I've covered Lenovo’s Legion 5 gaming laptops plenty of times on the channel,
but this is the first time I’ve had the 5i.
Presumably the “i” stands for Intel as this is an Intel based model, but that’s not all,
this is also my first time with a 17” Legion, so let’s find out all about it in this review.
My 5i has a 6 core Intel i5-11400H processor, though it’s also powered by up to Intel core i7
11th gen processors with 8 cores too, along with Nvidia RTX 3060 graphics,
16 gigs of memory in dual channel, and a 17.3” 1080p 144Hz screen.
You can customize the specs of this laptop quite a bit using those links in the description.
Build quality feels decent considering it’s all plastic exterior, mine has
the phantom blue finish and there aren’t any sharp corners or edges.
The laptop alone weighs about 3.1kg or 6.8lb,
then over 4kg or 8.8lb with the 230 watt power brick and cables, so approaching the heavier side,
and this is despite my 5i having a smaller power brick compared to my AMD model’s 300W brick.
The 5i feels fairly large, yeah I know it’s a 17” machine, but it’s not exactly slim or anything.
My 5i has a 17.3” 1080p 144Hz screen. The color gamut is fine for a gaming laptop,
contrast is above average, but unfortunately unlike the smaller 15” model, the 17” version
does not have G-Sync support. Screen brightness was reasonable, above 300 nits at full brightness,
but it dipped fairly quickly at lower levels and could be quite dim.
The Lenovo Vantage software, the control panel for the laptop,
lets you enable or disable optimus, aka hybrid mode, so the 5i does have a MUX switch,
but at this time there’s no advanced optimus like the smaller 15” model.
We’re looking at about an 8.7ms average grey-to-grey response
time. There’s a link in the description if you need an explanation on these numbers.
It’s not terribly slow or anything when compared to others, but it’s
also not amazing as it’s beaten by a number of other 144Hz gaming laptops that I’ve tested.
The screen contributes to the total system latency being a bit slower too compared to other laptops.
This is the total amount of time between a mouse click and a gunshot fired on the screen in CS:GO.
There was some backlight bleed in my unit, but not enough for me to
ever notice while using it normally, though this will vary between laptops.
There’s a 720p camera above the screen in the middle, but there’s no IR for
Windows Hello face unlock. There’s also a physically sliding privacy shutter as well.
This is what the camera and microphone look and sound like and this is what it sounds like while
typing on the keyboard, so the screen isn’t moving too much but there is a little bit of wobble.
My keyboard just has white backlighting, but there’s also an RGB option too. Brightness can
be adjusted between two levels with the function plus space shortcut,
and all keys and secondary functions get lit up.
I liked the key presses, typing felt about the same as my Legion 5 which I liked too.
Something I did notice though was the keyboard just feels far away in this larger 17” model,
the wrist rest area is huge and often I would mispress the key I was after
because it was just further away than I’m used to.
My partner thought the numpad was too cramped and narrow to really add value,
there’s quite a bit of space on the left and right sides of the keyboard so
not sure why it couldn’t be bigger given they still fit it on the smaller 15”.
The power button is separate from the keyboard, and it lights up based on
the current performance mode of the laptop, which can be changed with the function plus Q shortcut.
The precision touchpad itself worked fine and wasn’t loose,
though I suppose with so much available space it could have been a bit larger,
and like the keyboard, it felt a bit further back than I’m used to.
On the left there’s an air exhaust vent, Type-C Thunderbolt 4 port, and a 3.5mm audio combo jack.
The right has an SD card slot, something the smaller 15” Legion’s don’t have room for,
a USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A port, and there’s an air exhaust vent on this side too.
The rest is on the back between two air exhausts at the corners.
From left to right there’s a gigabit ethernet port, second Type-C thunderbolt 4 port, Three
more USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A ports for 4 in total, a HDMI 2.1 output and the power input on the right.
There are also some icons above the ports so you can kind of see where
you’re plugging into without turning the machine around while you’re in front of it,
though they don’t light up like in the more expensive Legion 7.
There is Type-C charging, but it’s only supported by the port on the back and not
the port on the left, but both of those Type-C ports offer DisplayPort 1.4 output, and both
of those Type-C ports along with the HDMI port connect directly to the Nvidia RTX 3060 graphics
There’s nothing really on the front, though the middle sticks out a bit to make it easier to
get your finger in to open the lid. I found opening the lid easy if you do it quickly,
otherwise the hinge seems fairly stiff and a slower open would require another hand to
hold down the base. This may be required so the screen doesn’t flop around like the HP Victus,
the lid feels fairly rigid with not a whole lot of flex. There’s flex to the keyboard
area, but I never noticed it during regular use and just typing normally.
Getting inside requires removing 10 Phillips head screws,
and the 4 down the front are shorter than the rest so make sure you put them back in the right spot.
I had a hard time opening it up, even with the tools linked in the description below,
you’ve really got to be careful near the air vents so you don’t snap the plastic.
While the bottom panel is mostly air ventilation towards the back, only the circular cutouts
directly above the fans get unobstructed air, the rest is a finer dust filter.
Inside we’ve got the battery down the front and some metal coverings over the other upgradeable
components. With these removed we can access the two M.2 storage slots, two memory slots,
and the Wi-Fi 6 card on the right. It kind of feels like there’s wasted space here,
the smaller 15” model was more compact so I feel like they could have added more cooling near
the left fan, a third M.2 slot, or even a larger battery if they really wanted.
The Wi-Fi performance was around the middle of the results, but on the lower side for Intel
based Wi-FI, though it’s still ahead of the Realtek card that came in my 15” AMD Legion 5.
Unfortunately, just like the AMD version, the 5i is shipped with slower x16 memory,
which is apparently just a result of global supply shortages,
so let’s see what changing to some basic x8 sticks can do.
In Shadow of the Tomb Raider we’re able to boost average FPS by about 10%,
quite an impressive gain for such a simple change. The upgraded Legion 5i
is now right in line with the higher tier and more expensive Legion 5 Pro with RTX 3070 graphics,
though the 5 Pro also has slower x16 memory too by default, so that could
also be further boosted with a memory change. Regardless, it’s quite a decent improvement,
and goes to show that Intel laptops benefit from better RAM too, it’s not just AMD machines.
The two speakers are found underneath on the left and right sides towards the front.
I thought they sounded better compared to the 15” model,
there’s some bass and they still sound clear at higher volume. The latencymon results
were a bit higher compared to others I’ve tested lately, but still not bad.
The 17” Legion 5i still has a 4-cell 80Wh battery like the smaller 15” models. Unfortunately Intel
laptops just don’t seem to last as long in this battery test compared to their Ryzen counterparts.
We can see the Legion 5 but with Ryzen 7 5800H was lasting 75% longer than the 5i.
I cancelled the game test with 7% charge left as frame rate dipped down to 19 FPS.
You can also enable conservation mode through the Vantage software to limit
the battery charge level between 55 and 60% to help improve longevity,
but you can’t use this option at the same time as fast charge.
Let’s check out thermals next. There’s one heat pipe shared between CPU and GPU
with a couple of fans that exhaust out of the left, right and rear.
The Lenovo Vantage software lets us change between different performance modes,
which from lowest to highest are quiet, balance and performance. Balance mode also has an option
that only works in supported games which attempts to optimize performance automatically to give
the best result. Unfortunately there is no fan control possible without third party software.
The internals were very cool when just sitting there idle,
though as you’ll soon hear the fans are still active.
I’ve run stress tests with both the CPU and GPU loaded up to represent a worst case,
as well as playing an actual game, with the CPU shown by the blue bars and GPU in the green bars.
Worst case we’re seeing 82 degrees Celsius, an excellent result for an Intel laptop,
though I mostly test 8 core options and 6 cores don’t need as much to fully power. Quiet mode
was the coolest, balance mode was a little warmer, then performance mode warmer still,
and using the cooling pad, the one I test with is linked in the video description,
could lower the temperatures further.
These are the clock speeds during these same tests. The 6 core Intel i5-11400H processor
has a 4.1GHz all core turbo boost speed, so basically we’re pretty much hitting this
in balance and performance modes. The GPU speeds increase in performance mode though,
so we’d expect this to help out more in games compared to balance mode.
We can see the RTX 3060 graphics running up to 115 watts with both the CPU and GPU active,
though if the processor was idle the 3060 is able to boost up to 130 watts in a best case
scenario with Nvidia’s dynamic boost. The GPU otherwise seems to be limited to 80 watts in
quiet and balance modes, while quiet mode caps the CPU to 25 watts. The CPU is around 45 watts
in balance and performance modes, but as we’ve seen in the clock speeds, we’re hitting full
all core turbo boost in these heavy workloads anyway, so more power isn’t going to do anything.
Here’s how a game actually performs with the different performance modes. Performance mode was
doing the best as expected, and I wasn’t seeing the game detection option with balance mode to
make a difference despite this being one of the supported games. Quiet mode wasn’t too bad here,
but expect worse results in CPU heavy games due to the 25 watt TDP cap in this mode.
Here’s how CPU only performance looks in Cinebench R23,
so the GPU is now idle. Again higher modes equals higher performance.
When compared to other laptops, both the single and multicore scores are right in line with the
Acer Nitro 5 with the same i5-11400H processor just one spot ahead of it,
and both were ahead of a number of 6 core Ryzen 5 5600H options.
The 5i moves down a few positions relative to the same selection of
laptops when instead running this test on battery power. For the most part,
I’ve found Ryzen based laptops to do better in this test. The 5600H Nitro 5 for example
is now further ahead in the multicore test. I also need to note that balance mode was used
on battery power for the 5i, because the higher performance mode is only available on wall power.
At idle it was quite cool, most gaming laptops are around 30 degrees Celsius but the 5i was
below this. With the stress tests running it’s around the mid 30s in the center, so still not
bad at all. In balanced mode it’s much the same, just a bit warm but nowhere near hot, and that hot
spot near the arrow keys was hardly even warm. In the highest performance mode it’s similar despite
higher power limits, but the fan speed increases to compensate for this, let’s have a listen.
The fan was still audible when doing nothing in quiet mode, then it gets progressively louder in
the higher performance modes as expected. I didn’t think it was particularly loud,
but I wish Lenovo would bring back fan speed control. I did all testing with defaults though,
enabling ultra quiet mode in the BIOS might help lower idle fan noise.
Now let’s find out how well Lenovo’s Legion 5i gaming laptop compares against others in games.
All testing has been done in performance mode for best
results with optimus disabled and I’ve also tested with the stock x16 memory,
as I feel this best represents how most of you would actually buy the laptop.
Cyberpunk 2077 was tested the same on all laptops, and I’ve got the 5i highlighted in red.
The results are quite good here for an RTX 3060 gaming laptop, within margin of error behind
the 3060 in the AMD version just above it, though the Intel system has a bigger increase to 1% low.
Most of the other 3060 laptops tested were otherwise lower, which I suppose is expected
as the Legion series are the only ones I’ve tested so far with GPU power limits this high.
Red Dead Redemption 2 was tested with the game’s benchmark, and this time the Legion
5i was doing better than the other laptops with RTX 3060 graphics. This wasn’t too surprising,
as when I’ve previously compared Intel and AMD gaming laptops,
Intel was generally ahead, plus that higher GPU power limit would definitely be helping,
granted the Ryzen based Legion 5 with same GPU power limits was still behind.
Control was tested running through the same part of the game on all laptops, and the 5i was doing
very well here. Again it’s the best result from an RTX 3060 laptop that I’ve recorded so far,
and is beating the RTX 3070 in the HP Omen 15 just below it,
though that one does have a lower 100 watt power limit. The Ryzen version of
the Legion 5 with more CPU cores was just below that, and given both were tested with
the same x16 memory I can only assume we’re seeing Intel’s advantage in games here.
I have also tested the 5i in like 14 different games like Apex Legends and Fortnite so check
that video out after this one if you want to get a better understanding of how well it runs in games.
Here are the 3DMark results for those that find them useful, now for some creator tests.
Adobe Premiere was tested with the Puget Systems benchmark, and the 5i was in line with a number
of other RTX 3060 laptops tested with margin of error differences between many of them.
Adobe Photoshop depends more on CPU performance, and although I’ve found this test to generally
do better with Intel 11th gen processors, the i5 was one of the lower results here,
but this is because it’s being held back by the x16 memory.
DaVinci resolve is more GPU heavy, so the 5i moves up a few positions now. Despite
having a full powered 3060, there are a number of other 3060 laptops ahead of it.
We can’t even really blame the core count either as there’s another 6 core
laptop with lower wattage GPU ahead of it, the Acer Nitro 5.
I’ve also tested SPECviewperf which tests out various professional 3D workloads.
The 512gb NVMe M.2 SSD was alright, but slower on the writes compared to the reads.
This slot has 4 lanes of PCIe Gen 4, so you could definitely upgrade to faster storage,
as that’s supported with Intel 11th gen. There were reasonable speeds from the SD card slot,
but the card sticks out quite a bit when inserted into the machine, so don’t bump it.
The BIOS was similar to others from Lenovo, with some useful options
that aren’t really present from other companies. We can enable things like
power on the laptop when the lid is opened, enable ultra quiet mode, enable GPU overclocking
or enable or disable hybrid mode, and it has TPM 2.0 support for Windows 11.
Linux support was tested by booting an Ubuntu 21 live CD. By default the keyboard, Wi-Fi,
ethernet, speakers and camera worked, but for some reason the touchpad did not,
I had to connect a USB mouse, maybe it needs drivers. Keyboard shortcuts for key brightness
and the function plus Q shortcut to change performance modes still works without software,
however volume adjustment and screen brightness shortcuts did not work by default.
Let’s discuss pricing and availability next. This will of course change over time as Lenovo
frequently runs sales, so refer to those links in the description below for updates.
At the time of recording, the Legion 5i I’ve tested goes for $1550 USD on the Lenovo
website, granted this specific configuration has half the memory, but you can of course make
all sorts of customizations with those links below. Interestingly you can get double the RAM,
double the SSD space and the higher tier i7-11800H option for $10 less as it’s on sale right now,
so clearly that would be a better deal. Not to mention it actually ships soon,
the spec I’ve tested is listed as 4+ months away, ouch.
So is the Lenovo Legion 5i gaming laptop actually worth considering?
Let’s recap both the good and the bad to help you decide.
As the 5i is based on Intel’s 11th gen it means we get both Thunderbolt 4 and
faster PCIe Gen 4 storage, though the SSD that came installed in my
unit doesn’t actually appear to be taking advantage of that, and in general I have
found Intel based laptops to beat AMD’s Ryzen in both gaming and content creator workloads.
The x16 memory still holds back the Intel based 5i model though,
but that said it was still pumping out some of the best results out of any 3060 machine I’ve tested.
Battery life on the Ryzen Legion 5 was better than Intel, but the Intel model has a better
Intel Wi-Fi card which results in better speeds, but that’s a simple $20 or so upgrade.
At the end of the day, I don’t think it matters too much if you go Ryzen or
Intel based Legion 5. The bigger difference to me was the 17” screen versus the 15” screen.
It feels like all you’re getting with the larger 17” model is the SD card slot on the right hand
side and of course that larger screen. That’s pretty much it. I mean the 17” screen is fine,
but I think the 15” one is better as it’s got a faster response time and you get G-Sync.
It feels like there’s wasted space inside, surely as part of the larger 17” chassis we
could have a larger battery, 3rd M.2 slot or more cooling, granted this i5 model was
more than cool enough even maxed out, but higher specced configurations could benefit.
The keyboard and touchpad both felt like they were just a bit too far back for me
and of course the laptop as a whole is larger and heavier. Basically I think
there are just too many drawbacks that come from it having that 17” screen.
Maybe 17 inch laptops just aren’t for me, but I think it’s just more of a case that this isn’t
a great implementation of a 17” design. I think they could have done better. If the
bigger screen is important to you and you can overlook those concerns then there’s nothing
else overly negative to complain about and the Legion 5i is worth considering.
Check out this video next to find out if you should spend more money to get the
higher tier i7 over the i5 processor, or this one to find out if you should spend
more money on RTX 3070 graphics compared to the 3060 tested here. Make sure you’re
subscribed for future gaming laptop reviews like this one, and come and join me and the
community in Discord and get behind the scenes videos by supporting the channel on Patreon.