Lenovo’sLegion 7i 16 Gen 9is a dual-purpose, Windows gaming laptop that easily handles AAA games, and excels at accomplishing everyday computing tasks. Almost everyone, from college students to die-hard gamers, will appreciate the performance of this PC. While it’s not perfect, it’s a well-designed machine that presents itself as one of the top offerings in the laptop gaming market.
Lenovo Legion 7i 16 Gen 9
Lenovo’s newest Legion 7in 16 Gen 9 is a powerful gaming laptop that offers an Intel i9 processor, 32GB of DDR5 RAM, both an internal Intel GPU and an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070, and a gorgeous 16-inch IPS display. Gamers will delight in its exceptional performance and elegantly cool aesthetic. Though, the battery life and the noise levels of the machine leave a bit to be desired.
Price and Availability
At the time of writing, the price for the Legion 7i 16 Gen 9 is $2067 on Lenovo’s website. you’re able to, however, find it for $1850 at Best Buy, and at Amazon for $2250. I’ve found that the prices on this machine have changed rapidly over the last two weeks, though. So, make sure to shop around if you want to snag the best deal.
Specifications
Designed for Work and Play
The first thing you’ll notice about the Lenovo Legion 7i 16 Gen 9 is its Glacier White exterior. It’s really, really, white. So white, in fact, that the more grubby-fingered among us will immediately raise an eyebrow. The color is certainly eye-catching, but if you choose to purchase the Gen 9 in this colorway, you’ll likely need some extra effort to keep it looking tip-top. On the other hand, if white’s not your thing, you can opt for an Eclipse Black version.
Color notwithstanding, the best word to describe the feel of this computer is “substantial.” Weighing in at just a hair under 5lbs, with a 2.1lb, 230W power brick, this laptop sports some significant heft. Somehow, though, that bulk reinforces the notion that the Legion 7i Gen 9 is a serious machine. So imagining yourself crushing spreadsheets with it in a coffee shop or blasting bad guys while posted up on your couch isn’t difficult.
Opening the lid of the unit reveals the low-glare 16-inch IPS display and a full-size RGB TrueStrike keyboard. This keyboard provides 1.5mm of key travel for quick typing, and 100% anti-ghosting to avoid missed keystrokes. Additionally, a glass trackpad offers smooth, responsive mouse movements. Glowing just above the F9 and F10 keys is the LED-ringed power button. This button also serves as a fingerprint reader and multifunction status indicator.
Brushed metal accents line the Gen 9’s outer shell and offer a smidgen of class. As do the subtle branding details. Port-wise, the laptop has three USB-C ports (two of which support 140W power delivery, while one is Thunderbolt 4 compatible), two USB-A ports, a 3.5mm headphone/microphone combination port, an SD card reader, and a toggle switch to disable the front-facing camera. At the rear edge, you’ll find Lenovo’s proprietary charging port along with a single HDMI connection. Turning the laptop over reveals a large vent for extra cooling and two grille cutouts for the built-in speakers.
Under-the-hood specs of our test model included a liquid-cooled, Intel i9-14900HX, a 1TB SSD, and 32GB of DDR5-5600 RAM. The i9-14900HX is a powerful laptop processor that boasts 32 threads, 36MB of onboard cache, and a maximum clock speed of 5.8GHz. Of note here: if the SSD and the RAM aren’t enough for you, it’s easy to upgrade them as long as you own a Phillips screwdriver. This model also includes Lenovo’s LA3 AI chip, which allows gamers to tweak performance using the Lenovo Vantage software. Finally, an AX211Wi-Fi module offers support for Wi-Fi 6E.
Overall, the Legion 7i 16 Gen 9 is an extremely handsome device, and the white color is show-stopping. It will turn heads, but the design is discreet enough that it doesn’t immediately out itself as a hardcore gaming laptop.
A Stunning Display
Arguably, the most exciting characteristic of the Legion 7i 16 Gen 9 has to be the 16-inch, WQXGA, 240Hz, 2560 × 1600 IPS display. For this, Lenovo claims 500 nits of brightness as well as a 100% sRGB color space. The display supports Dolby Vision and G-Sync, and it comes factory calibrated.
Unfortunately, you won’t find any OLED here, but if you have a larger budget, you may upgrade to a higher resolution display in the form of a native 3.2K (3200 × 2000) IPS panel. Both options feature a razor-thin bezel with only a slight protrusion to house the 1080p FHD front-facing camera. If you’re dead-set on OLED, however, there areplenty of other OLED laptop optionsavailable.
Graphics for the Gen 9 are provided by either the onboard Intel GPU or an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 with 8GB of RAM (it has both). An RTX 4080 is also an option here, but again, that will increase the overall cost. For default computing, the display runs at a laid-back 60Hz. However, by pressing Fn + R, on the keyboard, you can activate the display’s 240Hz mode for extra frames of gaming goodness.
When it comes to graphics performance, the RTX 4070 is quite viable for today’s AAA games, even though the RTX 4080 would be a slight upgrade. Still, I was able to eke out 240FPS in Cyberpunk 2077 at certain points during game play; however, the majority of my sessions cruised along between 70 and 140FPS.
Testing the display was done with a Datacolor Spyder X2 Pro to measure color accuracy, screen brightness, contrast, white point, and tone representation of the display. Color accuracy was rated four out of five according to the Spyder X2 Pro, while gamut, tone response, and contrast all received the highest marks. Additionally, white point and luminance uniformity earned a four out of five according to the Datacolor. However, these tests also revealed a small amount of backlight leakage from the lower-right corner of the display.
Unless you’re doing heavy color-intensive photography or videography work, you’ll likely love this screen. It really is gorgeous, and something you’d need to see to appreciate fully. I also think the anti-glare finish was a commendable choice, and it made working outdoors quite enjoyable.
Essential Software Plus Some Bloat
Like most modern PCs, the operating system that ships with the Legion 7i 16 Gen 9 is a Windows 11 variant. Ours came with Windows Home, but Pro is available according to Lenovo’s website. The PC also comes loaded with apps from NVIDIA, McAfee, Lenovo, Tobii, Intel, and Xbox, and it offers trial software for Dropbox and Microsoft 365. Some may see the addition of these apps as bloat, especially if you’re trying to fill the SSD with AAA titles. However, these additions didn’t seem to affect overall system performance.
Lenovo also includes its stand-out Vantage software, which is known for its maintenance and optimization aspects. This version offers overclocking of the GPU, boosting wireless performance, rapid charging, GPU selection, a quiet mode, and the ability to enable rapid display refresh rates. There’s also the X-Rite Color Assistant software, which allows color adjustment for Rec. 709, or sRGB, depending on your use case.
Punched-Up Performance
Benchmarking results for the Lenovo Legion 7i 16 Gen 9 showed good performance, with a TimeSpy score of 13,082, and a Steel Nomad score of 2,718. However, both scores fell a touch below average for the hardware. The max thread score came in at 11,810 which also trended a bit low.
Still, I found the Legion 7i 16 Gen 9 robust enough to provide the processing power for playing most modern AAA games. It was easy to get sucked into titles like Elden Ring and Armored Core VI. Though, I did experience a handful of hard locks and one or two “Low Video Memory” messages when playing Forza Horizon 5.
Mostly, I used dGPU mode for gaming, though for a few sessions I shifted into hybrid mode just to see if there were any hiccups. Both settings were immersive. However, dGPU mode offered slightly better performance. Gaming aside, opening several work-related apps like Obsidian, Microsoft Word, Google Chrome, Slack, and Spotify didn’t seem to phase the Gen 9. It handled just about everything I threw at it with barely any push back. Including writing this review.
A Note on Noise
The amount of fan noise produced by the PC during gaming, however, was quite noticeable. While I wouldn’t classify it as excessive, I would say that it’s loud enough to be distracting. At full bore, the fans on the Legion 7i 16 Gen 9 topped out around 59.9 dB. When not gaming, I found the PC fans barely audible.
Heat was also a concern when under heavy CPU and GPU loads. This peaked at around 99.7F during CPU stress tests. And at the palm rests, the 7i Gen 9 also gets decently warm.
Battery Life Falls Flat
My biggest bugbear with this computer was the battery life. I found that when unplugged, the Gen 9’s battery lasted only about two and a half hours, even with battery management features enabled. That’s not even close to a full day’s charge. To make sure this poor showing wasn’t a fluke, I tested the battery multiple times over several days.
Each time, I fully charged it before using the computer without the charger throughout my workday. On average, two and a half hours seemed like the magic number for a full discharge. The longest charge time came in at two hours and 33 minutes, and the shortest, two hours and 17 minutes. Keep in mind, this was under constant use. Therefore, if you frequently put your PC into standby mode, or useexternal Windows battery management software, your charge times might be slightly better.
Camera, Microphone, and Audio
Both the 1080p front-facing camera and the internal microphone of the Legion 7i 16 Gen 9 should serve you well for most video conferencing. While I wouldn’t depend on this stock setup for extended streaming, it’s serviceable in a pinch. I did, however, find a bit of muddiness to the internal mic’s audio quality, as well as a bit of noise in the video recordings under normal lighting conditions.
Onboard audio for the Legion 7i is provided by Harman, which makes the 2W dual laptop speakers sound great. And even at higher volumes, there was very little distortion. That said, they are laptop speakers. Which means they are limited by their form factor. Sure, they sound good, but they won’t beat a good pair of headphones or a set of quality bookshelf speakers.
Other Gaming Laptop Options
With similar specs and a similar price point, the biggest contender for the Legion 7i Gen 9 is likely theAlienware M16 R2. The Alienware is a slightly heavier option. However, it provides a few additional features not offered by Lenovo, such as an onboard RJ45 Ethernet port, and Wi-Fi 7. We have yet to do a deep dive into the Alienware M16 R2, but it’s likely that a review is forthcoming. While you’re waiting, you may always check out our picks for someother great gaming laptops.
Should You Buy the Lenovo Legion 7i Gen 9?
As a capable gaming computer and an everyday workhorse, theLenovo Legion 7i 16 Gen 9is an exceptional value. In my opinion, the only obstacles preventing this PC from being a complete home run are its distracting noise levels and its poor battery performance.
That said, the Lenovo Legion 7i 16 Gen 9 offers plenty of desirable features for a reasonable cost. It’s fun to use, it lets you get lost in your game library, and it has an overall aesthetic that is undoubtedly cool. For the majority of gamers, it’s a win, and certainly worth your consideration.
