Lenovo Legion Pro 5i review (gen 8 – Core i9, RTX 4070)

33 Comments

  1. NikoB

    May 11, 2023 at 11:15 am

    1488:1? How is this possible against the background of Lenovo's declarations of 1200:1 and for the panel 165Hz and 240Hz, both with the same viewing angles 178/178?

    This does not correlate at all with the review of the model with the i7+4060+165Hz panel on NB, where the shameful only 1068:1 was intended.

    It turns out some kind of absurdity – if Lenovo really has such a spread in batches in practice.

    As in the case of the quality of the speakers – in one review, NB indicates (based on frequency response measurements) that up to 90% of laptops in this class were worse, and in another of the same model, but with AMD (or vice versa), that 90% were better. And so from year to year. Compare with Asus in terms of the quality of the speakers – the stability is much higher there, and the quality of the speakers and sound is usually always high, despite the fact that Asus has begun to freebie with the installation of advanced audio systems in recent years, as it was before. Check out the new 17-18" – there's plenty of room for an extra 4 speakers.

    Quality control at Lenovo factories is simply disgusting. Both screens and speakers. And you can suspect the rest of the filling. Which greatly underestimates the meaning of the reviews – the numbers in them do not mean anything if such a spread of real characteristics. And this is not the first time I have asked this question.

    • N. B.

      May 11, 2023 at 12:43 pm

      I think you made a mistake on the SSD: 512TB ???
      I meant 512GB

      • N. B.

        May 11, 2023 at 12:44 pm

        *you meant

      • Derek Sullivan

        May 11, 2023 at 12:50 pm

        fixed, thanks

    • Derek Sullivan

      May 11, 2023 at 1:00 pm

      So 1488:1 is measured and the 1200:1 is the factory specification. Contrast ratio varies with brightness and can measure differently from panel to panel as well as from instrument to instrument. I have no idea what instrument Lenovo's panel maker uses nor do I know what their testing conditions are – I just measure in the same consistent way I know how with the instrument I have. The numbers I get are what I measure.

      As for the differences between my measurements and NBC, they are different panels. I don't know why you would think they should be the same because one is made by AUO and the other BOE.

      • NikoB

        May 17, 2023 at 9:35 am

        Both you and NB must have a calibrated (tolerance checked) sensor in order to take measurements. And such a difference in results can in no way be a measurement error if all testers approach their duties in good faith.

        Lenovo claims a minimum of 1200:1 (although given their cunning approach to specifications, these numbers can be interpreted as "typical", i.e. nothing is guaranteed to the buyer at all, but then these numbers are empty words in psref). But on NB measurements, the result is much worse and this is not the first time.

        Luminance dependency is the second problem that is not measured on NB, this site, or most of the reviews on the net (although this takes quite a bit of time). But I have seen reviews on YouTube where testers measure contrast at 5-10 brightness levels. And again, in these reviews on the Legion series, very bad trends are seen from year to year – a sharp drop in panel contrast at lower than peak brightness (which no one ever really works with) with a decrease in brightness compared to 2021 panels. The difference reaches 2 times or more.

        As a consumer, I absolutely do not like Lenovo's approach to quality control of copies and batches leaving the factories. Obviously, such a scatter in contrast is unacceptable. In the case of 1068:1, this is generally beyond their own specifications – how did such a batch even pass the quality control at the factory and be released for sale? If the measurements are correct.

        The sorting of input batches of panels for assembly of the Legion series (as well as others) should be more thorough.

        Everything has long been known about the quality of Lenovo's speakers from the forums. In the same Legion 7, there are constant problems with a spontaneous drop in the volume level of one speaker or disconnection. This again indicates either an incorrect architectural solution or a defect that should not have passed quality control from the factory.

        —-
        I have been raising this topic of quality control for a long time in the comments and on the forums.

        People pay money for specifications and for consistent quality in batches, and not for a lottery with copies of the goods.

        The purpose of (professional) reviews is not only to identify problems in batches, but also to reveal hidden problems of the series (and batches) that are not reflected in the specifications.

        Otherwise, the review is meaningless in fact from the point of view of choosing a model. What difference does it make how much the tester intended for a particular instance, if all the same, when buying, you need to literally take full measurements yourself for each instance in order to receive a product of a given quality? And this is possible only in offline sales, and not with remote purchase in most countries of the world.

  2. Edgar

    May 11, 2023 at 2:40 pm

    We want Zephyrus g14 test 😪

    • Can't wait !

      May 15, 2023 at 7:09 pm

      We do !

  3. Aurelio

    May 16, 2023 at 9:34 am

    Hey, Derek,
    absolutely loved the review! Thank you so much for making it.
    This is exactly the model and specs I would personally buy (expect for the GPU, I don't need that much power). Hopefully, come November I'll be able to buy one. Insane prices you got! Maybe you can share which "Deal site" was able to give you that deal?

    For a long time I've been meaning to ask you and Andrei if you could do something about the Cinebench Graphs…

    I, like millions of people around the world, have Dalton's Disease (Colorblindness, which is a bad name – terribly inaccurate).

    Confusion colors for red–green color blindness include:
    Cyan and Grey
    Rose-Pink and Grey
    Blue and Purple
    Yellow and Neon Green
    Red, Green, Orange, Brown

    That last one (Red, Green, Orange, Brown) is specially terrible and makes it almost impossible for us to identify which line is which laptop – because all lines of those colors look almost identical to us on those Graphs.

    If you could incorporate more of those geometric symbols into those lines, instead of relying just on color (specially "those" ones), it would be a tremendous help for us (if possible and not too much trouble).

    Thank you again and sorry for the long explanation. :-)

  4. Jay R Perry

    May 19, 2023 at 4:35 pm

    Just picked up a Best Buy model with i7-13700HX + 4070 + 165hz HDR.. This is one of the quietest gaming laptops i've ever used.. You can use a 3rd party "Legion Toolkit" app to replace Vantage and control the fans a bit better and it's super lightweight. If you can pick up this machine around $300 off or more it's a good deal, not sure i'd pay the full MSRP for it though.

  5. Eirik

    May 23, 2023 at 10:35 pm

    Will this laptop work with 64gb memory (2x32gb)?

    • Derek Sullivan

      May 24, 2023 at 2:00 am

      Yes, should be fine

      • ziad

        November 1, 2023 at 9:08 pm

        hello sir , i have the legion 5i pro gen8 with i9 13900hx and 4070 gpu can i upgrade the ram to 64 ddr5 5600 ( it s already installed 2x8gb ddr5 5600) , thank you

      • Derek Sullivan

        November 2, 2023 at 1:02 am

        Yes, that upgrade should be fine

  6. neotexh

    June 2, 2023 at 11:07 am

    Hey man, is there any plan to review the legion pro 5 ryzen 7 7745hx version?

  7. matthew

    June 4, 2023 at 7:00 am

    Hey ANDREI,do u have a plan to review 2023 model of lenovo legion slim 7i and yoga pro 9i?

  8. alex

    June 4, 2023 at 7:51 am

    great review. but how the hell they throw off thunderbolt port that was stay for decade in legion pro series LOL. and it seems one of the backwards step on this year models.

  9. Sami Mosadegh

    June 7, 2023 at 12:22 am

    Hey Derek,

    Thanks for the review and the details, it is much appreciated.

    I am based in the UK and I am considering buy this laptop but the i7-13700HX, my primary use will be photo editing and some video, I am not a gamer. Hence the screen and colour accuracy is very important.

    I wanted to ask how would rate this for the work that I will be doing, using Photoshop, Lightroom and similar photo editing software. My main concern is that it is not 100% sRGB.

    I appreciate your thoughts.

    Thanks
    Sami

    P.S link to the specs I am looking at the Part Number: 82WK00BGUK

    https://www.lenovo.com/gb/en/p/laptops/legion-laptops/legion-5-series/legion-pro-5i-gen-8-(16-inch-intel)/len101g0024

    • Derek Sullivan

      June 7, 2023 at 12:35 am

      Looks like it should be fine for what you want to use it for. That's pretty much what my wife uses it for now. It's the same screen as the one I had so I'm not sure what you mean by not being 100% sRGB. Did you mean DCI-P3?

      As far as color accuracy goes, the panel is great. The highest Delta E I recorded was .08 for color and .71 for greyscale. That's pretty darned good and should be just fine for Photoshop. The catch is you're dealing with only the sRGB color space, but that's usually good enough for most people. I honestly don't know why anyone would "need" 100% DCI-P3 other than the fact it looks a little nicer. Most content isn't that sensitive, but maybe that's just me.

      • Sami Mosadegh

        June 7, 2023 at 12:53 am

        Thanks for the prompt response and the re-assurance.

        I am being too specific as you mention in the review that it is 98.8% sRGB.

        As you say 100% DCI-P3 is not needed, unless printing which is a different ball game, and colour re-calibration would be needed.

        My camera setting is sRGB as well.

        Thanks for the advice.

      • Adam

        November 9, 2023 at 4:55 pm

        Do you know some tweaks in apps or Windows settigs that make this Legion completely silent (all fans 0 rpm) during light web browsing, simple text editing, yt watching? For lets say 20 minutes or longer. CPU underclocking? Discrete GPU deactivation? Power brick unplugging?

      • Derek Sullivan

        November 12, 2023 at 4:52 pm

        Unplugging is probably the best bet since it limits the CPU to 36W. Any plugged in state on the i9 is a minimum of 55W. So any task drawing that kind of wattage, even for short periods, will trigger the fans eventually.

        GPU deactivation shouldn't help but make sure you're on Optimus and are using the integrated GPU. I haven't tried undervolting on this model either. It looks like others have successfully undervolted the Lenovo 7i of 2023 so perhaps this would work as well. They all used Throttlestop from what I can see. I used to try this on every model I received but have had terrible success the past several years, so I stopped.

  10. Vic Yanovich

    June 26, 2023 at 2:09 am

    I tried to buy one of those, straight from Lenovo's online store, also with 4070 GPU. Once it arrived and I finished setting up Win11 – I immediately noticed the high frequency pitch of the fans. Which became very annoying after a few minutes, even when just browsing internets at "Balanced" mode, using "Hybrid" mode for GPU (for lowest amount of heat). I also have previous gen Lenovo Legion 5 Pro at home, with 3070 GPU (not "ti", just a plain 3070 140w version), and the fans on it do not have any annoying high frequency tones to it, at any fan speeds, no matter what I do. Maybe the new model I got from Lenovo was defective, or maybe it's the result of new fan design (according to Lenovo the fan design was changed in 2023 models), but it was kinda disappointing to experience this noise because it's a pretty good laptop other than that. Lenovo was pretty good at issuing the refund, though. I guess I should give it another try by buying same model at BestBuy or other local store so I could return it faster if it will also have same fan sound…

    • Wolfgang

      August 9, 2023 at 10:19 am

      Did you buy another unit? High pitched fan noise is also my biggest worry. All in all cooling does not look very promising on the Legion Pro 5. The fans look very shallow (not even 10mm in height??) and although the heatpipes are relatively thick, there are only very few of them. The 20% performance penalty between Balanced and Performance is not so great. With a slightly thicker chassis and fans/heatpipes you would lose less performance. Some competitors feature 3 fans or more. Lenovo has to catch up with the competition.

  11. Alejandro

    August 16, 2023 at 6:33 am

    Hi, do these fans completely stop (0 rpm) under no load? Just like it happened on old legion 5

    • Derek Sullivan

      August 17, 2023 at 10:25 pm

      Yes, I just double checked to be sure. They completely stop while idle.

  12. Crispin Wallace

    August 29, 2023 at 8:03 pm

    Hi Derek,

    thank you for your review!

    does your unit also have the high-pitched fan sound like the one on Vic Yanovich? A good audio sampe of what I mean is here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YhNh38l_fTkgwdMjzDJ9izQVjVciLAFa/view
    This audio file was uploaded by a Legion 5 owner. On this you can clearly hear the high-pitched noise.

    Do the fans on your Legion sound somewhat similar?

    Thanks in advance and keep up the good work!

    • Derek Sullivan

      August 30, 2023 at 1:00 pm

      I wouldn't call it high pitched, per se. But it's a typical fan noise if you ask me. Nothing unusual about it for a laptop of this size. When it's at full load, you're going to hear it and it can be irritating depending on your tolerance level to higher pitched noises.

      To me, the thinnest laptops usually have the higher pitched fan noises but my unit doesn't have that issue.

      • Crispin Wallace

        September 3, 2023 at 11:35 am

        Thank you for your quick reply, Derek!

        "Nothing unusual about it for a laptop of this size…the thinnest laptops usually have the higher pitched fan noises"

        Exactly this! That is my gripe with very thin laptops. While the Legion Pro 5 is not among the thinnest, its fans look quite flat (under 10mm?). My old Clevo had 15mm fan height. This resulted in a rather low-pitched fan noise which was very tolerable as long as it did not get too loud. But nowadays you don't find laptops with 15mm fans.

        I am torn between the Legion Pro 5 and the Alienware m16. The m16 has clearly better cooling but I am unsure if it will sit stable on my laptop stand without falling over backwards because of its much longer depth. I appreciate it a lot that Dell commited to better cooling and I don't mind the heavy weight. I love to see more machines with 3 or even 4 fans. For quieter noise levels under load 2 fans may not be enough and we need more airflow with bigger or more fans. On the other hand I read some complaints on reddit about the m16 and m18 about high-pitched fans. Good to hear, that this is not an issue on your unit.

    • victor

      May 22, 2024 at 4:00 am

      Crispin did you end up with the Legion or AW M16 R1? Im debating trading in my 2023 Legion 5 slim 14 inc oled I bought a few weeks ago for a 2024 Legion 5 slim 16 inch with a 4070. The 14 inch Legion 5 Slim has really great performance and is near quiet in quiet mode but the 16 gigs of soldered ram will be really limiting in years to come. If there were still M16 R1's available with the 4080 or 4070 Intel I would get that route in a heart beat if the price was right. Laptop on paper has some of the best quiet mode spec's I've ever seen. I haven't heard much about the AMD M16's quiet mode performance with the Alienware M16 which is all that's available for a reasonable price at this point.

  13. Mitsuyoshi Naruki

    September 21, 2023 at 11:44 pm

    Hi Derek.
    Thanks for your review.
    I'm using Legion 5, RTX 3050 and I think it sometimes heated when I'm working only with Word.
    I want to know what problem is this, and could you tell me the price now?
    It's still $1050???

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