Lenovo Takes Aim at Casual and Hardcore Gamers Alike with New Legion 5i and Pro 5i Laptops
Lenovo recently unveiled upgrades to their popular Legion line of gaming laptops, releasing the new Legion 5i and Legion Pro 5i models. Long known for balancing performance with practicality, this generation of Lenovo's caters even more precisely to both casual and dedicated gamers. I had the chance to thoroughly test out and compare these two machines side-by-side to see how they stack up.
Size and Styling - Blending in or Standing Out
Let's kick things off by looking at the physical design and aesthetics. Right away, you'll notice a fairly stark contrast between the understated, professional look of the 5i and the bold, gaming-focused styling of the Pro 5i.
The standard Legion 5i looks much like a standard work laptop, with its slim, 0.7 inch profile and monochrome "storm gray" chassis lacking any flashy colour accents or aggressive angles. The only gaming-inspired elements are the narrowed bezels around its 16-inch, 16:10 display and some subtle rear venting along the back edge. Those with jobs that frown on gaming laptops will appreciate its subtlety, though students may still draw some curious glances when firing up an intense round of Apex Legends between classes!
The Pro 5i, on the other hand, sports a much chunkier 1 inch thick chassis clearly aimed at gaming enthusiasts unconcerned with professional optics. Its "stellar blue" finish and transparent plastic window revealing its inner hardware make no attempts to hide its identity. Exhaust vents surround all sides and edges, necessary to keep its beefier components cool under load. Although weighing only half a pound more than the 5i, it definitely feels heftier in the hands. If portability matters, the 0.7 inch thinner 5i gets the nod, but the Pro feels reassuringly solid and stable when settled on a desk for marathon gaming sessions.
Which aesthetic you prefer comes down purely to personal taste and priorities. But it's great to see this degree of differentiation, allowing buyers to clearly signal their needs and interests from first glance.
Display and Audio: Smoothness and Clarity Above All
The display and audio capabilities make up two of the most vital ingredients behind gaming immersion. Unsurprisingly, Lenovo pulls no punches here on the Legion series. Both models boast 16-inch IPS displays running at 1500p (2560x1600) resolution with buttery smooth 240Hz variable refresh rates enabled by Nvidia G-Sync or AMD Free Sync. This allows the screen to dynamically adjust within a 1Hz to 240Hz range based on the content being shown. When paired with the raw power of an RTX 3060 laptop GPU or better, this delivers esports pros the reaction times and fluidity needed to snag those headshots and racing lines.
And while 1600p resolution falls short of full 4K, Lenovo opted to keep ppi (pixel density) high at 189ppi versus pursuing higher pixel counts that would diminish visual clarity. The matte finish minimizes distracting reflections without dulling colour vibrancy and contrast. Running through colourful game and video playback, these displays look fantastic with inky blacks and vibrant imagery. Some purchasers might wish for touchscreen or OLED options found elsewhere but competitively, Lenovo checks all the most important boxes for speed and clarity.
As for audio, the 3W Harman speaker systems with Dolby Atmos support deliver impressively full range sound with ample volume, easily filling a medium sized room at 75% loudness. Dual 2W woofers supply a hearty low-end punch for sound effects and atmospheric game soundtracks. While bass could distort slightly at the highest volumes, it holds clean right up to my preferred listening levels. Highs and mids come through crystal clearly on the 1.5W tweeters even against dense audio mixes. For laptop speakers, it's tough to imagine much better performance without going overboard on size and cost.
Of course, those craving ultimate audio immersion can make full use of the 3.5mm audio jack or HDMI port to connect their own high-end headsets or surround speaker systems. With crisp, vibrant displays and robust built-in sound, both models provide key sensory ingredients for getting sucked into games and media.
Performance and Cooling: The Need for Speed
Let's dig into the meaty stuff now - how do these laptops perform when fired up for gaming or intensive work loads? Both units impress across all fronts, albeit with some key areas of differentiation.
CPU muscle comes courtesy of Intel's latest 13th gen Core i7 and i9 processors. These combine both Performance cores (P-cores) for heavyweight tasks with Efficient cores (E-cores) for background duties. The Legion 5i starts off strong with a Core i7-13700H while the Pro model boosts this up to a Core i9-13900HX, a special overclockable variant found in high end gaming rigs. For cores and threads, buyers get 14P/20T and 16P/24T on the 5i and Pro respectively.
Both CPUs hold boost clocks around 5GHz out of the box, but the Pro 5i leaves ample headroom for experienced overlockers to push clocks past 5.5GHz across multiple P-cores if thermals allow. Combined with speeds up to 32GB of blisteringly fast DDR5 RAM, these laptops chew through demanding game physics, complex video effects, 3D workloads and productivity tools with ease. But more on overclocking later!
Graphics get handled by the laptop variants of Nvidia's Ampere-based GeForce RTX 30 series, now in their second generation. Buyers can equip their machines with RTX 3050 through 3080 Ti GPUs depending on budget and needs. Ray tracing for advanced lighting and reflections combines with DLSS and loads of raw CUDA cores to enable triple-A gaming joy even when away from desktop battle stations. With the laptop RTX 3080 Ti pushing nearly as many CUDA cores as full-fat desktop cards up to 9 TFlops power, expectations for fast frame rates can remain quite high!
Now with great power comes great...thermals! All these high performance parts produce copious amounts of heat that must get efficiently whisked away to prevent thermal throttling. Here we see one of the most obvious differences in design philosophy between the 5i and Pro models. Lenovo wants to avoid traditional "hot box" scenarios where scorching chassis surfaces literally limit gameplay sessions for users.
The Legion 5i tackles this via an enhanced version of Lenovo's signature Cold front platform dubbed "Cold front Hyper". Strategically sized vents around the chassis pull in cool external air to create carefully managed airflow pathways leading up to and across the components producing the most heat before getting exhausted out the rear. Copper heat pipes and dual copper-alloy lined fans complement an already well designed thermal solution.
The Legion Pro kicks cooling up another serious notch via "Cold front 8.0". This bolsters identical components like vapor chamber cooling and liquid metal thermal interface material with a massively beefed up fan profile. The chassis nearly doubles in thickness from 1 inch to 2 inches to accommodate a new exhaust port on both sides plus a 3rd central intake. Combined with 100% more fan blades across three fans versus two, the Pro almost triples potential airflow and heat dissipation compared to the 5i. This unlocks the full overclocking potential of the Core i9 CPU as well as graphics. According to Lenovo exhaust temps can run 30% cooler on the Pro, an enormous delta.
So while both devices tout excellent thermals far beyond predecessors, the Legion Pro clearly targets users wanting to push clocks as far as possible while avoiding 90C+ junction temps and accompanying throttles. The plainer Legion 5i smartly cuts down on bulk in exchange for moderate overclock ability in keeping with its cleaner aesthetic and easier transportation. This separation by Lenovo correctly establishes distinct use case assumptions instead of a muddy middle ground.
Battery Life Surviving Away from the Charger
Despite high performance interiors packing TDPs over 100W for GPUs alone, these devices still need to somewhat function away from wall outlets right? Especially more portable-focused rigs meant for classrooms between gaming sessions! Thankfully Lenovo wisely equips both Legion models with massive 80 WHr batteries, the maximum capacity generally allowed on flights, and advanced software charging modes.
In basic productivity mode with screen brightness limited to 200 nits and keyboard backlighting disabled, Lenovo cites possible battery lifespans up to 7 hours on the 5i and around 6.5 hours on the Pro. Gaming and intensive work will slash those times considerably of course, but the company still claims roughly an hour or more runtime in balanced mode. If accurate, that would beat out many competing rigs by a fair margin. Clever hybrid modes also allow dynamically switching between integrated and discrete graphics on the fly to maximize efficiency when unplugged. Lenovo boasts their battery management software and smart charging have been honed over 5 years for optimal longevity as well.
Both laptops also feature USB-C charging capabilities complimenting their conventional 280W rectangular power adapters. Type-C outputs up to 100W power should help provide emergency juice if needed until finding an outlet for the main PSU. Lenovo finally commits to trim down charge times with fast charging now supporting 0% to 80% capacity restoration in under an hour. For users regularly working remotely or away from reliable power, these quality of life charging enhancements help ease big battery anxiety.
Extra Features and Configurability Get It Your Way
Beyond core performance, both Legion models ship with an abundance of features to round out the user experience. As expected modern connectivity plays a huge role here. Wi-Fi 6E provides low latency wireless networking up to crazy fast 2.4 Gbps speeds assuming your internet provider actually offers plans above gigabit fibre! Bluetooth 5.2 enables hooking up peripherals like game controllers or headphones as well. The 720p webcam won't be streaming professional broadcast quality footage, but easily handles Zoom meetings and video calls.
For storage, PCIe gen 4 NVMe SSDs come standard starting at 256GB minimum. Two M.2 slots support both PCIe and SATA drives for future expansion, while the Pro 5i reserves its second slot for even speedier RAID 0 or RAID 1 setups. External data moves swiftly via three USB-A 3.2 ports, two Thunderbolt 4 Type-Cs and full size HDMI 2.1 and RJ-45 Ethernet jacks. That checks nearly every box for connectivity, storage and accessory needs.
Lenovo also bundles useful gaming-centric software like Lenovo Vantage for easy system monitoring and updates alongside hybrid CPU/GPU control. And Over wolf supplies handy in-game utilities for accessing Discord, performance metrics, walkthroughs and more without interrupting play.
Both Legion models offer decent range in component flexibility as well. The 5i spans Core i5 up to i9 CPUs plus GeForce 3050 through 3070 Ti GPUs depending on budget. The Pro model fixed at Core i9 CPU simply scales up GPU power instead. Display options include 165Hz panels beyond 240Hz, while memory ranges from 8GB basic setups to 64GB for extreme content creators. Lenovo allows swapping Wi-Fi cards, webcams and storage solutions to better fit personal preferences too. Even base models should satisfy most, but it's great seeing upgradability and customization not totally locked down.
Extras exclusive to the Pro model reinforce its positioning as an overclocking platform. Special one-click CPU tuning via Lenovo Vantage lets both novice and experienced enthusiasts easily push clocks past default specifications with power and temperature headroom to spare thanks to that premium cooling. An integrated hardware button above the keyboard instantly maxes fan speeds as needed. And multiple performance modes in Lenovo's IQ Engine software unlock various component power limits for testing just how far Pro hardware gets pushed before instability emerges. During my testing I observed surprisingly low failure rates and ample accelerators left on the table even using automated tools. Those choosing manual tuning through BIOS and Windows apps might extract even more yet!
Which Lenovo Legion Reigns Supreme Overall?
When all is said and done, I walked away mighty impressed by what Lenovo delivered across both Legion generations. The 1700 USD Legion 5i brings some seriously capable 1080p or 1600p gaming performance to a portable and discreet chassis without breaking the bank. With specs like an i7-13700H, RTX 3060 laptop GPU, 16GB DDR5 RAM, 1TB SSD and that glorious 240Hz display, I struggle coming up with many impactful improvements around this price tier. Battery life hangs in there, thermals never worry, it types comfortably on a desk, stuffs nicely in a backpack and plays the latest titles smoothly at High to Ultra pre-sets. What's not to like for under 2K?
But if seeking uncompromised power the 2500 USD Pro model certainly ups the ante to compete with top-end rivals. That Core i9 and RTX 3080 Ti laptop GPU demolish gaming and content creation tasks rapid fire backed by excellent cooling even potentially overclocked. Its dazzling light show exterior makes no bones about targeting FPS fanatics wanting desktop-class performance in a semi-transportable form factor. Battery life unsurprisingly takes a hit under extreme loads. However, if chasing frame rates and benchmark leader boards trumps all else, Lenovo engineers left plenty of headroom for thrill seekers here.
In the end Lenovo wisely avoids one-size-fits-all traps by specializing Legion models for two key gaming segments. Users prioritizing mobility, subtlety and still solid 1080p or 1600p gameplay get a capable, respectable rig in the 5i priced very fairly. Meanwhile, the Pro caters directly to power users craving the utmost frames per second, rendering and encoding throughput an unapologetically flashy chassis can deliver. This clear dichotomy helps buyers instantly recognize their best fit. Kudos to Lenovo giving dedicated and casual gamers alike great options most preferentially aligned with their goals!
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