Lenovo’s Legion Pro 7i Gen 10 is a slick premium gaming laptop with a flashy new design and top-end performance. Its steep price, though, keeps it from standing out in a competitive field.
The latest Lenovo Legion iteration to cross our desks, the Legion Pro 7i Gen 10 (starts at $2,909.99; $3,559.99 as tested) is physically redesigned from the Gen 9, and makes the leap to Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 50-series GPUs. The result is an expensive, but flashy and powerful, gaming laptop for the hard-core crowd. The Intel Core Ultra 9 processor and Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080 GPU in our review model delivered top-end frame rates in modern titles, enabling 60fps AAA gaming or high-refresh competitive experiences. While there are no major pitfalls to the Legion, there’s also no particular feature or performance aspect that should compel you to choose it over an alternative—and it’s more expensive than average, even in the high-end tier. For a few hundred dollars less, the Editors’ Choice Asus ROG Strix Scar 16 (G635LW) performs slightly better and includes some sweet features that set it apart.Configuration and Pricing: Premium Top to Bottom
We’ve seen some more modest configurations of Legion laptops in recent years, and ones that hit a sweet spot of cost and performance, but this edition is a pricey proposition. The starting price alone is high, with the base model coming in at $2,909.99. For that, you get an Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX processor, 32GB of memory, a 1TB SSD, and an RTX 5070 Ti GPU.
The display is the same across all models: an advanced 1600p OLED non-touch panel with a 240Hz refresh rate, which is a sweet screen for gaming. This 24-core “Arrow Lake” processor is also used in every model of this machine, making it an inherently high-end system—in case that wasn’t obvious from the entry price.
Our configuration is significantly stepped up from there in the GPU and storage departments. For $3,559.99, it swaps the RTX 5070 Ti for an RTX 5080 and adds a second 1TB drive. The rest of the parts are the same, so that’s a big upcharge for a superior GPU and double the storage—though the RTX 5080 does offer a noticeable gaming-performance boost. Since we have only this one unit, I can’t pit the two head-to-head, but I’ll run through what kind of gaming frame rates you can expect from this machine in the testing section later.Design: A New Look for Legion
While some generation-on-generation laptop iterations tout minimal design changes, the Pro 7i Gen 10 has a new look. It’s not a massive departure from the Legion Pro 7i Gen 9, but several differences between the chassis are hard to miss.
The basic footprint remains roughly the same, but even then, the new model is a hair larger, at 1.05 by 14.4 by 10.9 inches (HWD), and somewhat lighter at 5.7 pounds. This isn’t especially big or heavy for a 16-inch gaming laptop, so while it’s far from an ultraportable, the idea of throwing it in a backpack won’t seem overly intimidating. The chassis is plastic—a bit underwhelming at this price compared with the all-aluminum Razer Blade 16—but the metal lid lends a more luxe feel, at least.
Other aesthetic and layout changes are clear throughout. The lid logo is now in the center, which is more traditional than the previous logo that ran along the edge. The location itself is fairly minor, and it’s ultimately a personal preference as to which you like more, but the central logo is now RGB-backlit, along with the rest of the customizable system lighting. Previously, it was semi-reflective but had no lighting component.
An additional change also relates to system lighting: The rear edge of the laptop has been redesigned, now with end-to-end RGB trim outlining the ventilation area. It’s a slick look, though you, as the user, obviously won’t get to see it very much, looking at the laptop from the keyboard side. The side-facing vents have been removed, while the front-edge RGB strip remains.
The redesigned vents and cooling system should increase airflow through the chassis, which is all the more important with more powerful RTX 50 series GPUs inside. This machine touts an advanced so-called “Legion ColdFront” vapor chamber and hyperchamber system that pulls cool air in from the bottom cover and pushes it out of these reshaped rear vents. The system also includes a “dual-burn” feature that allows for higher sustained simultaneous CPU and GPU performance, which should add up to higher stable frame rates.
