Lenovo Legion Pro 5i (Gen 9 | 2024) Laptop Review

Lenovo’s Legion Pro 7i was our Best Laptop for over a year. The Lenovo Legion Pro 5i is its second-tier model which doesn’t quite have as much bling (or drip, depending on your generation), or bells and whistles, but it also has a more work-friendly appearance despite being a gaming laptop. We’ve been hugely impressed by its predecessors but how does the Gen 9 version compare? Has it kept up with the times?

Related: Lenovo Legion Pro 7i Review (Gen 10 | 2025)

Lenovo Legion Pro 5i (Gen 9) Specs

Features, Ergonomics and Design

The ‘Onyx Grey’ Gen 9 Legion Pro 5i looks identical to the Gen 8 model with its grey chassis, strong geometric lines and Legion moniker on the lid. It can fit into an office but eyebrows may be raised by the logo. Nonetheless, it’s a sleeper laptop that doesn’t scream gaming laptop and this will suit many buyers.

Opening it up reveals the 16-inch IPS screen. The high, 2,560 x 1,600 is very bright (500-nits) and displays a crisp and clear Windows Desktop and colours are vibrant. Colour transitions are very smooth but monochromatic equivalents can get a bit blocky. Contrast is generally very good with details remaining visible in dark areas and the HDR compatibility making bright objects pop from the screen, but details can get lost in bright areas. Creators will like that it supports 100 per cent to the complex DCI-P3 colour gamut.

The fast 240Hz combines with a fast pixel response time to render fast-moving objects very smoothly. Only the most competitive FPS players might grumble.

I can’t help but be a bit disappointed, though. The previous, Gen 8 Legion Pro 5i used miniLED backlighting on its ‘PureSight’ display and was one of the best we’ve ever seen – like a matte, OLED display. This is a noticeable downgrade.

Below the screen is a very impressive keyboard. The lozenge-shaped keys are low travel and very well weighted. It makes for very comfortable and accurate typing and gaming. There’s a very good number pad and the arrow keys are full-sized (yay!) It’s also got four configurable RGB zones which make the whole laptop look great. The track pad is smooth and accurate and has well-weighted button actuation.

Above the screen is a very good Full HD webcam which does a good job of fending-off grain in low light. The dual-microphone array is good at knocking-back environmental noise, so it’s good for streaming and web conferences. It doesn’t support Windows Hello facial-recognition log-in though (there’s no fingerprint reader, either).

The speakers still aren’t great which is disappointing for a modern, premium laptop. At a time where even super-thin ultraportables can sounding amazing. Fidelity is OK but there can be distortion when high treble is hit. Volume is also OK, but its not the loudest. The main issue is that there’s an almost total lack of bass. They sound second-rate and that’s disappointing in 2024.

Connectivity and Ports

Inside, there’s Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2. That’s an impressive connectivity complement but it’s starting to feel a little long in the tooth.

Features, Ergonomics and Design Score: 3.3 / 5

Performance

Inside Lenovo’s Gen 9 Legion Pro 5i is an Intel Core i9-14900HX processor that runs between 1.6-5.8GHz across eight Performance cores, 16 Efficient cores and 32 threads. It’s flanked by 32GB of DDR5-5600 RAM and a 1TB hard drive. Graphics come courtesy of Nvidia’s 8GB GeForce RTX 4070 GPU.

In the PCMark 10 benchmark which tests all components of the system at once, the Pro 5i scored 9,068 which is very impressive. (Score 4.7 / 5)

In the Cinebench processor-based rendering tests it scored 4,719 in the rapid R15 test and 26,122 in the longer R23 test. That, too, is impressive. (Score 4.1 / 5)

In the tricky 3Dmark ray-tracing tests, the 5i Pro scored 3,112 in Speed Way (average 31.1fps) and 8,041 (average 37.2fps) in Port Royal. With a bit of judicious resolution and details dropping, it should be able to play some of the tougher games smoothly without losing all of the best visual effects.

In the 3DMark Time Spy and Fire Strike Extreme benchmarks, the Legion managed 13,779 (average 81.4fps) and 14,695 (average 68.5fps). These scores demonstrate that the Legion can play many mainstream, premium games with few issues.

In the easier Night Raid test, the 5i Pro scored 70,235 which is an average of 747.2fps, so there are no problems with casual and competitive games.

I also ran the new Call of Duty Black Ops 6 benchmark. At default settings (native resolution and game-dictated quality settings), the 5i Pro averaged 127fps plus 56fps in the slowest one per cent of the test (1% low score). When dropped to a Full HD resolution with (competitive) Minimum settings, it managed 155fps with a 69fps 1% low score. This means everything should be rendered smoothly, even with eye candy settings ramped-up, somewhat.

I also ran the following UL Procyon benchmarks. They will be folded into our laptop reviews in 2025:

UL Procyon Microsoft Office: 7,765
UL Procyon Microsoft Office Multi-Platform: 272,000
UL Procyon Adobe Photoshop Editing: 7,922
UL Procyon Adobe Premiere Video Editing: 28,045
UL Procyon Ai Vision (CPU): 156
UL Procyon Ai Vision (GPU): 679
3DMark Solar Bay: 62,606
3DMark Steel Nomad: 2,468
3DMark Steel Nomad Light: 11,597

3D Performance Score: 3.5 / 5

Cooling

The Legion Pro 5i rarely gets more than warm and its mostly silent. However, when under load, the fan can ramp up to a moderately robust whoosh.

Portability and Battery Life

Lenovo’s Legion Pro 5i feels very well built and should survive life on the road. The hinge is high quality and solidly lays the screen down flat. The chassis is solid and the screen stands-up against rigorous twisting forces.

It weighs 2.5KG which isn’t light, but normal for a powerful, 16-inch gaming laptop. The wide, 300-Watt power supply and cables add another kilo, though.

The 80Wh battery supports fast charging and ran our PCMark 10 Modern Office benchmark for 8 hours and 2 minutes which is just about a day out of the office. It also ran our UL Procyon Microsoft Office benchmark for 6 hours and 40 minutes. It’s worth noting that this is better than the 5 hours that the min-LED-screen-sporting, Gen 8 managed.

Ultimately, it’s far from the most portable laptop, but it’s not bad for a gaming laptop.

Portability and Battery Life Score: 2 / 5

Price and Availability

The Lenovo Legion Pro 5i is available in multiple, configurable SKUs. Our variant, called the 83DFCTO1WWAU5 costs a not-inconsiderable $4,472. You can drop the price by choosing less RAM and a 4060 GPU, but the current spec still represents above-average value (just). We’d like an option for the PureSight screen though as losing it is a retrograde step. I expect it to drop (potentially considerably) in Lenovo’s regular sales, mind. As we went to press, the Black Friday Sale price did indeed kick in and dropped the price by over $1,700(!) to $2,699. This raises the value proposition considerably.

Value Score: 3.2 / 5

On-sale Value Score: 4.3 / 5

Overall

The Gen 9 Lenovo Legion Pro 5i is a good, high-quality gaming laptop, but it’s not really an improvement on the Gen 8 version which I reviewed a year ago. It’s starting to feel a little long in the tooth and some important components like the screen and speakers are noticeably not top tier which is disappointing for such an expensive laptop. It’s still got much to offer but, at full price, I can’t quite recommend it,

However, while we always base the value score in our laptop reviews on the original, non-sale price for consistency, with Black Friday approaching, we can’t ignore the current sale price. This has dropped in the nick of time and raises the overall score to a whopping 4.7 / 5. Consequently, right now, it’s a Great Value Gaming Laptop.

Overall: 3.8 / 5

Last Updated on June 29, 2025 by Nick Ross