I have been unhealthily obsessive about Razer Blade gaming laptops because it actually nailed that matte black MacBook aesthetic over the previous few years, and managed to jam high-end graphics silicon inside that modern chassis and nonetheless make it fly. It is unhealthy as a result of the damned issues are so frickin’ costly, commanding a premium as a result of there hasn’t actually been one other PC machine to come back shut.
Now, I do not wish to channel the Jeremy Clarkson/Prime Gear ‘…till now’ factor an excessive amount of, however Lenovo has nearly come out of nowhere this yr to hit the highest of my most-wanted gaming laptop computer checklist. The newest Legion machines provide a stage of fashion, efficiency, and construct high quality that belies their relative affordability.
In comparison with equivalently specced Razer Blade or Asus ROG laptops your Lenovo Legion will ship all the identical gaming and artistic efficiency however typically for a far decrease value. Certainly, our favorite gaming laptop computer, the Lenovo Legion Professional 7i, has been on sale at B&H Photograph for a lot of the yr, making all of it however inconceivable to advocate some other RTX 4080-toting pocket book.
However once I say it is ‘come out of nowhere,’ that is doing an enormous disservice to Lenovo. It is paid its dues as one of many main workplace laptop computer makers on the planet, with its ThinkPad units dominating tray tables in half the enterprise class seats within the air proper now. It is solely this yr, nonetheless, that its Legion laptops have made an actual splash within the gaming market.
It seems I am additionally weirdly a sucker for its clean ceramic keycaps and the texture of the cast carbon lid.
It isn’t solely in its worth proposition the place the Legion machines have staked a declare for this nerd’s coronary heart, both. I like a little bit of smart-speccing and smarter pricing, for certain, however I do nonetheless have goals, these money-no-object wishes, too. That is the place the modern black Blade machines have lived for therefore lengthy, however I have been testing the Legion 9i lately and it is superb.
It is the RTX 4090 model, and I nonetheless stand by my assertion that solely a idiot would buy a gaming laptop computer with that fake top-end Ada GPU inside it, as a result of you will get an RTX 4080 model with all the identical good things inside it. And it actually is nice stuff, even when the promise of built-in liquid cooling is a bit over-enthusiastic (c’mon, it is an lively vapour chamber, at finest).
Principally it is due to that superb 1,200cd/m2 mini-LED display, the beautiful keyboard, and the completely rock-solid, inflexible, however nonetheless impressively slim, chassis. It seems I am additionally weirdly a sucker for its clean ceramic keycaps and the texture of the cast carbon lid. It is so damned tactile, even when it seems like some odd city camo.
This yr has been all about cellular gaming improvements for me—I’ve cherished testing the Steam Deck OLED, have tweaked and toyed with a ton of different nice handheld gaming PCs, and pulled aside my forgiving Framework 13 laptop computer to stay in lots of new, totally different mainboards and a few with real gaming chops, too. However it’s my affection for the Legion laptops that has shocked me essentially the most.
Lenovo might not have 2024 all its personal approach, although. Razer is bound to be updating its Blade vary, and I am excited to see a 13-inch Meteor Lake Stealth. However we additionally know that Asus is upping its recreation to try to be extra like Razer, switching out the plastic Zephyrus chassis for an all-metal unibody design. That is going to make the Asus Zephyrus G14 an actual factor of magnificence and I for one can’t wait to get my arms on that.
Although, if Lenovo releases a 14-inch Legion subsequent yr, that is a great deal lower than the ROG or Razer premium, it may nonetheless get my vote. And my coronary heart. And my axe.
