousand dollars. It has earned our Editors’ Choice award for its exceptional performance and design.