Looking for the best Lenovo gaming laptops? You’ve arrived at the ideal location. We’ve selected models that fit every budget, from luxury to frugal.
The best Lenovo gaming laptops stand out from the competition because of their exceptional price-performance ratio. The Hong Kong-based company has a long history of creating some of the most amazing notebooks in the market, and its gaming lineup certainly lives up to the high standards set by the brand.
When you think about gaming laptops, Lenovo isn’t the first company that springs to mind. Premium 2-in-1s like the Yoga 9i Gen 7 or some of the greatest ThinkPads to have graced the business laptop market come to mind when I think of the word “Lenovo.”
Nonetheless, Lenovo has made some of the greatest contributions to the gaming industry despite having a smaller selection of products because it prioritizes quality over quantity.
To assist you in choosing wisely for your next battle station purchase, Laptop Mag has assembled our list of the greatest gaming laptops from Lenovo’s lineup. These are the top Lenovo gaming laptops for 2024, whether you’re seeking to get your feet wet in the world of PC gaming or want to splash the cash on a powerful gaming machine.
Best Lenovo gaming laptops in 2024:
Using our knowledge, we have investigated and identified the top Lenovo gaming laptops available right now, taking into account features, specs, costs, and any other elements that we felt set them apart from the competition. To help you choose what’s ideal for you, we regularly update our selections and are constantly searching for new releases.
Lenovo Legion Slim 7i 16
Best Lenovo gaming laptop for portability
Pros:
Slim and lightweight
Great display
Solid battery life
Cons:
Expensive
Can run hot
The touchpad is a little small
The Legion series from Lenovo strikes right at the core of laptop PC gaming. The firm has a long history of producing powerful gaming laptops; its Legion brand has been in operation since 2017. The greatest Lenovo gaming laptops are available in this lineup.
With a thickness of just 0.69 inches, the Slim 7i is not particularly portable, despite its name. Its 13th Gen Intel Core processor and Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 graphics card let it pack in a hefty helping of power despite its small form size. A 1TB SSD serves as the storage component.
The Legion Slim 7i comes in two colors: glacier white and stone gray. Unlike many gaming laptops on the market, it is an uncommon example of design restraint, lacking the RGB frippery. The Slim 7i’s internal components are what really make it stand out, even if it might easily be mistaken for an ordinary laptop workhorse.
The 16-inch WQXGA screen of the 7i provides excellent visuals, a snappy 240Hz refresh rate, and a 3ms reaction time for fluid, tear-free gameplay. Support for AMD FreeSync and G-SYNC is provided. Additionally, a 3.2K configuration is offered.
There are two USB-C ports, two USB-A ports, an SD reader, a combo audio microphone jack, and an HDMI 2.1 port for large-screen gaming. Although the two 2w Harman speakers, which are designed for Dolby Atmos, can produce appealing sounds, consumers seeking powerful audio effects would be better off investing in a larger 2.1 or 5.1 audio system. Bluetooth 5.2 is integrated.
It’s amazing that the Legion Slim 7i can fit so much power into such a small and portable device. The overall performance of this laptop will impress even the most ardent gaming laptop enthusiasts.
Lenovo Legion Pro 9i
Digital Trends
With its cutting-edge features, superior specifications, and unique appearance that make it stand out in the competitive gaming laptop market, the Lenovo Legion Pro 9i is a gaming powerhouse. With its top-tier specs, which include an RTX 4090 GPU, a liquid cooling system, and a potent Intel Core i9-13980HX mobile CPU, the laptop defies expectations. That’s right, it has an integrated liquid cooling system to deliver
Developed in collaboration with Cooler Master, the liquid cooling technology is engineered to preserve a thin profile in addition to controlling temperature. The Legion 9i is remarkably small at 0.75 inches thick and 5.51 pounds, making it more approachable than other gaming behemoths. This is surprising considering its power.
The laptop’s design, which combines functionality and style, includes a forged carbon top cover that not only gives it a distinctive appearance but also helps it weigh less. You also receive an RGB keyboard with each key and an exclusive avant-garde camouflage design covering the lid.
The display has remarkable specs, including a 3.2K resolution, 165Hz refresh rate, and a mini-LED version with a peak brightness of 1200 nits, all while keeping its usual 16-inch size. Even if the display’s color accuracy is a little off right out of the box, it’s still great for watching movies and gaming.
Digital Trends
Lenovo continues to uphold its reputation for providing a solid mix of connectors, including Ethernet, Thunderbolt 4, USB-A, HDMI 2.1, and more. Though excellent for gaming, the Legion 9i’s keyboard has an unusual feature: removable keycaps that offer a little personalization.
Driven by the 24-core Intel Core i9-13980HX, benchmarks show that the Legion 9i has superior multi-core performance. Performance in real-world settings, especially with programs like Premiere Pro, further demonstrates its potential. The Legion 9i excels in gaming performance, matching or surpassing that of its most competitive models and even exceeding larger laptops. Long-term high performance is made possible by liquid cooling without compromising mobility. The laptop runs well on ray tracing, offering an excellent gaming experience, particularly when hooked up to an external monitor.
However, given its power-hungry components and dazzling mini-LED display, the Legion 9i’s battery life is unsurprisingly restricted. On the other hand, you also receive two chargers out of the box: a 140-watt portable USB-C charger for on-the-go use and a gigantic 330W GaN charger for gaming.
Even with a few minor flaws, such a tiny trackpad and poor color accuracy, the Legion 9i is still a gaming laptop well worth the higher price. At $3,200, the notebook’s starting price is now quite reasonable considering that it packs top-tier hardware into a tiny chassis and features an efficient liquid cooling system.
Lenovo Legion Pro 7i (240Hz QHD+, i9-13900HX)
The newest Lenovo Legion 7/7i series models from 2023 lack the upscale build quality, extras, and tertiary features of the 7 Pro series from earlier generations, but they are nonetheless more affordable and have superior quality in the critical areas, such as the processor, graphics card, and display. All told, you’re getting one of the most affordable, powerful laptops available, regardless of brand.
These are the highest TGP versions of these GPUs available in a laptop, so you may choose between the RTX 4080 (strongly advised for gamers) and the RTX 4090 (strongly recommended for individuals who wish to utilize the device for high-end creative workflows alongside gaming). When paired with the incredibly potent Intel Core i9-13900HX processor, it can achieve FPS levels that are on par with almost any other high-end gaming laptop available, delivering exceptionally high frame rates.
The entire display area of the 16-inch screen is roughly the same as that of a 16:9 17-inch model, but the laptop is more portable due to its slightly taller than typical 16:10 aspect ratio. With a fantastic maximum refresh rate of 240Hz, the 2560 x 1600 display is perfect for gaming. With a sRGB coverage of 99% and AdobeRGB and DCI-P3 coverage of roughly 72%, the color gamut is decent for a gaming laptop. This essentially means that, while using this machine for non-gaming purposes, you could conduct color-accurate work in the sRGB space but not in the other two ranges. At 530 nits, peak brightness is exceptionally brilliant, and contrast is also quite good.
The build quality is a little bit on the plastic side overall, which is noticeable compared to other premium gaming laptops (though you will pay more for these) and the previous generation of Legion Pros. Moving on to the less-than-great features, the 5-hour battery life isn’t brilliant but reasonable for a gaming laptop of this power. In addition to the absence of features like the fingerprint scanner, RGB lighting that is somewhat less stunning, and pressure-sensitive WASD keys, you only receive a 1Gbit/s ethernet connection as opposed to the 2.5 1Gbit/s of the 2022 model.
Even so, we believe that this laptop excels in the areas that matter most for a gaming machine and that the less expensive features are a fair trade-off for the comparatively low cost. An excellent high-end laptop for gaming.
Lenovo Legion Pro 5i (240Hz QHD+, RTX 4070)
Apart from this, the Lenovo Legion Pro 5/5i and 7/7i series are quite similar. The 5/5i has fewer options for premium GPUs, and the 1600p display can only have a maximum refresh rate of 165Hz.
This laptop is among the finest value upper mid-range gaming laptops available on the market because it comes with an Intel Core i7-13700HX processor, 16GB of RAM, a 1TB SSD, and an RTX 4070 graphics card at a very affordable price. Alternatively, if you intend to use it as a mobile workstation/editing laptop as well, you may choose the higher-specced model with an Intel Core i9-13900HX CPU, up to an absurd 64GB of DDR5 RAM, and 4TB of SSD storage. or simply adore having a ton of RAM and storage for some other reason!
The Lenovo Legion 5’s color gamut is 98% sRGB, 70% Adobe RGB, and 72% DCI-P3, which is significantly more than what is required for gaming and even allows it to be used for color-accurate design work in the sRGB region. While this may have been perfect, the screen’s contrast ratio and peak brightness are also excellent.
Although nothing to write home about, the webcam and microphone are decent for a gaming laptop at this price range. The speakers are comparable to most of the competition in that they are not very good and don’t replicate bass well. While not the greatest available, the membrane trackpad and keyboard are both respectable and superior to those of the competition. Although the plastic construction doesn’t match the more metal designs of more expensive laptops, the build quality is decent. While typing, there is some screen sway, and there is some flex when you apply pressure to the keyboard, but you won’t really notice the latter.
The Legion Pro 5 with AMD CPU has an amazing battery life if you use the MUX switch to turn off Optimus. You can anticipate about 8 hours of regular, non-gaming use. This is still rather good for an Intel laptop, but you should expect the Legion 5i, which is powered by Intel, to operate at least an hour or so shorter.
In the end, the Lenovo Legion 5 only has a few shortcomings, the same ones as the Legion Pro 7/7i above a general rather plasticky build quality and the absence of those premium quality touches from the previous generation.
Lenovo Legion Pro 5
High marks are given to the Legion Pro 5 for both its affordable price and outstanding performance.
With a starting price of $1,250, the base configuration is a benchmark for laptops of the current generation, offering powerful performance along with features like an AMD Ryzen 7 7745HX, 1TB of storage, and an RTX 4060 mobile graphics card. Finding a fit for this value proposition is difficult. Although there are gaming laptops that are more reasonably priced, very few can blend performance and cost as well as the Legion Pro 5.
In addition to its performance, the Legion Pro 5 stands out for its well-considered design, particularly in the port selection. Placement and port count have a big impact on user experience and are often ignored even though they are important. With two USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A connections, a full-size Ethernet connector, a USB-C port that can handle up to 140W of power, and an HDMI 2.1 port on the back to reduce cable clutter, the laptop is incredibly well-integrated. Convenient connectivity is improved by additional USB-A connectors on both sides and a USB-C port on the left.
The Legion Pro 5 demonstrates Lenovo’s reputation for producing high-quality laptop keyboards, which are influenced by its ThinkPad line. The keyboard is still comfortable to use even though it might not be superior to others for prolonged typing sessions.
There are a few minor issues with the Legion Pro 5, despite its excellent features. Gaming laptops are inherently bulky and come with a large power brick. Furthermore, the 2,560 x 1,600 screen is not as impressive as some of its competitors, such as the ROG Zephyrus M16, which has a 240Hz refresh rate with local dimming. Still, it is still decent with a 165Hz refresh rate and good color accuracy.
These small problems, nevertheless, are nothing compared to the Legion Pro 5’s total advantages. its outstanding value considering the caliber of performance it provides. When you combine it with excellent build quality, it stands out among the competition in its class.
Lenovo Slim Pro 7 14 (2023)
Lenovo’s Slim Pro 7 14 (2023) is the best laptop we’ve tested; it’s a 14-inch mobile workstation that feels sturdy and offers an excellent user experience with its large touchpad, spacious keyboard, and sharp display. You can configure it with an AMD Ryzen 5 7735HS or Ryzen 7 7740HS CPU paired with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 discrete GPU; the Ryzen CPUs are fast, and even though the RTX 3050 is a few years old, it can still handle demanding tasks like 3D graphics and video editing. The only drawback is that you can only get up to 16GB of RAM that is soldered, and the maximum storage is 1TB but can be upgraded. Among its many ports are a real HDMI 2.1 that can produce a 4k 120Hz signal and a USB-C that supports USB 4. At nearly ten hours of moderate use, the battery life is excellent.
If you require additional RAM or computing power, consider a device such as the Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen 4 (2021). There is a newer model from 2023, but this is an older one from 2021 with slower Intel 11th-gen CPUs. Although we haven’t tested the latest model, its design appears to be very similar to that of the 2021 model. It can be purchased with up to a 4090 NVIDIA GeForce RTX 40-series GPU and an Intel 13th generation CPU. But it’s far more expensive and not nearly as portable. The ThinkPad P1 Gen 6 is seen.
LENOVO Legion Slim 5 14
A powerful gaming laptop that strikes a mix between portability and top performance is the Lenovo Legion Slim 5 14 for 2023. With its small 14-inch form factor, it provides players with a strong gaming experience without limiting their mobility.
Lenovo’s Legion Slim 5 14 stands out as one of the best little gaming laptops the company has ever produced. When compared to the most well-liked 14-inch gaming notebook, the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14, it actually provides greater value. At $1,200, the laptop is presently on sale. It comes with an AMD Ryzen 7 7840HS CPU, an Nvidia RTX 4060 GPU, 32GB of LPDDR5x-6400 RAM, and a roomy 1TB M.2 PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD. With these features, it stands to compete well in the gaming laptop market for those who want both ease and power.
In addition to its robust hardware, the Legion Slim 5 14 boasts a visually appealing display. The laptop has a 14.5-inch 2.8K OLED display with a 16:10 aspect ratio, 120Hz refresh rate, and 2880×1800 resolution. With its deep contrast and VESA DisplayHDR True Black 500 capabilities, this OLED panel not only offers a visually intense gaming experience but also meets the needs of artists by precisely reproducing color for professional work.
The laptop’s design stands out for having a high-end feel. The gadget is made completely of aluminum, and its rounded corners and beveled edges add to its sleek, contemporary design. The 14-inch variant is particularly portable for people who are constantly on the go because it only weighs 1.75 kg.
In terms of performance, the Legion Slim 5 14 meets or exceeds expectations. The laptop’s AMD Ryzen 7 7840HS CPU and Nvidia RTX 4060 GPU should provide powerful 1440p gaming performance. It is stated that the Legion Slim 5 14 has an all-day battery life, which makes it a good choice for both work and pleasure, even with its smaller 73.6-watt-hour battery. The OLED display and the power-efficient AMD chipset are mostly to blame for it.
With two USB-C 3.2 (Gen 2) ports, two USB-A 3.2 (Gen 2) ports, HDMI 2.1, an SD card reader, and a 3.5mm audio combination, this 14-inch laptop has an extensive port selection. That is far more than any available 14-inch gaming notebook.
Lenovo LOQ 16 (165Hz QHD+, i7-13700H
The Lenovo LOQ 15 and LOQ 16, the new lads in the Lenovo lineup, are two brand-new gaming laptops that essentially offer a less expensive but still superior option than the current Lenovo IdeaPad Gaming range when it comes to affordability. Despite this, they nevertheless include a surprisingly large amount of capabilities, such as G-Sync and Advanced Optimus, that you’d usually only find on high-end gaming laptops. They also have a sturdy structure that includes the keyboard and trackpad, making them well worth your attention.
We would suggest the LOQ 16 over the other model because it has a screen with a 16:10 aspect ratio, which allows you to have more vertical screen space when reading articles or browsing the web. It also has the option for a larger 80Wh battery, which is an upgrade from the standard 60Wh that costs only $10 more on the Lenovo Store but will give you an extra hour of battery life (roughly 6 hours total), which is well worth it by anyone’s standards.
Even though there are slightly more powerful RTX 4060 laptops available for the same price as well as less expensive previous generation RTX 3070 laptops, considering the benefits of DLSS 3.0 and the extra features of this device, we would still strongly suggest it.
Lenovo IdeaPad Gaming 3 / 3i
The GTX 1650, 1650 Ti, RTX 3050 Ti, and other combinations can be found in the Lenovo IdeaPad Gaming 3 AMD CPU model, or the Lenovo IdeaPad Gaming 3i if you choose the Intel option. Without a doubt, the RTX 3050 Ti is the one we advise purchasing. Even while neither device can run the newest, most demanding games at its maximum settings, games that are moderately demanding on medium settings will run on the 3050 Ti version at an acceptable frame rate. However, the GTX 1650 model—which is the most popular option on Amazon—performs too poorly for us to suggest.
The refresh rate of the 1080p screen is 120Hz, which is more than sufficient given that few games on this budget will allow you to reach 120FPS. While not ideal, the real grey-to-grey reaction time of 15 ms is not out of the ordinary for competitors at this price range. However, ghosting will be apparent. That being said, having FreeSync on a laptop this inexpensive helps to lessen screen tearing.
Your color gamut is limited to roughly 63% sRGB and even less Adobe RGB and DCI-P3, which is hardly sufficient for most applications aside from gaming. The peak brightness caps out at about 270 nits, which is quite dim but not horribly so. The contrast is okay.
The trackpad and keyboard are above average for a low-cost device, but the webcam and microphone are around average for this price category. The speakers on a gaming laptop are not great, but they are mediocre. Five to six hours of moderate, non-gaming use is the estimated battery life, which is respectable but not exceptional. Although quite plasticy for the price, the build quality is little better than normal.
Ultimately, this is a good gaming laptop on a cheap if you can get your hands on the RTX 3050 ti variant.
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Extreme Gen 4
Lenovo could not have come up with a better name for the ThinkPad X1 Extreme Gen 4—extreme is the crucial word here. When I think of the word “extreme,” phrases like “to the max,” “out of hand,” and “exorbitant” come to mind right once, and these phrases perfectly describe this 16-inch monster. The shocking $2,951 price tag serves as an example of an exorbitant price tag. My goodness! Thanks to its incredible internals, which include a top-tier 11th Gen Intel Core i7 CPU and powerful Nvidia 30-series graphics, this 16-inch laptop was made to make its rivals sweat. Someone check on the Dell XPS 15!
This Lenovo laptop is a big improvement over the last ThinkPad X1 Extreme we looked at (Gen 2). Its battery life is greater, its display is brighter, and its processors are faster. But every monster has a vulnerability, of course. This also holds true for the ThinkPad X1 Extreme Gen 4, particularly in light of its fierce competitors.
Still, the ThinkPad X1 Extreme Gen 4 is ideal for professionals handling demanding work, be they engineers, architects, or artists. The icing on the cake is that they can relax and play their favorite graphically demanding games after a long day at work.
How we chose the best Lenovo gaming laptops
Price: While many people don’t prioritize price when selecting a gaming laptop, it still matters. In any spectrum, affordable choices are a nice addition. We made sure we had many options for anyone who could afford them.
Power: The specifications are what make the finest Lenovo gaming laptops what they are, but great performance comes from a combination of premium parts. We searched for well-assembled systems that could extract maximum performance from each of its component pieces.
Style: You still want your laptop to look the part, even if Lenovo’s top gaming laptops aren’t renowned for their extravagant design elements or vast expanses of RGB lighting.
Connectivity: You can add a lot of peripherals to enhance even the most powerful configuration thanks to the extra flexibility that comes with a variety of ports and sockets.
