Lenovo Legion 7i Gen 9 gaming laptop review: An extremely beautiful and powerful gaming laptop

It’s a beauty! That’s the first thought that popped into my head when I unboxed the Lenovo Legion 7i Gen 9 gaming laptop. It’s a clean gaming laptop that comes in two colour options - Eclipse Black and Glacier White - and is slim in nature.

It’s got brushed aluminium around the edges and a metal chassis. It’s got this soft, laminate-type feel that adds to its premiumness. It’s got a solid build, one of the best, among all the gaming laptops, out there.

The Legion 7i (as I’ll refer to) comes with an array of ports for all your needs. There’s the USB Type-A, a USB Type-C 3.2 Gen 2 port, another USB Type-C port (with Thunderbolt 4, PD 140W and DisplayPort 1.4 support), and a 3.5mm headphone jack on the left-hand side. On the right-hand side is a 4-in-1 SD card reader, another USB Type-C port (USB 3.2 Gen 1), a USB Type-A port, camera switch (privacy shutter). On the back is the power connector and a HDMI 2.1 port.

With that out of the way, let’s come to what I think is the crux of this laptop. The lightweight feel and the premium looks other than its insane gaming capabilities. The laptop weighs just 2.24kg. It’s supremely lightweight. You’d be even more surprised once you see the internals that Lenovo has fitted into this gaming laptop. The charger does add to the weight, as you can never take a gaming laptop without its charger. It’s a 230W charging brick and will weigh your backpack down, but that’s the case with all gaming laptops’ chargers.

The laptop is easily openable with one finger. A lot of gamers prefer to use an external display because it’s larger, more colour-accurate, anti-glare and something they are used to. To that extent, Lenovo has made sure that the Legion 7i’s display can tilt and go flat all the way up to 180 degrees.

Once you open the laptop, you’ll be greeted with Lenovo’s fantastic keyboard with u-shape keys. Legion TrueStrike keyboard brings about a balance of precision and responsiveness and has a good 1.5mmkey travel (along with option per-key RGB lighting). It’s one of my favourite keyboards ever on a gaming laptop.

I’m stoked that I got the Eclipse Black unit for review as the RGB looks stunning. I’ve seen some videos of the Glacier White variant, and in daylight conditions, the RGB is hardly noticeable. Now that’s a bummer and could be a dealbreaker for some gamers.

There’s very little to fault this laptop for. One thing I can say though, having seen the competitors’ laptops out there, is that I wish Lenovo had outfitted the Legion 7i with an OLED display. The contrast, viewing angles, and deep blacks would have been amazing.

The IPS panel is solid, and very good, despite me hoping for more. It’s a 16” 3.2K (3200x2000) IPS panel. The brightness goes up to 430 nits, and thankfully, this is an anti-glare display. I’ve tried gaming (yes, while it is plugged in) at a cafe, and found that it was a pleasant experience. The display is rated for a 165Hz refresh rate and has support for Dolby Vision, G-SYNC, and more.

How well does it perform concerning gaming?

While I wished for an OLED display, one thing I do like about the IPS panel is the 16:10 aspect ratio. Couple that with fairly thin bezels and you’ve got a lot more screen real estate. This is particularly useful in first-person shooters; Halo, Counter-Strike, or the like. Or even Doom Eternal, which is a fantastic game.

Cramming an i9-14900HX along with an NVDA RTX 4070 means this thing will provide for some insane performance. Go to Lenovo Vantage software, and select ‘Performance Mode’ in the thermal settings. The fans do kick in, and you can hear it, but it isn’t a dealbreaker. Extreme Mode is just overkill and not necessarily.

I had a fantastic time playing Doom Eternal on this laptop as I was able to get upwards of 120 frames per second.

The downside here is that the laptop heats up beyond expectations. The cooling doesn’t seem to be at its optimum. The gap between the display and the keyboard, where the power button rests, gets the hottest and even the keyboard, can on the occasion, get too hot to touch.

Can you game while using the laptops battery’s?

Absolutely not. The 99.9Wh battery is fairly good, but doesn’t last long while you’re gaming. With my regular office usage of browsing the web (with 50+ Google Chrome tabs open), watching YouTube videos, editing photos, and more, I got a solid five to six hours of battery life on a single charge.

If I started to game, while unplugged from the charger, then the laptop would die within two hours. But that’s in-line with other gaming laptops out there.

What else do you need to know?

- Speakers: The bottom-mounted speakers (which are a pair of 2W speakers) sound muffled, even though the vocals overpowered everything else. Basically, if you’re buying this laptop, then you need to invest in a pair of gaming headset or external speakers.

- Webcam: One of the better things about the Legion 7i is the 1080p webcam. It isn’t the best one out there but it does an excellent job of being colour accurate and being sharp. It’s great for attending those long Zoom calls your office has scheduled. In fact, there’s the Tobii’s eye tracking software (inside of the Legion Vantage) app.

- Touchpad: The touchpad is one of the best I’ve used on a gaming laptop. It’s smooth to touch and the feedback is good. Multitouch gestures are a breeze. I wouldn’t recommend gaming with the touchpad, but for daily tasks, it’s great.

- Lenovo AvatarMaster: The app describes itself as one with which you can, “easily transform yourself into a 3D digital avatar with the AvatarMaster App”. Yes, it works as advertised. I have zero complaints here. Within just a few minutes you’d be set up with your digital avatar.

Should you buy this laptop?

At a price of Rs 2,09,990 (the model I tested), the Legion 7i isn’t particularly cheap. It gets the job done, while coming in this sleek and enchanting package. Just be mindful that the competition, HP and Asus, is pretty strong. Do your research well before plunging over Rs 2,00,000, on a gaming laptop.

The Legion 7i has got a top-of-the-line 14th Gen Intel Core i9 processor, an NVIDIA RTX 4070 GPU, 32GB of RAM and much more. It’s the thinnest gaming laptop in Lenovo’s lineup and it shows.

It’s a laptop with a solid build, and the Eclipse Black version attracts fingerprints, but nonetheless, it’s a great rig to game on. I just wish Lenovo had outfitted it with an OLED display to make it the complete package.