Lenovo Legion 5i 16 G9 review - The fast gaming laptop with Raptor Lake-HX and an AI engine

[Redaktion]

At this year's CES, Lenovo presented its new Legion 5i 16 G9 and we have already had the chance to test the new mid-range gaming laptop. Its new Core i7-14650HX in combination with the RTX 4060 Laptop power a fast 240-Hz QHD panel. Of course, AI functions are also on board in the year 2024—but to no effect.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-Legion-5i-16-G9-review-The-fast-gaming-laptop-with-Raptor-Lake-HX-and-an-AI-engine.798236.0.html

[NikoB]

What do we have for a monstrous $1750 for this class of laptops?

Let's start with the main one - the supposedly "gaming" class. This is initially a pure lie from Lenovo, because... The laptop is not capable of delivering stable 60fps in any modern game in ultra settings in the native screen resolution of 2.5K.

Second. Screen - I don't believe in this author's numbers for native contrast and am sure that they do not correspond to real ones. The typical contrast declared by Lenovo is 1200:1. Focus on a mediocre (for 2024) contrast of 1100:1. Those. You definitely won't get 1500:1 as a buyer with this model.

The response of the panel is shameful and Lenovo is directly lying about 240Hz. 1/240 = 4-5ms. We see in the review shameful figures of 8-12ms, i.e. the real speed of image redrawing does not exceed 100-110Hz, even in an office 2D load, for example, with banal text scrolling in Word and browser. HDR support here is 100% fake (screen panels are not DCI-P3 coated), as is DV. The 165Hz version doesn't even have these labels.

Go ahead. It's 2024, Intel/AMD SoCs have long had built-in 2.5Gbps ports, and the price of an external 5Gbps controller is a penny, but greedy Lenovo again installed an antique 1Gbps RJ45 port from back in 1999 in the car for a monstrous $1,750.

According to the Intel datasheet, the SoC 14650HX does NOT have built-in TB4 ports, but at this price it was not difficult to add an external controller. Let me remind you that external TB3 controllers were available in laptops for $800 in 2018...

The processor consumption is monstrous (including at rest) and everything is clear here - despite the obvious optimization of the new version of the old Raptor cores (this is not Meteor Lake, alas), Intel processors still consume a monstrous amount of energy, which becomes a consequence of extreme noise, even in office load.

With good performance in CBR15 in PL1 mode with a consumption of 100W, however, this "new" Intel processor still shamefully loses even to the AMD 7840U, running at 32W in AIDA FP64 Ray-Trace Test:
www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-ThinkPad-P14s-G4-AMD-review-fast-portable-straightforward.795741.0.html
7840U PL1 32W - 2090+ in CBR15 / AIDA64-FP64 Ray-Trace - 11132 KRay/s vs. 10316 KRay/s for 14650HX...

Moving on... the optimization of the 14650HX memory controller is simply disgusting! Lenovo and Intel have definitely embarrassed themselves. The efficiency of the memory controller is much lower than 75%. Which is usually typical for AMD SoC memory controllers.
Let me remind you that Intel itself claims 89GB/s performance when installing 5600 modules - compare these declarations with real numbers and average them...

Now about Lenovo's lies in psref:
The HDMI 2.1 port, even in FRL6 mode, does NOT support 8k monitors in lossless mode! This is physically impossible - only with data loss in DSC mode. Future owners should keep this in mind.

Also an obvious failure is the absolutely shameful card reader, 12 years old in terms of speed. And the shameful 1080p camera without autofocus, which does not match the native screen resolution.

What could justify the $1,750 price tag?
64Gb of RAM and 2TB SSD or 32GB and 4TB SSD.
Or 32GB/2TB + RJ45 port at 5Gbps or a TB5 port or two TB4 with an external controller, especially since Intel declares arbitrary support (at the request of the motherboard manufacturer) pci-e 4.0 or 5.0.

I also draw attention to the shame of Intel - despite the fact that DP2.0 ports were adopted as a standard in the distant pre-concentration camp and pre-war 2019, 5 years later neither Intel nor AMD can still offer consumers ports of this standard! The SoC 14650HX for laptops in 2024 features shamefully outdated DP1.4b!!! Goodbye 8k monitors and in 2024...

Thank you for your attention.

[Neenyah]

Lol this is absurd; Legion 5 non-Pro series was always a joke but now is 2024 and there is still no Thunderbolt?? 🤡

Not only that you can't use eGPU, but with its 10Gbps fastest USB port you can't use any of those super-fast external SSDs either, like the Crucial P5 Plus (you can get 4.7 GB/s with it on average over Thunderbolt, here 1.2 GB/s at most).

It is large and heavy-ish with weak battery life so you can't really carry it around with you on the go and without Thunderbolt you get very limited options to add external screen(s). The laptop itself is good pretty much just for games where it's going to be obsolete in less than two years given the fact that it's unable to hold 60+ fps native without DLSS in 40% of tested games (and with eGPU it would be cruising at 100+ fps maxed details in those same games). It is not even quiet under load!! What a joke.

This is not better than a 500€ cheaper LOQ 15 (no, 16:10 is not worth to pay 500€ over 16:9 when you can get a 16:18 external LG DualUp 28" for 550€).

Way to go to waste 1600€ on this crap, yuck...

[user1792379810]

This looks power hungry and loud compared to similar laptops with Ryzen 7840HS... let's wait for the AMD version.

[LL]

The x86 laptop industry continues to fail in several issues and this one is suffering from continued Intel issues and Nvidia consumption in idle and memory policies.  The dreadful latency values also show fundamental problems.

Laptop makers need to have a competitive and ambitious vision for what they want to offer clients. As things stand i would say x86 have not much more than 5 years of live in it.

We are in 2024 and my phone with an Oled screen can play a 4K movie or mp3 without any noise and this one that costs several times more can't.

[LL]

In my opinion one of the reasons for the thermal failure is that evacuation channels to the side are absent, only exist those to the rear.


Compare the noise with 2021 Lenovo 5 17 at time Lenovo still build glorious 17.3"... reviewed by notebookcheck.

[Victor Lilley]

Received one on Tuesday 30 April 2024.

With me facing the sun, the screen was disappointingly grey for a pdf of a Word file. So not as bright as the photo in the article. I checked the contrast and it was a bit over half. I increased it to maximum and it was OK. It remains to be seen if that causes a large drain on the battery. It occurs to me I might be able to turn it down a bit. As it is 500 nits average I expected the contrast to be set in the middle and that would be 500 nits. But the maximum is only 528 nits. Then one would have expected the maximum to be more, given the minimum is zero. So I don't understand. The Windows background being black was virtutally invisible. Have changed this to white so hepfully OK when we, in the UK get some more sun. I tried a tropical island HD 1080 video from Youtube to run down the battery and was impressed by the quality of the display. It was as if I could touch the sand and feel the breeze.     

[NikoB]

I tried a tropical island HD 1080 video from Youtube to run down the battery and was impressed by the quality of the display. It was as if I could touch the sand and feel the breeze.     

Even in a paid premium YouTube subscription, the video quality in 1080p resolution is shameful, compared to 4k resolution.
This is a proven fact, because The bitrate per 1 pixel, even in the premium version, is much lower than the bitrate in 4k resolution on a 2.5k screen.

Moreover, on a 2.5K screen there will never be the same pixel sharpness of fhd video as on fhd and 4k/8k screens, as well as the ideal pixel sharpness of 4k video for the same reason - hardware incompatibility of 4k/fhd video with 2.5k resolution pixel level.

So what did you see there in the blocky mess at 1080p, quite a funny question...

The Windows background being black was virtutally invisible.

What's true in complete darkness? With a mediocre contrast of 1200:1? ;)

[Victor Lilley]

Received one on Tuesday 30 April 2024.

With me facing the sun, the screen was disappointingly grey for a pdf of a Word file. So not as bright as the photo in the article. I checked the contrast and it was a bit over half. I increased it to maximum and it was OK. It remains to be seen if that causes a large drain on the battery. It occurs to me I might be able to turn it down a bit. As it is 500 nits average I expected the contrast to be set in the middle and that would be 500 nits. But the maximum is only 528 nits. Then one would have expected the maximum to be more, given the minimum is zero. So I don't understand. The Windows background being black was virtutally invisible. Have changed this to white so hepfully OK when we, in the UK get some more sun. I tried a tropical island HD 1080 video from Youtube to run down the battery and was impressed by the quality of the display. It was as if I could touch the sand and feel the breeze.     

Error.I should have written brightness, instead of contrast.I have subsequently tried to reduce the brightness but for me its needs to be max in bright sunlight.However, it has subsequently occurred to me that I might need a hood for it in bright sunlight anyway, as we move towards the Summer, as it sems likely to get too hot from the suns heat. Then I might be able to reduce the brightness from max.

I tried a tropical island HD 1080 video from Youtube to run down the battery and was impressed by the quality of the display. It was as if I could touch the sand and feel the breeze.     

Even in a paid premium YouTube subscription, the video quality in 1080p resolution is shameful, compared to 4k resolution.
This is a proven fact, because The bitrate per 1 pixel, even in the premium version, is much lower than the bitrate in 4k resolution on a 2.5k screen.

Moreover, on a 2.5K screen there will never be the same pixel sharpness of fhd video as on fhd and 4k/8k screens, as well as the ideal pixel sharpness of 4k video for the same reason - hardware incompatibility of 4k/fhd video with 2.5k resolution pixel level.

So what did you see there in the blocky mess at 1080p, quite a funny question...

The Windows background being black was virtutally invisible.

What's true in complete darkness? With a mediocre contrast of 1200:1? ;)

The information is nice to know but disregards price. I found this laptop to be the best large screen 500 nits laptop with no issues with the keyboard, for my budget of £1,400, for my use. I spent a lot of time looking at all the manufacturers. Schenker was no good because they filed to disclose a dealer in the UK from whom I could buy it. Dell was ruled out after they tried to overcharge me for a custom tower and are knowingly falsely in denial via their Resolver Complaints System. Plus Acer was ruled our because they do no offer an onsite repiar service. I wanted a 500 nits laptop so I can top up my Vitamin D more.I am not going to use it for gaming, just word processing and associated web browsing.

Also it offers no concrete alternatives.

It would be more useful to me, having already bought it, if it made concrete suggestions, on a external monitor, that would overcome the disadvantages of the internal screen, bearing in mind the limitations of the current graphics card.

[NikoB]

It would be more useful to me, having already bought it, if it made concrete suggestions, on a external monitor, that would overcome the disadvantages of the internal screen, bearing in mind the limitations of the current graphics card.

From my comment you can already draw a practical conclusion when watching YouTube - never choose a resolution lower than 4k (if available) on a 2.5k screen, and even more so on an fhd screen, because the maximum bitrate per 1 pixel is only in 8k resolution (but it is in general is redundant and only benefits on 4k screens for the obvious reason - all videos are 4:2:0, not full 4:4:4). The same goes for any streaming service.

For YouTube, I recommend plugins of the "tweaks for youtube" level; they increase user comfort on YouTube by an order of magnitude with proper careful configuration.

[Neenyah]

It would be more useful to me, having already bought it, if it made concrete suggestions, on a external monitor, that would overcome the disadvantages of the internal screen, bearing in mind the limitations of the current graphics card.

From my comment you can already draw a practical conclusion when watching YouTube - never choose a resolution lower than 4k (if available) on a 2.5k screen

1080p on a 2.5K screen: https://imgur.com/Wvpieqm
2160p on a 2.5K screen: https://imgur.com/NDvnXDm

Striking difference... Not.

[NikoB]

It would be more useful to me, having already bought it, if it made concrete suggestions, on a external monitor, that would overcome the disadvantages of the internal screen, bearing in mind the limitations of the current graphics card.

From my comment you can already draw a practical conclusion when watching YouTube - never choose a resolution lower than 4k (if available) on a 2.5k screen

1080p on a 2.5K screen: imgur.com/Wvpieqm
2160p on a 2.5K screen: imgur.com/NDvnXDm

Striking difference... Not.

Stupid bot with a carefully chosen example. I can easily give an example where the difference is visible in dynamics, and not in statics, where it is also clearly visible.

Google itself admitted that it deliberately lowers the bitrate and quality of fhd videos outside of the Premium subscription. Therefore, a person without a subscription can see good fhd quality only by choosing 4k (and even in this case, it will not be a reference, since the bitrate is still 1.5 times lower than on a BD disc, which uses an ideal quality master copy encoded in 2 passes on professional equipment by professionals, compared to the garbage that amateurs post on YouTube).

Only an idiot would argue with the fact that a 4k webcam gives a picture many times better than the same camera in fhd, which is instantly visible to the naked eye.

Here is a typical example of how a low bitrate merges everything into a shapeless mess:
youtu.be/FjU_x1106pg?t=707
We look at the treetops from 11:48 in 1080p and then in 4k.
Only a blind person would not see the difference. And so it is everywhere.

Rest, stupid bot, you are still far from real professionals in video processing.

[Neenyah]

Here is a typical example of how a low bitrate merges everything into a shapeless mess:
youtu.be/FjU_x1106pg?t=707
We look at the treetops from 11:48 in 1080p and then in 4k.

There you go:

1080p @ 2.5K screen: https://imgur.com/nrnovkI
2160p @ 2.5K screen: https://imgur.com/M1VsvIB

Now go bark at that same tree you dumb lying moron.

[NikoB]

Dumb moron, even the dumbest reader will instantly see the difference in real screenshots, not fabricated ones:
Real 1080p from Youtube: i.imgur.com/kMsk7Lu.png
Real 1080p from Youtube: i.imgur.com/76X0TvW.png
Zoom for 100% and switch fast both in browser

It's enough just to scroll carefully on the fhd screen to immediately see the monstrous difference in detail between 1080p and 4k, and even more so without a paid Premium subscription, deliberately imposed by Google through the deterioration of the 1080p bitrate without it.

You moron already disgraced yourself earlier when you quietly merged from the thread regarding the clarity of the text in Chrome under the pressure of irrefutable evidence from your own screenshots.

And it's morons like these who slow down progress. Or corrupt. paid trolls masquerading as ordinary people or simply real morons in terms of intelligence. You are more likely from the second category.

[NikoB]

Dumb moron, even the dumbest reader will instantly see the difference in real screenshots, not fabricated ones:
Real 1080p from Youtube: i.imgur.com/kMsk7Lu.png
Real 2160p from Youtube: i.imgur.com/76X0TvW.png
Zoom for 100% and switch fast both in browser

It's enough just to scroll carefully on the fhd screen to immediately see the monstrous difference in detail between 1080p and 4k, and even more so without a paid Premium subscription, deliberately imposed by Google through the deterioration of the 1080p bitrate without it.

You moron already disgraced yourself earlier when you quietly merged from the thread regarding the clarity of the text in Chrome under the pressure of irrefutable evidence from your own screenshots.

And it's morons like these who slow down progress. Or corrupt. paid trolls masquerading as ordinary people or simply real morons in terms of intelligence. You are more likely from the second category.