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Lenovo Legion 5i Pro (Gen-7) Gaming Laptop
Today I’m going to review the Lenovo Legion 5i Pro (Gen-7). A gaming laptop that is already in its seventh generation and that comes with one of Intel’s new high-performance Alder Lake processors, the Core i7-12700H, along with an RTX 3060 with a higher power margin than usual (140w) and a screen in 16:10 format with 2K resolution with a 16-inch IPS panel.
It has WiFi 6E, USB-C 3.1, Thunderbolt 4.0 connectivity, and an 80 Wh battery responsible for powering it when it is away from the plug. This specific configuration comes with 16 GB of DDR5 RAM at 4,800 MHz, with a RAID 0 of two SSDs.
Lenovo Legion 5i Pro Specifications
Processor | Intel Core i7-12700H processor (14 cores and 20 threads, 6 P-Cores and 8 E-Cores) |
GPU | Intel Iris Xe 96 Eus + RTX 3060 6 GB and 140W. |
Display | 16″ IPS screen. |
Resolution | 2560 x 1600 in 16:10 format at 165 Hz. |
RAM | 16GB of 4,800MHz DDR5 RAM |
Storage | 2 x 1TB SSD M.2 NVMe 1.4 RAID 0. |
Connectivity | Wi-Fi 6E + Bluetooth 5.2 |
Battery | 80Wh battery. |
Charger | 300W charger. |
Weight | 2.4kg |
Price | $1,729 (with 1TB SSD without RAID 0) |
Pros | Cons |
Good design, with careful aesthetics and maintaining restrained dimensions and weight Impressive how well the Core i7-12700H performs on this computer Both the CPU and the RTX 3060 have no power limitations The extraordinary panel, with a good balance between gaming and design 2K screen in 16:10 format Exceptional keyboard both in touch and actuation as well as in aesthetics Sound more than correct Good cooling system | High temperatures Bulky 300W charger High price The Ethernet stays at 1 Gbps and does not have a card reader Basic webcam Without biometrics |
Image Credit: Lenovo
Design and Connectivity
With a profile ranging from 19mm at its thinnest to 24.05mm at its thickest, the 7th Gen Lenovo Legion 5i Pro isn’t a particularly slim laptop.
It has a metal finish with a gray color that is maintained both on the casing and on the inside. Externally it is quite sober and avoids colored lights or particularly striking designs.
The part where you can guess that you are facing a gaming computer is the back, where two large nozzles let the air out to the dual dissipation system. In the middle, you find part of the physical connectivity of the equipment, with a 1 Gbps Ethernet, a USB-C with Power Delivery, an HDMI, and two USB 3.0, one of them always on for charging, and a flat power connector quite unusual.
On the right side, you simply have a lever to physically turn off the camera and protect privacy, a combo minijack for audio input and output, and another USB-A 3.0.
On the opposite side, the Lenovo Legion 5i Pro gaming laptop shows off two USB-C ports, one of them is USB 3.1, and the second is Thunderbolt 4.0 40 Gbps.
When opening the lid, you will find a 16-inch screen in a 16:10 format that takes advantage of the space in an optimal way since this format allows you to occupy even the lower part and leave a small margin. It hides a small camera in the upper area.
The keyboard is Membrane. But it has good travel and quite large keys. Also noteworthy is the inclusion of a full numeric keypad and a generous trackpad located slightly off-center to the left.
The keyboard lighting is RGB, but instead of having a key-by-key configuration, there are simply four configurable zones, so the color and effects can only be adjusted for each of those zones.
Image Credit: Lenovo
Lenovo Legion 5i Pro Screen
The display screen of the Lenovo Legion 5i Pro (Gen-7) gaming laptop is based on a 16-inch IPS panel in the 16:10 format. Its resolution takes a leap from the typical 1080p and goes up to 2,560 x 1,600 pixels. It offers higher sharpness and reaches the resolution that should be standard today.
In addition, it has a 165 Hz refresh rate and support for NVIDIA G-SYNC technology, although this will only work if you force the use of the RTX 3060 as the main graphics and video output to the panel.
Contrast and brightness
It has a maximum brightness in manual of 412 nits. The panel reaches peaks of 500 nits, but only in HDR mode. In any case, it is a very good brightness level that enhances its visibility even in bright environments.
The minimum brightness of the black color, with the panel set to 100% brightness, is 0.43 nits, which gives you a contrast ratio of about 970:1, which is the typical value of IPS panels.
- Manual white maximum brightness: 412 cd/m².
- Black brightness: 0.43 cd/m².
- Contrast Ratio: 970.4:1
Color coverage
Regarding color coverage, the Lenovo Legion 5i Pro (Gen-7) screen shows 97.4% of the sRGB gamut, 72.6% of Adobe-RGB, and 74.4% of the DCI-P3 gamut. It is not the maximum coverage that I have seen in a laptop, but to be gaming equipment, showing practically 100% of the sRGB is usually more than enough.
Image Credit: Lenovo
Autonomy and Charger
The huge 300W charger is striking, especially since neither the GPU nor the CPU is the most powerful on the market. There are no power limitations on this equipment, and even the RTX 3060 considerably exceeds the standard TGP, showing both CPU and GPU performance above expectations. Therefore, those 300W can be welcome to keep the equipment running at 100W.
You should not forget that at 140W of the RTX 3060 “up,” It has a Core i7-12700H capable of reaching 115W of energy in turbo. Only GPU and CPU to the maximum are already around 255W. If you add the screen and other components, you are not very far from that 300W.
In terms of autonomy, the device achieves about 4 hours and 12 minutes in the PCMark test, with maximum brightness and balanced energy mode with its 80 Wh battery. With a more conservative mode and a brightness of around 100 nits, you can exceed 6 hours with tasks with a little graphic load.
Conclusion
The Lenovo Legion 5i Pro gaming laptop has surprised me with the best performance it achieves. The Intel Core i7-12700H achieves an impressive performance thanks to the absence of power limitations and to use it to the last degree until throttling appears. And the same can be said of the RTX 3060, a GPU that usually consumes about 115 W in its most powerful configurations and that here has 140 W for itself, making it beat some RTX 3070 without problems.
The choice of a 16-inch screen in 16:10 format and its resolution of 2,560 x 1,600 is a success. The 16:10 format makes much more use of space, and the screen has small frames. The keyboard and trackpad are comfortable, and both the keys and the touchpad are a good size.
In any case, there is no doubt that Lenovo has done an excellent job with the design and configuration of this equipment, getting the most out of the components and making the Intel Core i7-12700H and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 shine especially. In this regard, the Lenovo Legion 5i Pro Gen 7 gaming laptop will not lack fans.
