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Lenovo’s Legion 7i Gen 9 gaming laptop (starts at $1,738.49; $1,999.99 as tested) packs the performance to play today’s games in a relatively portable 16-inch design. An Intel Core i9 HX-class processor and Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 graphics provide plenty of muscle, while the Legion’s metal build and per-key RGB keyboard lighting are undoubtedly premium for the price. The Legion 7i Gen 9 fits well between the midrange Alienware m16 R2 and the even more feature-rich but pricey Legion Pro 7i Gen 9, earning an Editors’ Choice award among 16-inch gaming laptops.Configuration and Design: Elegant in Glacier WhiteThe $1,999.99 Legion 7i Gen 9 seen here is a Best Buy configuration with a Core i9-14900HX processor, an 8GB GeForce RTX 4070 GPU, 32GB of memory, and a 1TB NVMe solid-state drive. It shouldn’t be confused with the more potent Lenovo Legion Pro 7i Gen 9, which contains RTX 4080 or 4090 graphics and Nvidia G-Sync support starting at $2,441.49.
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Lenovo’s crowded gaming menu also includes a Lenovo Legion Pro 5i Gen 9 starting at $1,386.99. However, it downgrades to a less premium chassis, four-zone instead of per-key keyboard lighting, and a dimmer display with a lower 165Hz refresh rate.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
Clad in gleaming Glacier White, this Legion looks slick without screaming “gamer.” It’s certainly more eye-catching in this shade than in the Eclipse Black, which is also available. Its anodized aluminum chassis is sturdy. Touching or picking up this laptop immediately imparts that it’s a premium product.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
At 0.78 by 14.1 by 10.3 inches (HWD) and 4.9 pounds, this Lenovo is about as compact as it can be, given its 16-inch screen, except for the protruding rear block seen on several Legions. It’s still trimmer than the Alienware m16 R2 (0.93 by 14.3 by 9.8 inches, 5.75 pounds) and the 2024 Acer Predator Helios Neo 16 (1.18 by 14.2 by 11 inches, 5.7 pounds).
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
Another elegant touch is the shiny brushed aluminum running around the laptop’s edges. Connections on the left side include one USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A port with sleep and charge support, one USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C port, one USB-C Thunderbolt 4 port, and a headphone/microphone audio jack.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
On the right edge, you’ll find an SD card slot, a USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 port with 140-watt power delivery and DisplayPort output, and another USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 port, as well as a kill switch for the 1080p webcam centered above the display. The webcam doesn’t support IR face recognition, but thanks to a fingerprint reader built into the power button, you can still use Windows Hello for password-free logins.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
The back of the laptop holds an HDMI monitor output and the AC adapter connector. The laptop handles wireless links with Intel Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3 inside.Using the Lenovo Legion 7i Gen 9: A Top-Class Display Paired With Comfy InputsThe 16-inch, 2,560-by-1,600-pixel IPS screen is one of the Legion’s best assets. Its only missing feature is Nvidia’s G-Sync variable refresh rate, which is a bummer given the laptop’s price but not a deal-breaker—I didn’t notice any stutter or frame tearing during gameplay. The screen otherwise has everything gamers want, including a 240Hz refresh rate and an anti-glare surface. Colors are richly saturated, and brightness is downright overwhelming in a dark room.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
I found the Legion’s keyboard comfortable for long typing sessions, managing a respectable (for me) 106 words per minute with 97% accuracy in the MonkeyType online typing test. The extra-bright per-key RGB backlighting looks sharp and is easy to distinguish against the white keycaps. As for the key layout, the narrow numeric keypad takes some getting used to, but I was happy to see the company separated the cursor arrow keys into their own cluster. Meanwhile, the touchpad offers a large surface and pleasant tactile clicks.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
Legion Vantage is the most important preinstalled app. It handles system settings and battery health and has a Lenovo Spectrum module to control the keyboard backlighting. Many effects are available, ranging from rainbow and color waves to pulsing, rippling, and audio bounce. Another useful utility is Legion Arena, which aggregates your installed games in one spot.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
The Legion’s bottom panel is removable for end-user upgrades, giving you access to two DDR5-5600 SO-DIMM slots and two M.2 2280 (80mm) drive slots. The battery is also serviceable, and the fans are cleanable. The latter make noticeable noise while gaming, but no more than I’ve heard from other laptops in this class.Testing the Lenovo Legion 7i Gen 9: Premium Performance for a Decent PriceTo recap, our Best Buy Legion 7i Gen 9 combines a Core i9-14900HX CPU (24 cores, up to 5.8GHz turbo), a GeForce RTX 4070 GPU running at 140W, 32GB of RAM, and a 1TB SSD. If you’re willing to forego the Glacier White chassis for low-key gray, these specs were available directly from Lenovo.com for $1,738.49 during our review period. (Lenovo’s online sales fluctuate weekly, so your mileage may vary.) Best Buy also sells a $1,699.99 model with Core i7-14700HX power, a GeForce RTX 4060, and 16GB of RAM.The other gaming rigs we chose for our benchmark comparisons all share Nvidia’s RTX 4070 GPU, including the Acer Predator Helios Neo 16 ($1,699.99 as tested), the Alienware m16 R2 ($1,849.99 as tested), the HP Omen Transcend 16 ($2,959.99 as tested), and the more affordable MSI Katana 15 ($1,599.99 as tested). The Acer and HP use Intel Core HX-class chips like our Legion, while the Alienware runs with a new Core Ultra and the MSI a Core H-class chip. The Core HX laptops ought to top the charts.
Productivity and Content Creation TestsWe run the same general productivity benchmarks across both mobile and desktop systems. Our first test is UL’s PCMark 10, which simulates a variety of real-world productivity and office workflows to measure overall system performance and includes a storage subtest for the primary drive.Three other benchmarks focus on the CPU, using all available cores and threads to rate a PC’s suitability for processor-intensive workloads. Maxon’s Cinebench R23 uses that company’s Cinema 4D engine to render a complex scene, while Geekbench 5.4 Pro from Primate Labs simulates popular apps ranging from PDF rendering and speech recognition to machine learning. Finally, we use the open-source video transcoder HandBrake 1.4 to convert a 12-minute video clip from 4K to 1080p resolution (lower times are better).Finally, we run PugetBench for Photoshop by workstation maker Puget Systems. It uses Adobe’s famous image editor, Creative Cloud version 22, to rate a PC’s performance for content creation and multimedia applications. It’s an automated extension that executes a variety of general and GPU-accelerated Photoshop tasks, from opening, rotating, resizing, and saving an image to applying masks, gradient fills, and filters.
The Legion soared to the top in both PCMark tests, with the Predator following and the others barely in contention. It also did quite well in the CPU tests apart from a mediocre HandBrake time, acing Cinebench, and narrowly taking the lead in Geekbench ahead of the HP. The Legion also posted the highest Photoshop score. Clearly, this is a potent laptop for any task you might throw at it.Graphics and Gaming TestsWe run synthetic and real-world gaming benchmarks for gaming laptops and other mobile gaming hardware. The former includes two DirectX 12 gaming simulations from UL’s 3DMark, Night Raid (more modest, suitable for systems with integrated graphics) and Time Spy (more demanding, suitable for gaming rigs with discrete GPUs). We also run the cross-platform GPU benchmark GFXBench 5, which gauges OpenGL performance. These GFXBench tests are rendered offscreen to accommodate different native display resolutions; more frames per second (fps) means higher performance.Our real-world game testing comes from the in-game benchmarks of F1 2021, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, and Rainbow Six Siege. These three games—all benchmarked at 1080p resolution—represent simulation, open-world action-adventure, and competitive/esports shooter games, respectively. Valhalla and Siege are run twice (Valhalla at Medium and Ultra quality, Siege at Low and Ultra quality), while F1 2021 is run twice at Ultra quality settings with and without AMD and Nvidia’s performance-boosting FSR and DLSS features turned on.
The Legion didn’t distinguish itself in 3DMark or GFXBench, but we didn’t expect it to stand out since these laptops all share the same graphics card. The real-world gaming tests, however, showed it often outrunning the others, if not significantly so.I also reran the game benchmarks at the Legion’s 2,560-by-1,600-pixel native resolution, where it managed 97fps in F1 2021 (Ultra High, DLSS off), 85fps in Assassin’s Creed (Ultra High), and 147fps in Rainbow Six (Ultra). Those are significantly lower than its 1080p numbers but demonstrate the Legion is plenty capable of gaming at that resolution.Battery and Display TestsWe test each laptop and tablet’s battery life by playing a locally stored 720p video file (the open-source Blender movie Tears of Steel) with display brightness at 50% and audio volume at 100%. We ensure the battery is fully charged, with Wi-Fi and keyboard backlighting turned off before the test.To gauge display performance, we also use a Datacolor SpyderX Elite monitor calibration sensor and its Windows software to measure a laptop screen’s color saturation—what percentage of the sRGB, Adobe RGB, and DCI-P3 color gamuts or palettes the display can show—and its 50% and peak brightness in nits (candelas per square meter).
The Legion laptop’s battery life was mid-pack and should be considered merely decent, considering its screen brightness at 50% was pretty dim. The Alienware lasted far longer, but its screen is even dimmer at half brightness.However, only the overachieving Omen Transcend 16 had a brighter display at full brightness. The Legion’s color reproduction was on par with that of the Alienware, though not as broad as that of the Acer and HP. The MSI’s screen is dismal even for a budget laptop.Verdict: Checking the Premium Gaming-Laptop Boxes for LessThe Lenovo Legion 7i Gen 9 stands out as a well-rounded, high-end gaming laptop. Though not cheap on its face, this laptop certainly is affordable, comparatively speaking, for what it provides. This is one of the trimmest and lightest gaming laptops with some of the best performance in its class, thanks to its Core HX CPU and GeForce RTX 4070 GPU. Our Glacier White review unit looks luxurious and well-built, and we also enjoyed its comfortable input devices and bright display. Nvidia G-Sync and longer battery life are wish-list items, but overall, this Legion is a fine choice—and Editors’ Choice award pick—for a two-grand gaming rig.
Pros
Potent gaming performance
Looks sharp in Glacier White
Bright screen
Comfortable input devices
Fingerprint reader
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Cons
Average battery life
No G-Sync support
The Bottom Line
Lenovo’s Legion 7i Gen 9 pushes punchy gaming performance and premium features in a reasonably slim chassis with a luminous display for less than $2,000.
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