Lenovo Legion Pro 5 16IRX9 laptop review: Great performance, but a little heavy

[Redaktion]

The Legion Pro 5 16 G9 includes several adjustments over last year's Legion Pro 5 16 G8 both internally and externally. However, there's no escaping the fact that the model is on the bigger and heavier side even for a 16-inch gaming laptop.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-Legion-Pro-5-16IRX9-laptop-review-Great-performance-but-a-little-heavy.817404.0.html

[NikoB]

Author, he is not easy. LOQ16 weighs even more - 2.6kg! And with the energy-efficient Zen4 Phoenix.

A laptop with a monster from Intel should weigh from 3 kg. Its radiators should weigh 1.5 times more than those of the same laptop with AMD.

And here we come to the conclusion that we do NOT need a 16" screen with a normal weight of 3kg or more with large radiators. We need an 18" 4k 16:10 with 1500:1+.

Bad and too light radiators - wild noise.
The power part is not of very high quality - increased noise even at rest. The absence of a metal case, as it was before, means even greater heating of the components.

Performance at native screen resolution in 2023 games is no longer sufficient. The screen itself is mediocre. No good response, no contrast above 1500:1, but better 2000:1.

The question is - why and for whom is this laptop with a pitiful 4070, instead of 4090? Moreover, at a wild price of $2000, and not for $1500-1600. Although this case is physically incapable of servicing the 4090.

Just like a work laptop. But for a work laptop, it has frankly shameful ports. No TB4 ports, no 5Gbps RJ45 and this is in 2024! There are no DP2.1 outputs for future 8k monitors.

And a weak keyboard for long-term work/typing, with too little key travel.

This series with 4070 is for people who have the illusion that they are buying a "gaming" laptop.

[Neenyah]

It seems like a high price to me, $2100 for this laptop, before I prefer to buy something with more mobility and that will be more useful and MINISFORUM V3 has just been released, a three-in-one that has everything with artificial intelligence for many years

Grab a rope and hang yourself.

[Hey its me]

However, there's no escaping the fact that the model is on the bigger and heavier side even for a 16-inch gaming laptop.

Erm, no?! Your "fact" comes from comparing a normal-sized high performance laptop with the most silliest ultra thin gimmick laptops like the Zephyrus which sell cheap, shitty cooling for a premium price to dumb people who think they want a gaming laptop which is barely thicker than a smartphone until they heard the fans running like crazy, skin temperatures that burn your hands and heavy thermal throttling. Sad how dumb some customers are but it is alarming if even notebookcheck writes such ignorant and incompetent statements!

Let's take a look at the "big" Lenovo chassis: It is 27mm "thick". Substract the display lid and the keyboard and you get the actual space for cooling. Look at the tiny fans. They are at best(!) 1 cm in height. This is thinner than the little finger on a human hand for an Core i9 and a beefy 4070 with up to 140 watts! Alan, are you kidding us? Sorry, but for someone who studied "reactor physics", it is hilarious to write that the Legion Pro 5 is big and heavy.

Maybe it's me, but I find it very embarrassing when grown-ups cry a river about a weight of 2.5kg XD This is so sad. People get so snivelling. Poor mankind.

[Neenyah]

Maybe it's me, but I find it very embarrassing when grown-ups cry a river about a weight of 2.5kg XD This is so sad.

And now, to put things into full perspective, check his laptop:

large and heavy even for its size category

)))))))
Author, this is just funny. Compare this runt to my Dell G5 5587 15.6" - 2.83 kg and almost 17" body dimensions. This is a truly quiet machine!

So this one: Dell G5 15 5587 (i5-8300H, GTX 1060 Max-Q, SSD, IPS) Laptop Review

Weight: 2.853 kg ( = 100.64 oz / 6.29 pounds)

😀

[RobertJasiek]

And now, to put things into full perspective, check his laptop:
So this one: Dell G5 15 5587 (i5-8300H, GTX 1060 Max-Q, SSD, IPS) Laptop Review

Weight: 2.853 kg ( = 100.64 oz / 6.29 pounds)

You need to take into account its total TDP of 115W for CPU and GPU under full load combined. Furthermore, recall that NikoB is a CPU user and hardly needs a dGPU. So the weight of his notebook in related to TDP is good for cooling.

You must not compare other notebooks with a similar weight but roughly double the TDP.

[Neenyah]

You need to take into account its total TDP of 115W for CPU and GPU under full load combined. Furthermore, recall that NikoB is a CPU user and hardly needs a dGPU. So the weight of his notebook in related to TDP is good for cooling.

You must not compare other notebooks with a similar weight but roughly double the TDP.

All fair and good there, I'm not saying anything against that. I just find it pretty amusing how he complains about EVERYTHING about every existing laptop while his own laptop has precisely ALL OF THOSE cons that he mentions in his comments under other laptops, starting with a 1080p 141 PPI, 56% sRGB, 220 nits screen with low contrast (820:1) that he has:

We need an 18" 4k 16:10 with 1500:1+.

The screen itself is mediocre. No good response, no contrast above 1500:1, but better 2000:1.

😺

Firstly, as the review showed, it has a completely mediocre screen with low ppi. Anything below 220-230 ppi is a priori bad screens for text and graphics.

😺

[NikoB]

The Dell G5 5587 screen changes to 72% NTSC from LG in half an hour. And you don't even need to open the case. But it wasn't critical for me specifically on it (especially since replacing the screen cost $70). The only thing that was more important was complete silence in a business environment. And this task, this laptop, carefully selected after six months of studying forums, performed brilliantly.

I used it as a business unit via KVM connected to a monitor, but in the event of a power failure in the house, I could easily use it autonomously for up to 4 hours.

After the keyboard failure (which has barely been used in 5 years) last year, it can no longer be used standalone. This really upset me - the quality of Dell keyboards. Especially considering that it is extremely difficult to type on it with a small stroke and very weak feedback (but in 2018 I thought that I could get used to it, but it turned out to be beyond my strength).

Now it can be used normally only from an external monitor and keyboard. It is useless on its own, because... with an external keyboard, sitting behind a 15.6" screen is extremely uncomfortable for obvious reasons. I can no longer buy a new original keyboard anywhere (talking about littering the world).

I do not recommend Dell laptops for purchase. Only if you know exactly what you are doing and why.

But this model is presented specifically, because due to its enormous weight, it is very quiet at PL1=47W/PL2=75W and at the threshold for turning on coolers 72-75C (3 degrees hysteresis is set in the BIOS).

Find me today the same model with the same threshold for switching on coolers with the same silence in the "maximum performance" profile? Similar in class, but taking into account the past 5 years and changes in the requirements for this class during this time?

There will be NO such laptops in 2024.

[Gastredner]

Sorry, but for someone who studied "reactor physics", it is hilarious to write that the Legion Pro 5 is big and heavy.

Maybe it's me, but I find it very embarrassing when grown-ups cry a river about a weight of 2.5kg XD This is so sad. People get so snivelling. Poor mankind.

Don't know what happend to Alan. Some years ago he complained about loud fans on gaming laptops and I fully agreed with him. But look at his reviews nowadays. No critics about fan noise and now such a ridiculous comment about size and weight of a thin 2.5kg high performance notebook.

When you read notebookcheck review from 10 years ago or longer, they used to critizise fan noise which was louder than 45db and they were right complaining about that! Today's notebooks consume far more power under load but are much thinner at the same time. The result of this counterintuitive and silly concept can we read in every single review: Extremely loud fans under load. What does Notebookcheck write? They excuse double as loud 55db with "class-standard high emissions".

Notebookcheck damages its credibility with uncritical reporting or completely nonsensical criticism like on the Pro 5's size and weight where one should expect the author to have at least a bit of technical/physical knowledge!

Don't get me wrong! I am far from defending Lenovo. Lenovo is s*** because of total lack of fan control, but their hardware is pretty good. Even on the budget Non-Pro 5 cooling looks pretty good. The software and the lack of (real) custom fan control is where Lenovo fails totally which makes them unfortunately unusable if you want a quiet gaming laptop with good performance.

[NikoB]

Because money and personal well-being are more important than principles and truth.

[stancionette]

Does it really not have windows variable refresh rate support or is it a mistake from the reviewers? I have seen another site where it says it has this windows variable refresh rate support and i also have seen older models that have this technology altough in this article they say it does not.

[LinuxGamer]

@Gastredner Agree. Alan's statement is absolute nonsense. What do you expect from an author who compares the Pro 5 with paper thin gimmicky scam like the Zephyrus, HP Omen which is known for their cheap and weak cooling and the worst downgrade of the year, the Alienware m16 r2? LOL

Alan, have you ever heard of Lenovo Legion Slim series? ;) Just a friendly reminder in case you want to  do your research better and compare apples to apples next time.

Really sad how customers get fooled with those brainlessly slim, slow and super loud laptops, but shouldn't we expect a bit more technical expertise from an independent(?) review page to discover scam and to save people from buying technically physically inferior products instead of just repeating the marketing texts of the manufacturers?

Notebookcheck used to be one of the best sites with competent reviews and the courage to criticize real(!) disadvantages like fan noise but looking at the "reviews" of the Zephyrus G14 and 16, the m16 r2 and now this hilarious weight and size statement, this site and author leave a bad taste in the mouth in terms of competence and independence :(

[samp]

The Panel used here uses 8bit + 2bit frc to show 10 bit it is not true 10 bit panel so it causes eye pain to sensitive users so beware while buying this laptop

[NikoB]

The Panel used here uses 8bit + 2bit frc to show 10 bit it is not true 10 bit panel so it causes eye pain to sensitive users so beware while buying this laptop

There are very few native 10-bit panels and this is also a problem. Although for a proper 4k panel (2.5k is wild nonsense) a 36-bit color is always required, and not 30-bit to eliminate banding.

[Smooth]

The Panel used here uses 8bit + 2bit frc to show 10 bit it is not true 10 bit panel so it causes eye pain to sensitive users so beware while buying this laptop

any suggestions of laptops with good panels? finding the one that good for my eyes is a huge problem for me. lately I'm trying to find a laptop I can use (at least 16 inches preferably), but so far no luck.