The Lenovo Legion 5 has no business with an OLED display like this

The Lenovo Legion line has been booming in recent years, pumping out some of the best gaming laptops on the market.

This generation brings high-end displays to the mid-range with the Lenovo Legion 5, as well as a set of affordable components working their hardest to provide a smooth gaming experience to go alongside those panels. You’re not paying Razer Blade or Asus ROG prices here, but you could have fooled me.

Configurations

I wasn’t sent the most widely available configuration of the Lenovo Legion 5 Gen 10. This 15-incher is available with everything from a 13th generation Intel processor all the way through to AMD’s AI powerhouses. For the cash, I’d avoid picking up the Intel i7-13650HX configuration I have (it’s incredibly difficult to actually find on the shelves and doesn’t represent good value compared to newer models). However, there’s enough variety in here to give this affordable machine some serious versatility.

Keeping those Nvidia graphics card options limited puts this machine firmly in the mid-range category, with the RTX 5070 offering the best sweet spot between price and performance. However, the RTX 5060 inside my test unit can still battle with the big’uns, especially if you’re happy dialling some graphical settings back or relying on frame generation tech.

Design

The Lenovo Legion 5 looks and feels like a far more expensive gaming laptop. Taking its design cues from some of the best Razer laptops in its uniform black design, while borrowing a little from the best Asus gaming laptops in its raised camera bezel and compact form factor. There’s even a little Alienware in here, with a very short shelf to the rear.

My unit is jet black, with only the slightest hint of its gaming roots. An embossed ‘Legion’ logo on the top lid will hint at your machine’s true purpose, but there’s none of the gaudy stamps and text you’ll find on most cheap rigs here. Instead, this is a subtle, laid back design with a slimline, but still nicely softened overall chassis shape.

That, plus the darker Eclipse Black colorway, means the Legion 5 presents as a far more luxurious device than previous iterations. Yes, fingerprints show up (particularly on the top of the lid) almost immediately, but they don’t stick around past a quick wipe.

The entire device is constructed from aluminum, with a dense, solid feel. There’s a little flex to the top lid, though less than you’ll find in a cheaper plastic chassis, and the palm rest maintains its rigidity nicely when held as well.

Display

I was surprised by the potency of this OLED display. For a machine that can cost just over $1,000 if you play your cards right, this is a seriously impressive panel. Colors pop beautifully, with deep rich blues and vibrant warmer tones shining equally. At 165Hz it’s among the faster OLED displays in this price bracket (if you do find a similar model it’s likely to drop you down to 120Hz or 144Hz), especially considering you’re getting the full QHD+ resolution.

The panel itself is a little smaller than you’ll find on most gaming laptops in this class. I haven’t reviewed a 15-inch gaming laptop for quite some time, but we’re still at the more modern 16:10 aspect ratio here. Instead, this is a halfway house between smaller 14-inch rigs and less portable 16-inch models. It means you’re still getting plenty of screen space for immersive gaming and productivity multitasking, but without the extra bulk of something like the Razer Blade 16.

Razer still holds the crown for the best display I’ve used on a gaming laptop, and there’s no beating the MSI Raider A18 HX A9W’s 4K beast, but at this price range you can’t get much better.

There is one drawback, and it reminds me of the HP Omen Transcend 14. There’s some serious screen glare at play here. With the curtains drawn, there’s no issue (making this implementation far more manageable than HP’s), but as soon as a drop of sunlight hits this screen, it’s reflecting it straight back at me.

Ports

That compact form factor and lower price doesn’t mean you’re skimping out on connections. By contrast, the Lenovo Legion 5 Gen 10 offers a fantastic selection of ports to keep you both in the game and working hard.

These are mostly split across the left and right of the machine, and it’s regrettable that both USB-A ports are placed on the right (where your mouse is likely to sit), which can get annoying pretty quickly. However, you’re getting two USB-Cs on the left, both with DisplayPort 2.1 and one with Power Delivery from 65-100W and a third ‘always-on’ USB-A here as well.

There’s even an RJ45 Ethernet port, an addition many more expensive machines drop in this smaller form factor (the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 doesn’t afford this luxury and can cost three times as much).

I’m also pleased that there is some rear port action going on here. Both the power and HDMI connections are kept to the back of the device, to allow these more permanent connections to stay out of your way when on a desk.

Keyboard and trackpad

You’re getting a full keyboard here, numpad and all, which surprised me when I first lifted the lid. This isn’t even a full 16-inch screen size, and even many of those larger rigs drop the additional buttons. It’s a little crammed, with only a sliver of space between the edge of the keys and the laptop, but everything still feels nicely spaced in the main deck area at least. After all, while the number pad uses half-sized caps, we’ve got a full arrow key section rather than the tiny nubs you’ll sometimes see on alternatives.

Keyboard action is light and springy, though nowhere near as satisfying as more premium options from Razer. There’s some considerable flex to the main area when pushed heavily, though nothing when typing casually. Compared to snappier switches, things can feel a little heavy on the debounce but longer typing sessions and faster repeat presses still stay comfortable and responsive.

The trackpad is shifted slightly to the left, and requires a firmer push than others (if you don’t like relying on taps), but remains smooth to glide over and is nicely sensitive to lighter touches. It’s large enough to keep you from spilling over into the palm rest, without getting in the way during typing sessions.

Performance

This is the first RTX 5060 gaming laptop I’ve tested, but the Lenovo Legion 5 Gen 10 still puts up a fantastic fight. There’s a real generational upgrade in its 3D Mark scores compared to the RTX 4060 Asus TUF A15 and Asus TUF A14 that populated a similar price point last year, while the RTX 4050 Acer Nitro V 14 that only sits $100 below the Legion comes up remarkably short compared to these numbers.

Time Spy presents a harder challenge for the Legion’s RTX 5060 compared to Fire Strike, and it’s here that the HP Omen 17 and the RTX 4070 configuration I tested starts to sneak ahead. It’s also worth noting that my more premium comparison, the RTX 5070 Asus ROG G16 takes the win in all tests, as is to be expected from a machine that costs an extra $1,000. There’s an 11% difference in performance between these two RTX 50-Series machines in Steel Nomad (the hardest test).

In-game, things get a little interesting. The RTX 5060 is still alive and well here, offering solid performance across both lighter and more demanding games, but there’s something else going on as well. Interestingly, the RTX 4060 inside the Asus TUF A14 is still out in front across FHD benchmarks in Shadow of the Tomb Raider though things do calm down when harder QHD+ tests come into practice. Fewer budget gaming laptops ramp up to this resolution, so my comparison pool is a little more limited.

However, while we’re still comfortably behind the Asus ROG G16’s RTX 5070 performance, there’s a greater uplift compared to the RTX 4060 here.

Zooming out, the Lenovo Legion 5 Gen 10 performs well across more demanding titles in its full native resolution. The RTX 5060 is still a more affordable GPU, so you’ll need to tweak some settings to hit a reliable 60fps in more extreme titles, though it’s certainly doable in the majority of today’s games at High presets. To push things a little further, there’s always DLSS 4, which I used to push my Cyberpunk 2077 benchmark from 34fps in RT Ultra and Quality SR up to 188fps.

Should you buy the Lenovo Legion 5 Gen 10?

The Lenovo Legion 5 Gen 10 offers a solid blend of affordability and grunt. The RTX 5060 version I tested can handle lighter games without breaking a sweat, and will take on larger challenges with a few settings tweaks to maintain 60fps. With that performance comfortably under its belt, the chassis and display really are the shining stars here.

You’d usually have to pay a considerable premium to pick up a gaming laptop with this kind of screen. Sure, there are some reflection issues that are solved in more expensive models but the overall value is still looking strong. If you’re after a gaming laptop for work or school, this is a sleek, portable machine that can still hold its own when the RGB comes on at the end of the day.

How I tested the Lenovo Legion 5 Gen 10

I used the Lenovo Legion 5 Gen 10 as my primary laptop for both work and play over the course of three weeks. I used the machine by itself for two of those weeks, and spent one week with the rig connected to an external monitor setup. I primarily played Doom: The Dark Ages and Tiny Bookshop, while also performing dedicated benchmark tests in both 1080p and 1600p across both high and highest graphical settings.

Cyberpunk 2077, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Total War: Three Kingdoms, Horizon Zero Dawn: Remastered, and Black Myth Wukong were all tested in this way. I then performed synthetic benchmark tests using 3D Mark Time Spy, Fire Strike, and Steel Nomad. For more information on how we test gaming laptops, check out the full GamesRadar+ Hardware Policy.

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