Lenovo Legion 5i Pro Gen 7 Review

Performance and stability are the factors to consider when choosing a laptop. For modern gamers, this becomes even more important. Newer AAA games require hardware as demanding as heavy tasks like professional video editing. But unlike those with graphics, gamers need their laptops to be in the best condition possible, as “game over” is sure to happen if the machine slows down while killing the boss in the Elden Ring. And that’s why we think modern gamers will love the new Lenovo Legion 5i Pro Gen 7 gaming laptop.

Along with the Legion 5i, which we recently reviewed, the pairing is the company’s strategic card for “capturing” the high-end gaming laptop market. With Legion gaming laptop devices like 12th-generation Intel Core processors, Nvidia GeForce RTX 3000 series graphics cards, and DDR5 RAM, it’s hard to find a game or task that can stop the Legion 5i Pro’s power.

Our Lenovo Legion 5i Pro Gen 7 review unit comes with the “top” configuration: Intel Core i9-12900H processor, 32GB of DDR5 RAM, 1TB of NVMe SSD, Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 Ti graphics card, WQXGA screen (2560 x 1600 pixels) with 165Hz refresh rate. It will come with a premium Lenovo Ultimate Support (LUS) warranty service that can satisfy even demanding modern gamers.

Design

The size of a gaming laptop is always like a bunker. It seems that manufacturers no longer think so when the trend of sleek design is becoming more popular. The most powerful gaming laptops now have a clean, more refined look. And the Legion 5i Pro Gen 7 is also among the names that respond to that trend.

The white color of the Legion 5i Pro Gen 7 that Lenovo calls the “Glacier White” will make you fall in love. We think white looks a bit more delicate and modest. The key anode aluminum material for the lid, body and touchpoints on the Legion 5i Pro feels strong and durable, while the slightly rough electro-coating provides good sweat resistance. The Lenovo Legion 5i Pro Gen 7 also has no flex in the body, lid, or keyboard unless the impact is too strong.

Like the Legion 5i Gen 7, the Pro version also has angular cutouts on the rear of the device. The main connection ports are located at the rear, slightly inward and two heatsinks are exposed on the sides, giving the feeling of looking at the rear of a supercar or spaceship. We like gaming laptops that keep the connection ports on the back, as the space on both sides of the device will be more spacious for easier manipulation while playing games.

The number and way of placing the connection ports of the Legion 5i Pro Gen 7 are the same as that of the Legion 5i, which is also much richer. The main connection area at the rear includes a slim tip charging port, two USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports, an HDMI port, a USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 port, and an RJ45 Ethernet network port. On the left is a Thunderbolt 4 port and a USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 port that supports DisplayPort 1.4 secondary display output, data transfer, or Power Delivery charging if you need to. The right-hand side of the device houses a 3.5mm headphone/microphone combo jack, an additional USB 3.2 Gen 1 port, and a privacy-protected webcam off button.

Coldfront 4.0, Lenovo’s latest cooling system has proven its effectiveness on the Legion 5i Pro Gen 7. With thinner fan blades, larger heat pipes, and a copper CPU heatsink block, the Legion 5i Pro Gen 7 also features the Lenovo Legion AI Engine that adjusts gaming performance through predictive fan performance. As well as real-time output balancing of GPU and CPU resources for each game being played. But are they enough to “cool down” the Core i9-12900H and RTX 3070 Ti GPUs? Details will be at the bottom of the Lenovo Legion 5i Pro Gen 7 review!

Display

At first glance, you’d think that the Legion 5i Gen 7 and Legion 5i Pro Gen 7 have similar screen specifications when both have 16-inch IPS LCD panels, and a 165 Hz refresh rate, but in reality, the Pro version is at a higher level. (That’s why it deserves to be the Pro!) Firstly, the Legion 5i Pro Gen 7’s screen has a 16:10 aspect ratio, which is vertical compared to the Legion 5i’s traditional 16:9. It will bring a wider usable area for everyday tasks. The screen edges are also quite thin, especially the bottom edge, so the display experience is also more balanced. The Legion 5i Pro Gen 7’s max brightness is also high, at 500 nits, and DisplayHDR 400 standard, useful when playing games outdoors or in rooms with multiple light sources.

It’s interesting that despite being a gaming laptop, the Lenovo Legion 5i Pro Gen 7 is color-balanced right out of the factory, with the X-Right Color Assistant tool pre-installed on the device. Here, users can choose a color space profile such as Rec. 709, default to sRGB or so. Perhaps the Legion 5i Pro Gen 7 is the first gaming laptop we’ve experienced that cares about the user’s workflow needs, and that’s a plus point from which other manufacturers should learn.

In the default profile, the Legion 5i Pro Gen 7 delivers sharp image quality thanks to WQXGA resolution on a 16-inch screen that delivers higher pixel density. Colors are displayed in a realistic direction, not too flashy. The smooth 165Hz refresh rate is enough to make the game “play hard” for you, and Nvidia G-Sync technology will ensure that the gaming experience isn’t affected by screen tearing and tearing.

Audio

The Legion 5i Pro and Legion 5i have the same external speaker system, including 2 x 2W speakers and auxiliary Nahimic Audio applications. The speaker volume is loud, and there is no distortion, but due to the low bass, the visual sensations of the explosion subsided. For the best gaming experience, you should invest in a separate headset or speaker system.

Keyboard & touchpad

Like the 5i, the 5i Pro Gen 7 is also equipped with a TrueStrike keyboard. Designed with large buttons but still, a full-size layout, 1.5mm press stroke, and separate navigation key cluster, TrueStrike delivers fast and accurate pressure for gamers’ every action. In addition, to meet the needs of high-speed “spam skills” as well as using multi-key combinations, TrueStrike has 100% anti-ghosting ability, ensuring that every operation is recorded correctly.

Our Lenovo Legion 5i Pro Gen 7 review unit has a blue-and-white monochrome tone LED key with a Glacier White shell. You can choose the version with 4-zone RGB LED, but as far as we know, it will only be for the Storm Gray color.

Lenovo gaming laptops cannot help but mention Vantage software. It is pre-installed software on the device that helps users to observe, monitor system health, check warranty period as well as customize some advanced functions related to machine performance, such as overclocking GPU, selecting GPU to use in situations, etc.

The touchpad or trackpad of the Legion 5i Pro Gen 7 is the same size as the Legion 5i. For everyday tasks, this touchpad meets the needs with smooth scrolling, responsive keys, and full Windows Precision driver support. But having played to this extent, you should boldly buy a good gaming mouse and have fun.

Performance

The 12th generation Intel Core i processor marks an all-new Core design, a combination of P-cores designed to handle simple and heavy tasks with powerful performance- and efficiency-oriented E-Cores for gaming. Combined with ultimate performance thanks to the Intel Thread Director feature that assigns applications to the most appropriate processor cores, the 12th generation Intel Core i processor promises up to 40% faster performance than the previous generation.

With an Intel Core i9-12900H processor, Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 Ti graphics card, 32GB of DDR5 RAM clocked at 4800 MHz, and a 1TB Gen 4 NVMe SSD, basically no game can cause trouble at the moment. The Legion 5i Pro is also available for the Gen 7 at WQXGA resolution. So, of course, the Legion 5i Pro Gen 7 doesn’t sweat when it comes to office tasks like opening a few dozen Chrome tabs, editing photos with Photoshop or Lightroom, watching movies during working hours, etc.

Legion 5i Pro Gen 7 has 3 performance profiles, switched with the Fn + Q keyboard shortcut. In the performance test, we will choose the highest Performance mode. Legion 5i Pro Gen 7 has impressive scores in all benchmarks:

Cinebench R23 measures render task CPU performance. Intel Core i9-12900H on Legion 5i Pro gen 7 reached 1689 single-core and 18,712 multi-core points. For ease of visualization, the Intel Core i7-12700H chip on the Legion 5i Gen 7 reached 1,607 single-core points and 14,930 multi-core points, respectively.

PCMark 10 simulates everyday multitasking tasks. Legion 5i Pro Gen 7 scored 8,054 average points.

3DMark is the most comprehensive set of performance benchmarking tools available at the moment, with a variety of contexts to measure the performance of the device in many different aspects. The two most suitable tests for Legion 5i Pro Gen 7 are FireStrike Extreme, which simulates 2K gaming on the DX11 graphics library, and TimeSpy, which is similar but is the DX12 graphics library. In turn, the Legion 5i Pro Gen 7 scored 14,458 points with FireStrike Extreme and 12,239 points with TimeSpy. According to 3DMark’s estimates, Legion 5i Pro Gen 7 will be able to play Battlefield V at 1440p resolution, setting Ultra graphics with 100fps or above.

The gaming performance of Lenovo Legion 5i Pro Gen 7 is fast when the laptop easily conquers High to Extreme graphics settings in games like Far Cry: New Dawn, Guardians of the Galaxy, or Forza Horizon 5.

Benchmark results of the Far Cry: New Dawn game at High graphics settings. The average FPS reached 113, there was a slight decrease in fire scenes but still at a high level, 95fps.

We also played Guardians of the Galaxy at High graphics settings. An average FPS was 158 after finishing the benchmark.

Forza Horizon 5’s Extreme graphics setting does not make it difficult for Legion 5i Pro Gen 7, when the average FPS is still at 78-80, still very smooth.

Responsible for data storage for the Legion 5i Pro is Micron’s 1TB NVMe SSD. Supporting the latest PCIe 4 protocol, this SSD offers read and write (sequential) speeds of up to 6,600 MB/s and 5,000 MB/s, respectively. Starting windows, opening applications, and copying data are all done in the blink of an eye.

Intel Core i9-12900H and RTX 3070Ti, any laptop equipped with this configuration can hardly stay cool, especially if you regularly harness their full power. But with the Coldfront 4.0 cooling system, the Lenovo Legion 5i Pro Gen 7 maintains a high clock speed for a long time, and the temperature drops quickly after stopping heavy work. The above maximum temperatures suggest that the Legion 5i Pro Gen 7 is in no hurry to implement performance squeeze measures to cool down but raise the threshold to higher for the CPU and GPU to unleash their capabilities.

There are more reasons to buy a headset when playing games with the Legion 5i Pro Gen 7: The device’s cooling fan blades make a lot of noise when operating at full capacity. Except for silent mode, the Legion 5i Pro Gen 7’s two Auto and Performance modes will always keep the cooling fan on (depending on load but increase or decrease in speed), so for light daily tasks, you should turn it on.

Battery

Lenovo Legion 5i Pro Gen 7 is equipped with an 80 Whr battery. This number is convenient for thin and light ultrabooks, but nothing for a gaming laptop with such a configuration. Even with relatively light tasks, the Legion 5i Pro Gen 7’s battery lasts only 3-4 hours, if you play games, it will drop sharply, not to mention affect the maximum performance of the device.

In return, Lenovo’s Slim Tip plugs into the charger that comes with the laptop, with 300W of capacity to charge the battery to 80% in just 30 minutes, but as mentioned, you can plug it into a USB-C port. It can also charge via PowerDelivery, regardless of capacity, which will not equal the maximum.

Final line

Lenovo Legion 5i Pro Gen 7 is a powerful and versatile gaming laptop. Although aimed at users with modern gamers, this gaming laptop will still satisfy other target groups, thanks to its diverse connectivity ports, good keyboard, and sharp 16:10 screen that’s instantly color-balanced. A few minor minuses point such as speakers with average sound or the short battery life of the laptop, but that doesn’t stop it from becoming one of the best gaming laptops worth buying right now.

Lenovo Legion 5i Pro Gen 7 price and availability

Lenovo Legion 5i Pro Gen 7 pricing starts from $2,129.99 for the base model with an Intel Core i7 processor, and it can be purchased on the Newegg.com online store.