This Lenovo Legion 7 2024 review highlights its excellence in the segment with enhanced power, improved cooling, higher screen resolution, and a sharp, vibrant RGB LED keyboard. In 2024, top gaming laptops include the Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (REVIEW) and MSI Stealth 16 AI Studio (REVIEW). However, Lenovo has closely observed its competitors, analyzing Asus’s strategies and MSI’s innovations. Now, it has entered the arena with its contender: the Lenovo Legion 7 16IRX9.
Lenovo Legion 7 2024 Review
Design
Personally, I find that high-performance gaming laptops with a dock at the back of the device offer an exceptionally commanding, masculine, and more mechanical aesthetic, highlighted by large, distinctive radiator slots that immediately draw attention. Looking at the Legion 7 16IRX9, I feel thoroughly impressed by its gaming-style appearance, paired with a unique and appealing thinness.
It will have a body thickness of approximately 2cm, equivalent to the MSI Stealth 16 AI Studio. Weighing 2.24 kg, it is almost 300 g heavier than the MSI Stealth Blade (1.99 kg). The ROG Zephyrus G16 2024 is the thinnest and lightest, weighing 1.85 kg and measuring 1.6 cm thick.
The Lenovo Legion 7 2024 features a square mechanical design similar to the MSI Stealth 16 AI Studio. However, its sides are sleeker, with fewer connection ports and a more minimalist overall design.
These three powerful gaming laptops with RTX share a common drawback: they easily attract sweat and fingerprints. This issue affects all three brands—Lenovo, Asus, and MSI. Users with sweaty hands or cleanliness concerns may find it challenging to keep a laptop spotless, requiring frequent cleaning. However, Lenovo excels in build quality, offering a sturdier and more robust feel than its competitors.
The A-side of the Lenovo Legion 7 2024 showcases more intricate details, making it stand out among Lenovo gaming laptops. Its design is more intricate than the MSI Stealth 16 AI Studio, which features only a dragon shield logo on a smooth navy surface. The Legion 7 stands out with its signature LEGION and Lenovo branding, placed along two symmetrical parallel edges at the top and bottom. Meanwhile, the ROG Zephyrus G16 2024 incorporates a diagonal arrow LED strip on the A-side, adding a cooler and more eye-catching touch.
I appreciate the single-axis hinge cluster and boxy design of the Lenovo Legion 7 2024. The MSI Stealth 16 AI Studio adopts a similar mechanical and sturdy design, creating a visually layered effect, unlike the smoother look of the ROG Zephyrus G16 2024. The hinge also allows effortless one-handed opening and remains stable during use, with no noticeable vibrations.
Flipping the bottom side up reveals a clean, simple design with subtle highlights, mirroring the A-side. The large radiator grille and sizable air vents provide a clear view of two cooling fans with flashing LED lights. The two speaker grilles below serve as the only audio output for the Lenovo Legion 7 2024.
One thing worth noting is that the three silicon foot pads are quite thick and high, creating more space under the bottom of the device so that the air convection from the outside into the laptop and vice versa is more airy, dissipating heat more effectively.
Connectivity
The LAN port has long added unnecessary thickness to Ultrabook and gaming laptops. Removing the LAN port on Legion 7 is reasonable, as most users now rely on Wi-Fi for gaming and browsing. With the widespread adoption of Wi-Fi 6E and Wi-Fi 7, concerns about slow network speeds are largely a thing of the past.
For those needing a connection to a private company network, a Type-C hub can easily convert to a LAN port. It’s an affordable solution that still ensures fast internal internet speeds.
The Lenovo Legion 7 2024 stands out with its impressive number of Type-C ports, surpassing all competitors:
- 1x Type-C 3.2 Gen 1 port
- 1x Type-C 3.2 Gen 2 port with 140W PD and DisplayPort 1.4
- 1x Type-C ThunderBolt 4 port
The laptop features an HDMI 2.1 port that supports 8K/60Hz output to an external display, an SD card reader, two USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 ports, and a square charging port for Lenovo’s adapter. The HDMI and charging ports are at the back and light up when connected, ensuring easy use in the dark.
Display
You might wonder if Lenovo is being stingy by using an IPS LCD panel to save on just one screen. Why not opt for OLED like the Zephyrus G16 2024? I would argue that, despite the difference in panel technology, the beauty and perfection of the Lenovo Legion 7 2024 are fully showcased on its 16-inch display.
Do you remember, or have you forgotten? OLEDs are usually not equipped with a screen coating to prevent glare, light reflection, and sunlight in many environments, but this Lenovo Legion 7 2024 review unit does. Experience a premium display with a 3.2K resolution, 165Hz refresh rate, vibrant colors, exceptional detail, and impressive brightness. It rivals the 2K OLED screen of the Zephyrus G16 2024 while also offering anti-glare protection. What more could you ask for?
Although not OLED, the Legion 7 2024’s IPS LCD panel also offers impressive display technology. It supports 100% DCI-P3, Dolby Vision, and TÜV Low Blue Light, delivering vibrant visuals, sharp details, and protection from harmful blue light. Additionally, it includes Advanced Optimus, which conserves battery by automatically managing the discrete GPU’s resources. Naturally, NVIDIA G-Sync is also included.
Whether you glance at or look closely at each photo above, the sharp details, vibrant tones, distinct objects, and high contrast have helped me reach the peak of sublimation in every frame. Gaming performance is flawless, and multimedia photo editing excels with 100% DCI-P3 color accuracy. Movie viewing is sharper, more realistic, and immersive, enhanced by exceptional integrated sound.
Keyboard and Touchpad
I am deeply impressed by the Legion 7 2024’s keyboard. The keys are large, square, and well-spaced, offering excellent ergonomics. The low key height provides a solid, satisfying feel, and the gentle, pleasant clicking sound is reminiscent of a Chiclet keyboard or even the Cherry MX mechanical keyboards found on larger laptops like the MSI Titan.
The RGB LED lighting stands out as one of the best among high-end gaming laptops in the same 60-million-segment range. The LED characters on the keys are sharp, with excellent light penetration, creating vibrant, detailed, and visually striking color bands in any shade.
The touchpad, while small, has minimal impact on the overall experience with the Lenovo Legion 7 2024. I rarely use it, as I prefer a separate gaming mouse. However, the touchpad itself offers a smooth and responsive surface, making occasional use comfortable and hassle-free.
Lenovo Legion 7 2024 review test
Our Lenovo Legion 7 2024 review model is equipped with an Intel Core i9-14900HX processor, 32GB of DDR5-5600 RAM, 1TB M.2 2280 PCIe 4.0×4 NVMe SSD, and Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 8GB GDDR6 GPU. However, the Legion 7 2024 and Zephyrus G16 2024 cannot be stuffed with more RAM, and only MSI can do this with a limit of up to 96GB.
Although the RAM upgrade options are limited, this powerhouse remains unmatched by any high-performance gaming laptop in its segment or below. Powered by the latest 14th-generation Intel Core i9 processor, this Lenovo Legion 7 2024 review model offers significant performance enhancements. While the differences compared to the previous 13900HX are minimal, they are noticeable in real-world usage.
Performance Benchmarks
Here are the performance benchmark results I obtained for the Legion 7 2024. The scores are highly impressive, surpassing those of the Zephyrus G16 2024 and the Stealth 16 AI Studio.
Cinebench R23
Cinebench R24
3DMark Time Spy/Time Spy Extreme
3DMark Storage Benchmark
Competitor Comparisons
I will compare the Lenovo Legion 7 2024 with three models: the MSI Stealth 16 AI Studio, the Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 2024 (Intel), and the AMD version of the Legion 7. Altogether, these three competitors fall short of the Legion 7.
In single-core and multi-core CPU rendering, the Intel Core i9-14900HX outpaces the Intel Core Ultra 9 by over 6,000 points in multi-core performance and surpasses the AMD Ryzen 9 AI HX 370 by more than 1,000 points. Lenovo’s optimization of the Legion 7 2024’s graphics processing is equally remarkable.
The 3DMark Time Spy Extreme score is also an overwhelming advantage and demonstrates how power consumption affects GPU performance. 105W is the TGP threshold, not the maximum ping for a top-notch graphics card like the RTX 4070. Therefore, Lenovo did not hesitate to let the TGP jump up to 130W to get a score of over 6000, overwhelming the other three gaming laptops by nearly 700 points.
I had never compared hard drive read and write speeds before, but there is a noticeable difference between the ROG, MSI, and Lenovo models. This directly impacts application startup times and responsiveness during heavy gaming.
Specifically, in this comparison, we can only see that the read and write speed of Lenovo Legion 7 2024 and MSI Stealth 16 AI Studio is the highest at 5000/6000. The Intel and AMD versions of Zephyrus G16 2024 are only at 3000/4000.
Gaming Tests
Playing games with a laptop equipped with Max Ping hardware elements like Lenovo Legion 7 2024 is not difficult at all. I tested the 2K resolution for all games. You can refer to the results below. No game experienced lag during gameplay.
League of Legends:
Counter-Strike 2:
PUBG:
Horizon Zero Dawn Forbidden West:
God Of War:
Black Myth Wukong:
Final line
The Lenovo Legion 7 2024 handles gaming and various work tasks effortlessly, without any issues in daily use. With its numerous strengths and advantages, choosing it as an upgrade or a new experience is entirely up to you.
It sets a new benchmark in the high-performance gaming laptop market. Its sleek design, exceptional build quality, and innovative features make it a standout choice. From its powerful Intel Core i9-14900HX processor and robust RTX 4070 GPU to its impressive cooling and vibrant 3.2K display, it delivers on all fronts.
The Legion 7 2024 outshines its competitors—such as the MSI Stealth 16 AI Studio and Asus ROG Zephyrus G16—through superior performance, thoughtful design, and advanced connectivity options.
The Lenovo Legion 7 2024 is now available on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk, with prices starting at $2,000.
