Saturday’s gadget Lenovo Legion 5i: a laptop to play with AI

When it comes to gaming laptops, Lenovo is one of the leaders in several areas. If we add to that the arrival of artificial intelligence, a very interesting design, good battery, excellent screen and more details, the result is a very effective device: the Lenovo Legion 5i with the surname 16irx9.

It is a very elegant device for a gaming laptop, which does not mean serious, rather almost aerodynamic: on the front there is a slight difference that makes the middle section, where we open it, follow the profile of the lower edge, while the sides do not reach there. Elegance also lies in a decision not to install lighting on the chassis: only the status LED surrounding the power button lights up in four colors which depend on the energy profile being used.

In terms of quality, the chassis has a high-end feel, although only the lid is made of aluminum. The base unit is made entirely of plastic, but the top is still very nice. An advantage that the chassis has is that attracts little dirt and fingerprint marks. Its stability is good overall, but this is not a surprise due to the thickness of the base unit (maximum 2 cm at the rear). The screen hinges are well placed and allow the laptop to be opened with one hand; Its maximum opening angle is 180 degrees.

It is not a lightweight device: 2.4 kg to which an additional 869 grams must be added for the 230 watt power supply. But its 16-inch screen and specifications give reason for this weight. To this we must add the availability of six ports, including the charging port, and a 3.5 mm port for headphones, very useful considering that the speakers are just right in terms of volume.

Lenovo has equipped the Legion with Intel’s AX211 WLAN module which, in addition to Bluetooth 5.3, also incorporates the current Wi-Fi-6E standard for 6 GHz networks. This, together with a 240 Hz screen, makes it the latency is very, very low. Additionally, the laptop has a Gigabit-Ethernet port for wired connections.

The 1080p webcam does its job, but there’s not much else to mention: it’s not a laptop for work or meetings, mind you: there’s a switch on the right side that disables the webcam.

The touch panel (mousepad) is located slightly to the left and its size (12 x 7.5 cm) is perfect for normal operation of the pointer, which also works perfectly. The bottom of the panel can be pressed down, producing a slightly louder sound than normal. While playing, most users They’ll reach for a gamepad or mouse anyway. These can be attached to both sides of the device.

Thanks to the high brightness of the screen and the matte surface, the Legion 5i It can be used very well outdoors or in bright environments. The viewing angle stability of the IPS is good.

Regarding the brain, it incorporates the Core i7-14650HX, the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 graphics card and its own AI chip, the LA1 AI Engine+which can be activated in conjunction with balanced mode. Its goal is to automatically recognize games and optimize laptop performance, which can cause increased temperature and fan noise.

All this contributes to very interesting performance in relation to games, although it must be taken into account that specific configurations cause high battery consumption: five hours maximum of constant play.

In this section, the two fans of the Legion 5i They have a lot of work and, if we do not use silent mode, they tend to spin during simple tasks. Therefore, depending on the game, it may make sense to check the performance in silent mode, as its 35 dB(A) is much more comfortable.

On the contrary, practically no type of heating is perceived, even at times of greatest demand. All this shows that Lenovo has focused on the most important features, offering fast components when playing.

Verdict: This is a €1700 laptop with a careful and specific gamer design. The use of artificial intelligence is still somewhat green, but that can be resolved with updates. And if Lenovo is working on them, it is one of the laptops of the moment. For gamers.