Referring to Lenovo, most likely you will immediately think of “serious” laptops like the legendary ThinkPad or ThinkBook, Yoga, but Lenovo also has a product line for gamers called Legion. Since the launch of the first product, which is now the 7th generation, Lenovo has constantly improved and improved the Legion line to be able to compete fairly with seasoned players in the industry gaming segment like Asus and MSI.
Last week I got the chance to take in the Lenovo Legion 5i 2022, you know, the one with the code name 15IAH7H. In my testing it had the newest 12th generation Intel Core i7-12700H chip, plus a Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 graphics card, with 32GB of DDR5 RAM and a 1TB NVMe SSD. Lenovo also gives a bunch of tweakable configurations for people to weigh, sort of depending on what you actually need , for instance you can swap in the GeForce RTX 3070Ti, and obviously the price will shift with that decision.
Design: When Entrepreneurs Are Gamers
If you just glance at it, you definitely won’t realize that the Lenovo Legion 5i 2022 is a gaming laptop. With a thickness of less than 26 mm and a weight of 2.4 kg, the Legion 5i 2022 has a desirable body, for a 15.6-inch gaming laptop. It also comes with a discreet graphics card, so yeah it kinda makes sense once you look at it a bit closer. With square edges and a minimalist top with only the Legion brand name placed along the side of the machine, the Legion 5i 2022 is no different from an ultrabook for business. The only “style” features of the laptop are in the heat sink, which is carefully hidden by Lenovo at the back and left edge of the chassis.
Finished with aluminum and magnesium alloy, the Legion 5i 2022 feels solid in the hand and everyday use. The rough surface helps to limit sweat and fingerprints very well. As a person who sweats a lot, I have experienced many laptops but the Legion 5i 2022 is one of the products that makes me most satisfied in this aspect.
The hinge of the machine is pushed in quite deep like the previous generation, creating space for connection ports, signal lights as well as heat sink slots. This Lenovo approach will help expand the space on the sides of the machine, avoiding affecting the gaming process and daily use in general. The special design also helps Legion 5i 2022 to open the screen at a 180-degree angle, and you can completely open the lid with just one hand.
As a gaming laptop, the number of connection ports of Legion 5i 2022 is very rich. Behind the machine is the main connection area, including one USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 port, two USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 ports (one Always On port), Slim Tip charging port, HDMI, and Ethernet RJ45. Meanwhile, the left side of the machine contains a Thunderbolt 4 port and an additional USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 port that can both charge Power Delivery, transmit data, and output DisplayPort 1.4 images, and the right side is a 3.5mm combo headphone jack + microphone, a USB 3.2 Gen 1 port and a webcam toggle to protect privacy.
Below is a cooling system that Lenovo calls Coldfront 4.0. According to the manufacturer, Coldfront 4.0 owns a cooling fan system with 40% thinner blades, 4 heat pipes, and a copper CPU heatsink block. Combined with the Lenovo Legion AI Engine, which adjusts gaming performance through fan performance prediction, as well as balances out GPU and CPU resources in real-time for each game.
Overall, I appreciate the design of the Lenovo Legion 5i 2022. The device offers a youthful, modern appearance but still has the necessary gaming features. Along with a neat body, you can confidently use the machine in many different environments, something that few high-end gaming laptops can do.
Beautiful 2K screen, satisfying both work and entertainment
The Legion 5i 2022 model I experienced has a 15.6-inch screen, a QHD (2560 x 1440 pixels) IPS panel with a 16: 9 ratio with a 165Hz refresh rate, and 300 nit brightness. Some Legion versions will have a wider 16:10 aspect ratio screen in the vertical direction, but I think that with mainstream gaming needs, the traditional 16: 9 ratio will still be better, especially if you I’m a fan of old games. Except for the slightly thick bottom border to balance the chassis containing the full-size keyboard, the remaining three screen edges of the machine are very thin, only a few mm, providing a feeling of open and spacious viewing.
Practical experience, Legion 5i 2022 offers good display quality compared to the common ground of gaming laptops, vivid colors, and high contrast, 300 nit brightness is more than enough for all uses (most of the time I just set the brightness at 60-70%). With 100% sRGB color coverage, the Legion 5i 2022 can also handle tasks like photo and video editing if you need it.
If there is a need to play on something bigger, like a larger screen situation, Lenovo now has the Legion line, basically for gaming monitors. For example, the Legion Y25-30 with its 24.5-inch IPS LCD panel brings a refresh rate up to 280Hz, a very fast response time of only 1ms, and it fully builds in tech meant for a smooth look, such as AMD Free Sync Premium, Nvidia G-Sync, and an anti-glare coating. The screen design also feels flexible in real use, because it supports height adjustment, a 90-degree rotation , and right or left tilting as well very easily. Simply connect the Legion 5i 2022 to this monitor via Thunderbolt 4 and the entire gaming experience is fully transformed onto the larger screen thanks to data transfer speeds of up to 40Gbps.
In terms of sound, the Legion 5i 2022 has 2 2W speakers located at the bottom of the chassis. Maybe partly due to the speaker placement, the quality of the Legion 5i 2022’s speakers is below my expectations. The Nahimic Audio app, that was supposed to do a lot for sound quality, honestly didn’t help all that much. I think it’s worth investing in a headset or external speakers for a better gaming experience.
The Legion 5i 2022 webcam comes with Full HD resolution which is a step up from the 720p webcam that you usually see on lots of gaming laptops. You can adjust the brightness and contrast of the webcam in the pre-installed Lenovo Vantage software on the device. The quality of the webcam I evaluate is good.
“Perfect” typing keyboard, with 4-zone RGB LED
With a 15.6-inch screen size, the Legion 5i 2022 completely has enough space for a full-size keyboard and that’s also what Lenovo has done. Called Lenovo Legion TrueStrike, Legion 5i 2022’s keyboard offers a good typing experience. Although it is not a mechanical key, you can feel the tactile quite clearly, the key travel is deep and the typing is smooth, without emitting much noise. The size of the keys is balanced, the layout is easy to get used to and the keyboard does not flex when pressed down, indicating a high quality of finishing.
As a gaming laptop, it is clear that RGB LEDs for the keyboard are indispensable. With Legion 5i 2022, Lenovo is equipped with a 4-zone LED system, which can be customized through Lenovo Vantage software. High-brightness LED bulbs, adjustable brightness to suit games in the evening and at night.
Speaking of Lenovo Vantage, this is pre-installed software that acts as a portal as well as a control center for Lenovo laptop features. Here, you can monitor the status of the machine such as CPU clock, GPU, warranty status, customize performance modes, etc.
The touchpad of the Legion 5i 2022 has a large size, which seems to be slightly larger than necessary because often when using a gaming laptop we will buy a separate mouse, not too concerned with the touchpad. In fact, inside the box of the machine will come with a Legion M300 RGB gaming mouse, so most of the time I don’t touch the touchpad. That said, when needed, the Legion 5i 2022’s touchpad will still do a good job with a smooth swiping feeling and full Windows Precision driver support for swiping gestures.
Lenovo – Legion 5i – Gaming – 17.3″ FHD 144Hz – Intel Core i7-10750H – 16GB DDR4 RAM – 1TB SSD + 1TB HDD – NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 Graphics – Windows 10 Home – Phantom Black: Buy it now
Lenovo – Legion 5i – Gaming Laptop – Intel Core i7-11800H – 8GB DDR4 RAM – 1TB NVMe TLC SSD – NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Ti Graphics – 17.3″ FHD 144Hz – Windows 11 Home – Phantom Blue: Buy it now
Fast performance, cool running
However, at 2K resolution, Ultra graphics settings can be too demanding with the RTX 3060, especially with AAA games that require terrible configuration. With relatively lighter games like League of Legends, hitting around 165 fps so it matches the Legion 5i 2022 165Hz display is pretty easy. But dont stress if your favorite title cant reach that number, because this laptop includes Nvidia G-Sync anti-tear tech, so even if you play at a lower fps than the refresh rate, you won’t really get that tearing effect, at least not in the usual way.
In familiar benchmarks, Legion 5i 2022 all gave impressive scores, exactly what I expected in a configuration like this. The “normal” tasks that I still do every day such as browsing dozens of Chrome tabs, opening Photoshop and Lightroom in parallel to edit photos, and tabs to League of Legends to play the Truth Arena chess game are impossible making it difficult for the Legion 5i 2022. The laptop only proved to have to work hard when performing heavy benchmarks like 3D Mark Time Spy or the game Far Cry: New Dawn.
Here are the results of Legion 5i 2022 through benchmarks:
3DMark Time Spy emulator 2K resolution gaming, DX12 graphics library. Legion 5i 2022 reached 8,309 points.
3DMark FireStrike Extreme gaming emulator 2K resolution, DX11 graphics library. The score this time of Legion 5i 2022 is 9,313.
3DMark CPU Profile measures CPU performance. Max threads indicate maximum CPU performance, and Core i7-12700H on Legion 5i 2022 reached 6,865 points.
Legion 5i 2022 scored 1382 single-core and 12169 multi-core on GeekBench 5.
Meanwhile, the RTX 3060 GPU scored 99885 OpenGL performance points.
Cinebench R23, which measures CPU performance for rendering tasks, single-core, and multi-core. The Legion 5i 2022’s Intel Core i7-12700H reached 1607 single-core points and 14930 multi-core points.
PCMark 10 simulates everyday multitasking tasks. Legion 5 2022 reached 7,324 points.
In terms of gaming performance, I use the available benchmarks of games including Far Cry: New Dawn, Final Fantasy XV, and Guardians of the Galaxy. The games are all configured at High graphics settings, and 2K screen resolution, and the results show that Legion 5i 2022 can fully play these games at more than 100 fps.
Responsible for data storage in the Legion 5i 2022 is the Samsung PM9A1 PCIe 4.0 SSD, with the manufacturer announced speeds (sequential read write) of 7000 MB/s and 5100 MB/s. All of this ends up being noticeably quicker than the earlier PCIe 3.0 SSD, which came before it. Benchmark with the Crystal Disk Mark tool gives results that are close to the manufacturer’s announcement, and tasks such as starting Windows, opening and closing applications, and compressing and copying data are performed by Legion 5i 2022 in almost no time.
Most of the time, the machine works cool, and the cooling fan does not emit annoying noises. Only when benchmarking with Time Spy Extreme, one of 3DMark’s heaviest benchmarks does the Legion 5i 2022 have to go all out. The top temperature you can reach on the high performance cores (P-Cores) in the Core i7-12700H is 97° C, whereas the energy saving cores (E-Cores) hover around 81° C. At the same time, the separate RTX 3060 GPU only hit 73.6° C in Hot Spot, so it looks like the Legion 5i 2022 with Coldfront 4.0 cooling is doing its job really well. Right after i stopped the benchmark, the temperature dropped pretty quickly as well.
Sufficient battery, super fast charging
With a maximum 140W RTX 3060 TGP GPU and the same chip as the Core i7-12700H, of course, the Legion 5i 2022 will need a powerful enough charging system to meet the power needs. Therefore, inside the product box is a Slim Tip charger with a maximum capacity of up to 300W, the size is no different from a brick, which can be a bit difficult if, for example, you want to take it out to play games. If fast charging is enabled in Lenovo Vantage, with just 30 minutes of charging, the Legion 5i 2022’s battery has been charged to 80%.
The Legion 5i 2022’s 80 Whr battery is just enough to use, about 4 hours with common tasks. If you play games, the usage time will be reduced to only about 1.5 – 2 hours, so if you intend to play the game it is better to plug in the charger to ensure the best performance.
Summary
Lenovo is getting better and better with its Legion product line. That is not debatable. Possessing a compact design like an ultrabook but still having a gaming touch, the Legion 5i 2022 also impresses with its agile performance and a screen that meets a variety of needs and fast charging. Other gaming laptop brands should be wary because Legion 5i 2022 is ready to compete fairly in the high-end segment!
In particular, Legion 5i 2022 buyers will receive Lenovo’s Legion Ultimate Support (LUS) service package with a 24/7 technical support team for hardware, software, and accessories, in any form of phone, email, or chat.
Related Posts
Tech Reviewer & Product Analyst
Định Bia has spent over 10 years testing consumer electronics with a focus on smart technology. He work as a product advisor at Biareview where he helped customers find the right devices for their needs. He personally tests every product featured on this site using a consistent evaluation framework covering quality, durability, and value. All reviews are based on experience, not influenced by the manufacturer.