The best mainstream gamer in 2025 - Lenovo Legion 5 15 Laptop Review

[Redaktion]

Lenovo ships its mainstream gamer with the GeForce RTX 5060 Laptop as well as a 165 Hz OLED panel, which offers excellent image quality. However, the processor is an AMD Zen 4 chip, so does it affect the gaming performance?

https://www.notebookcheck.net/The-best-mainstream-gamer-in-2025-Lenovo-Legion-5-15-Laptop-Review.1047975.0.html

[gipax]

this hardware is scam. Nothing added over a 4070 laptop with almost the same price.

[spindash]

No VRR is a HUGE miss for this kind of laptop.

[Sammy5257]

Not having Advanced Optimus is such a deal breaker. Can it not switch to iGPU mode only after unplugging from the charger automatically?

[5i Gen 10]

Hi! Can you tell me your take on the missing OLED Care features like Pixel shift, Pixel Clean, etc on this years whole Legion OLED Laptops? After talking with Lenovo, they basically confirmed there is just features like auto wallpaper changing, dark mode, taskbar hiding and so. For me this is really concerning regarding burn in preventions and I think it's very important for potential buyers to be aware, as Lenovo is somehow hiding this.

[Russel]

Haven't seen NikoB in comments lately.
This shitty screen deserves his attention 😂

[RobertJasiek]

Haven't seen NikoB in comments lately.

Unfortunately, after his off-topic excesses and sometimes overly harsh criticism of moderators, he is effectively censored by the admins. I and more of us also miss his on-topic contributions.

[Russel]

Haven't seen NikoB in comments lately.

Unfortunately, after his off-topic excesses and sometimes overly harsh criticism of moderators, he is effectively censored by the admins. I and more of us also miss his on-topic contributions.

That's unfortunate.
Sometimes I found his comments more informative and entertaining than the article in question😂

[Legionnaire]

I am not sure why there are so many negative comments here. With discounts, this was a really good price. I paid under $1500 CAD for this model (less with cashback) - for an equivalent of around $1000USD. I have always turned off Advanced Optimus (hate the ~2 sec freezes as it switches between iGPU and dGPU), lack of VRR is understandable at the price point, and the performance you're getting with an OLED display is phenomenal.

[makingtechfriendly]

Thanks for the review. Will be another best seller with the option of both IPS and OLED to suit whoever wants what.
There rarely is any other brand laptops in the same price range as Lenovo in India if you factor in all the extra savings.

[Vereiden]

What about the PWM on 60 hz refresh rate mode on this screen?

[8 GB VRAM]

The upgradable up to 64 GB RAM and a true 120 Hz (true bc of the sub 1ms pixel response times) OLED screen are nice.

But due to the relatively high 1450 bucks price (it's not too bad, I get it) I have to point out this:
The 8 GB VRAM may not be enough for the newest big AAA games. Big AAA games are developed for consoles in mind first, and the current PS5 has 16 GB VRAM. Minus 4 GB for its OS, leaves 12 GB VRAM. This is why many new games have problems with 8 GB VRAM, increasingly may even in 1080p:
Jun 25, 2024: youtube.com/watch?v=dx4En-2PzOU: "How Much VRAM Do Gamers Need? 8GB, 12GB, 16GB or MORE?"
Apr 9, 2025: youtube.com/watch?v=e4GCxObZrZE: "This is what happens when you run out of VRAM... Say NO to 8GB GPUs!"
Aug 22, 2025: youtube.com/watch?v=ric7yb1VaoA: "Gaming Laptops are in Trouble - VRAM Testing w/ ‪@Hardwareunboxed‬"

3 GB per GDDR7 chip, instead of the current 2 GB per chip, densities exist and are being used in the 5090 Laptop (it has 24 GB VRAM) (the same chip is also used in a 5080 desktop, it has 16 GB VRAM), so 12 GB VRAM are possible without changing anything, simply by using higher density GDDR7 chips (8 GB * 1.5 = 12 GB).
I get that it's a balance, but unfortunately the vids show that the balance moves more and more towards the need for at least 12 GB VRAM.
The only question is: Do GPU makers see it being worth using GDDR7 3 GB densities on this kind of low-ish GPU performance GPUs.

(PS: If a PS6 has 24 GB VRAM, then minus 4 GB for its OS and you'd potentially need 20 GB VRAM.)

Since the RAM is upgradable to up to 64 GB + the 8 GB VRAM GPU may be able to run the Gpt-Oss-120B LLM. I can confirm it's working with 64 GB RAM and a 12 GB VRAM GPU, not sure about the 8 GB VRAM.