Lenovo’s Legion 7i and 5i Pro gaming laptops have tall 16:10 QHD displays
Lenovo is banking hard on 16-inch QHD displays in the taller 16:10 aspect ratio with its new lineup of Legion 7i and 5i Pro gaming laptops, and I’m all for it. These laptops are a showcase for crisper, more spacious displays that have a fast 165Hz refresh rate and G-Sync support, as well as faster processors by way of Intel’s new 11th Gen H-series CPUs. They’re also among the first laptops announced to support Nvidia’s lower-end GeForce RTX 3050 and 3050 Ti graphics chips, in addition to more powerful GPU options.
The Legion 7i is the flagship and can fit the most amount of power, supporting up to a 165W total graphics power (TGP) variant of Nvidia’s RTX 3080 (16GB) with a boost clock of 1,710MHz. That’s more power-hungry than what we’ve seen in most gaming laptops, so it should, theoretically, allow for some fantastic gaming performance. It can be configured with Intel’s flagship Core i9-11980HK processor, too, one of the fastest laptop chips on the market. The Legion 7i comes with a 300W power adapter, though if you’re doing light tasks (and not gaming), it can also recharge via USB-C at 95W. Lenovo says this model will release in June 2021 and will start at $1,769.99.
Despite a few differences, many of the Legion 7i’s ports and specs trickle down to the lower-end Legion 5i models announced today, including its two Thunderbolt 4 ports, three full-size USB 3.2 ports, an Ethernet jack, and an HDMI 2.1 port for outputting 4K resolution at up to 120Hz in external displays that support it. They also host fast DDR4 RAM clocked at 3,200MHz and NVMe PCIe SSDs, though the maximum capacity varies depending on the model you’re buying.
If you don’t need quite as much power as the 7i offers, the Legion 5i Pro has a similarly fast, tall pixel-dense 16-inch QHD screen with the same 16:10 aspect ratio. It tops out at the Core i7-11800H processor and Nvidia’s RTX 3070 GPU with a maximum TGP of 140W and a boost clock of 1,620MHz, which is still plenty fast. That combination of specs should be sufficient to play most games in QHD resolution at high graphical settings, quite possibly with some ray tracing effects switched on. The Legion 5i Pro will ship in June as well, costing $1,329.99 to start.
The Legion 5i lineup also includes 15-inch and 17-inch variants. The specs don’t spell out all that many differences compared to the 5i Pro, aside from the lack of its 16:10 aspect ratio display. You can still get fast QHD screens with these models, though, and you can configure them with Intel’s Core i7-11800H and the RTX 3070, or save money by knocking them down to the Core i7-11400H CPU and the RTX 3050. Both of these sizes will release in July, and Lenovo says they’ll start at $969.99.
Lenovo is banking hard on 16-inch QHD displays in the taller 16:10 aspect ratio with its new lineup of Legion 7i and 5i Pro gaming laptops, and I’m all for it. These laptops are a showcase for crisper, more spacious displays that have a fast 165Hz refresh rate and G-Sync…
