Lenovo IdeaPad Pro 5 16 G9 review - The multimedia laptop with a 120 Hz display and Core Ultra 7

[Redaktion]

The IdeaPad Pro 5 16 is a large multimedia laptop fitted with one of the latest Meteor Lake processors, a 120-Hz display and modern connectivity options. However, Lenovo also offers an AMD model and we want to find out which one is the better choice.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-IdeaPad-Pro-5-16-G9-review-The-multimedia-laptop-with-a-120-Hz-display-and-Core-Ultra-7.834644.0.html

[Mr Majestyk]

Oh look Lenovo leading the way with another garbage class display that can't even get too 100% sRG coverage let alone offer decent AdobeRGB. Trails comeptiros enormously. Why would I want to put high end apu in this because you wouldn't use it for any photo video editing.

[NikoB]

The author clearly deliberately overestimated the results by 10-15%, because in this review (www.notebookcheck.com/Test-Lenovo-Yoga-Pro-7-14-Laptop-Intel-Arc-stellt-sich-der-Radeon-780M.808871.0.html)
The 55W 155H produced much less than the 50W here.
Again, the loss of the 155H to the outdated 7840U (at 2 times smaller PL1) is colossal in the AIDA64 RayTrace64 test, which only proves that some tests simply do not show reality.

Memory latency is depressing - it determines the response speed of the system and software. This is a shame for x86 at the memory controller level.

Again, the lack of power in the back or an angular round plug precludes comfortable use of the laptop in a relaxed state reclining on the sofa or bed - for right-handed people, the USB-C power plug will stick out strictly perpendicular to the body on the left, in the same place as the legs in this position - therefore spontaneous, accidental Breaking out the USB-C power socket is almost guaranteed. What prevented you from making the power supply in the back or a round corner plug, and leaving USB-C as a backup option on the road (although I doubt that anyone will carry a 2kg+ 16") laptop with them on business trips), for example through an adapter?

Again, the SD card test is outdated. Your "reference" card, author, is long outdated - buy a normal SD UHS3+ class with at least a read/write speed of 200MB/s.

It's also a complete shame that the business laptop obviously doesn't have RJ45 at 5Gbps for high-speed connection to home NAS/routers and corporate networks. And this is in 2024, in the middle!

The author himself noted that the noise is increased, and at the slightest serious load, the coolers begin to howl wildly. This means that during real surfing, and even more so during intensive work in 2-3 browsers (plus the background software constantly jerking the cores by 15-20%) - the coolers will constantly howl at an extremely unpleasant noise level, which will very quickly bring a normal worker out of a nervous state balance.

Even from the point of view of playing games that are 9-10 years outdated, this model is shameful. 16fps in Ultra quality in GTA V covered with moss and only 40fps in High! Despite the fact that the mobile GTX1050 from 2016 (8 years ago, damn it!) produced 55-60fps in High settings! Where is at least stable 60fps in GTV5 in Ultra quality from the mass-produced cheap ordinary igpu 2024?

The question is: why such a model, who is the target group? I don't understand! For business purposes everything is disgusting. For multimedia it's also bad. I see from our retail networks that this series is not popular (can be seen from the frequency of purchases and the number of reviews), which is obvious with such shortcomings and limitations.

Finally, someone make a normal 17-18" 4k 16:10 1500:1+ office/home multimedia laptop with a real IPS response time of 6-7 ms on G2G/B2W and multi-row backlighting without glare. And normal ports/power at the back and on the side, so that it is comfortable for everyone to use the laptop from the power supply 100% of the time.

[Trunks]

The author clearly deliberately overestimated the results by 10-15%, because in this review (www.notebookcheck.com/Test-Lenovo-Yoga-Pro-7-14-Laptop-Intel-Arc-stellt-sich-der-Radeon-780M.808871.0.html)
The 55W 155H produced much less than the 50W here.
Again, the loss of the 155H to the outdated 7840U (at 2 times smaller PL1) is colossal in the AIDA64 RayTrace64 test, which only proves that some tests simply do not show reality.

Memory latency is depressing - it determines the response speed of the system and software. This is a shame for x86 at the memory controller level.

Again, the lack of power in the back or an angular round plug precludes comfortable use of the laptop in a relaxed state reclining on the sofa or bed - for right-handed people, the USB-C power plug will stick out strictly perpendicular to the body on the left, in the same place as the legs in this position - therefore spontaneous, accidental Breaking out the USB-C power socket is almost guaranteed. What prevented you from making the power supply in the back or a round corner plug, and leaving USB-C as a backup option on the road (although I doubt that anyone will carry a 2kg+ 16") laptop with them on business trips), for example through an adapter?

Again, the SD card test is outdated. Your "reference" card, author, is long outdated - buy a normal SD UHS3+ class with at least a read/write speed of 200MB/s.

It's also a complete shame that the business laptop obviously doesn't have RJ45 at 5Gbps for high-speed connection to home NAS/routers and corporate networks. And this is in 2024, in the middle!

The author himself noted that the noise is increased, and at the slightest serious load, the coolers begin to howl wildly. This means that during real surfing, and even more so during intensive work in 2-3 browsers (plus the background software constantly jerking the cores by 15-20%) - the coolers will constantly howl at an extremely unpleasant noise level, which will very quickly bring a normal worker out of a nervous state balance.

Even from the point of view of playing games that are 9-10 years outdated, this model is shameful. 16fps in Ultra quality in GTA V covered with moss and only 40fps in High! Despite the fact that the mobile GTX1050 from 2016 (8 years ago, damn it!) produced 55-60fps in High settings! Where is at least stable 60fps in GTV5 in Ultra quality from the mass-produced cheap ordinary igpu 2024?

The question is: why such a model, who is the target group? I don't understand! For business purposes everything is disgusting. For multimedia it's also bad. I see from our retail networks that this series is not popular (can be seen from the frequency of purchases and the number of reviews), which is obvious with such shortcomings and limitations.

Finally, someone make a normal 17-18" 4k 16:10 1500:1+ office/home multimedia laptop with a real IPS response time of 6-7 ms on G2G/B2W and multi-row backlighting without glare. And normal ports/power at the back and on the side, so that it is comfortable for everyone to use the laptop from the power supply 100% of the time.

You forgot 1 thing, the review of Yoga Pro 7 was written 2 months ago. Now, the driver (including BIOS update) for Intel Core Ultra is more stable.

Can you name some multimedia laptops with "power supply in the back"? It is unnecessary to equip 2 charging ports in a laptop consuming not much power, especially a quite thin laptop like this.

Ideapad Pro 5 is a multimedia laptop, not a business laptop, requiring it to have a RJ45 port is redundant.

I'm using this laptop. I can confirm that the fans only make loud noise under heavy load in a long time (gaming, rendering...). In every day office tasks (using 5-10 browser tabs, Microsoft office apps, various messaging apps...), you can't even hear a thing from the fans.

Everyone knows that Intel still has lots of work to improve their driver for Arc Graphics in gaming. Even with a big and experienced GPU manufacturer like AMD, you will often hear about the unstable of their driver.

But in contrast to the poor gaming experience, Arc Graphic has a advantage in rendering, 3D performance, AV1 encoding. This laptop is much suitable for who often works with Adobe apps, than the AMD version.

So, this laptop is for one looking for a light multimedia laptop. It can also do light tasks such as office, entertaiment very well, with a good battery life. Of course, if you don't work with Adobe apps or want better gaming performance, you can choose the AMD version.

[ArsLoginName]

Author starts with " However, Lenovo also offers an AMD model and we want to find out which one is the better choice.' and compares the CB R15 scores between this new 16" and the smaller 14" AMD based version. But then does not compare them again in terms of idle characteristics or battery life since they both use an 84 WHr battery. Wi-fi test AMD loses by 5% but in terms of video playback, the AMD version outlasted this Intel MTL version by 75 minutes. and that is with a higher pixel density OLED display. Also, AMD had about 2 W of lower idle power consumption.

If you are going to compare them, compare them completely. Don't mislead the reader writing things like " In our WLAN test with an adapted brightness of 150 cd/m² (.....) and a 60-Hz refresh rate, the test device managed 12:36 hours (11:28 hours at 120 Hz) and a good 09:46 hours at full brightness (08:11 hours at 120 Hz). In the video test at 150 cd/m², the new Meteor Lake chips' advantage again became apparent and we noted just under 16 hours." when the competitor is just as good if not better even with a more power hungry OLED display.

[NikoB]

So, this laptop is for one looking for a light multimedia laptop. It can also do light tasks such as office, entertaiment very well, with a good battery life.

This is for those who use the laptop 2-3 hours a day or for fools who will quickly kill the battery with more time in real surfing, etc. tasks.

Normal people use laptops (they work at home for 10-12 hours at least), especially modern ones with huge consumption only from the power supply, because outside the power supply they sharply lose performance for all components. When working from a power supply on beds and sofas, in a relaxed state, reclining, and not at a table (why sit at a table at home? If you are sitting at a table, turn on a desktop with a large monitor and sit in complete silence with greater productivity), it is impossible to use such moronic series right-handers - because Legs on the left and USB-C power breaks out within 1 month. This is not up for debate, these are facts.

This moronic series is NOT suitable for working at home 100% or relaxing with it for more than 2-3 hours. It is only suitable for housewives to use 2-3 hours a day. The battery will die within 1.5 years guaranteed if you charge it every day. That's why it is not popular - it gathers dust on shelves everywhere. All warehouses are filled with this series, because... no one needs her. If the stupid Lenovo developers (or rather their stupid marketers) had made the power supply in the back (or 2 USB-C on the left and right, as it should have been initially) or with a durable angled round plug on the left or right - sales would have immediately increased significantly. But apparently increasing sales is no longer interesting to Lenovo...

Only idiots or those who have easy extra money change laptops every 1.5-2 years.

[Trunks]

So, this laptop is for one looking for a light multimedia laptop. It can also do light tasks such as office, entertaiment very well, with a good battery life.

This is for those who use the laptop 2-3 hours a day or for fools who will quickly kill the battery with more time in real surfing, etc. tasks.

Normal people use laptops (they work at home for 10-12 hours at least), especially modern ones with huge consumption only from the power supply, because outside the power supply they sharply lose performance for all components. When working from a power supply on beds and sofas, in a relaxed state, reclining, and not at a table (why sit at a table at home? If you are sitting at a table, turn on a desktop with a large monitor and sit in complete silence with greater productivity), it is impossible to use such moronic series right-handers - because Legs on the left and USB-C power breaks out within 1 month. This is not up for debate, these are facts.

This moronic series is NOT suitable for working at home 100% or relaxing with it for more than 2-3 hours. It is only suitable for housewives to use 2-3 hours a day. The battery will die within 1.5 years guaranteed if you charge it every day. That's why it is not popular - it gathers dust on shelves everywhere. All warehouses are filled with this series, because... no one needs her. If the stupid Lenovo developers (or rather their stupid marketers) had made the power supply in the back (or 2 USB-C on the left and right, as it should have been initially) or with a durable angled round plug on the left or right - sales would have immediately increased significantly. But apparently increasing sales is no longer interesting to Lenovo...

Only idiots or those who have easy extra money change laptops every 1.5-2 years.

I don't know where you live, but in my country (China), Ideapad Pro 5 (including the 14" and AMD version) is one of the best sellers in its range.

I didn't see you could name any multimedia/business laptop in its range with round charging port or in the back side. If all modern laptops nowaday don't have that, you should blame all of them, not this one.

In my country, this laptop comes with 2 years warranty, and can be extended to 3 years at very low cost (~$50). If it die, you can easily request a replacement. Not a big deal.

This laptop may not be suitable for you, but it's suitable for many others. Ignorant :))

[NikoB]

is one of the best sellers in its range.

Yes, there are a lot of Chinese and apparently they have a lot of extra money. But even taking these factors into account, I doubt that this line is popular in China. =)

[SamuelGR]

@NikoB so which gaming laptop you think are good options to buy?

[NikoB]

I have already written an answer to a similar meaningless question from another sufferer - the question should contain absolutely all the key, significant criteria and qualities from you. Thus, correctly formulated requirements for a laptop are more than 50% of my answer. I don't know what you need. Your question is abstract. I can only search for a laptop based on my personal criteria. And there is simply not a single series in 2024 that is interesting to me as a working tool.

Even Jarod said directly on his channel that 2024 gaming models should be avoided when purchasing. If the weight of money doesn't weigh your pocket down...

Intel will have the first Lunar Lake made entirely by TSMC. But unfortunately, with the RAM soldered directly into the SoC (and there is a shameful option with 16GB, although the minimum should be 32, and for the top series it should come with 64GB). To the shame of Intel, there is again not a 512-1024-bit HBM3e controller, but a shameful 128-bit LPDDR5 controller with 8500 memory. Which does not at all solve the problem of the monstrous lack of RAM bandwidth in all x86 chips.

I no longer expect good solutions on Zen5 either, because... there will also only be a shameful 256-bit DDR5 memory controller, which is clearly not capable of serving the requests of cores and peripherals in 2025.

Again, my criterion is also full support for DP ports for 8k monitors in lossless data transfer mode. Again, UHBR20 support will appear only in Lunar Lake (although Intel formally promised it in Meteor Lake, but in the end they deceived everyone - I have not seen a single laptop with DP2.1/UHBR20 support and it's clear why - shamefully slow x86 RAM) and Zen5 Strix Halo, but not in the Strix series.

Unfortunately, instead of a revolution, we get a thin evolution with huge delays from the point of view of human life, and clearly deliberately, in order to squeeze as much profit as possible out of consumers, and scientific and technical progress is not even a secondary goal...