Lenovo almost made me a hypocrite. Ever since these last-gen gaming laptops rocking Nvidia RTX 40-series graphics chips first hit the market, I’ve been saying that only a fool would buy a laptop with an RTX 4090 inside. And yet, I covet the Lenovo Legion 9i with this exact GPU in it, and I wish I had the kind of disposable income that would make a nearly four-grand laptop affordable.
Luckily, you don’t need the RTX 4090 version of this amazing machine to get the best of this Lenovo lappy; There is a relatively more affordable model with an RTX 4080 that will likely offer the same level of gaming performance. And that’s what this poor cow’s heart truly suffers from.
I’ve been a big fan of Lenovo’s gaming laptops ever since I first got my hands on the Legion 7i Pro with RTX 4080. It’s a smart machine: well-made, discreet, reasonably priced and offers outstanding performance for the money, especially since it’s been discounted quite heavily in the last six months.
And suddenly it appeared. Legion laptops weren’t in my purview until this generation, and they quickly became machines I recommend to anyone who cares to listen. But again, if money is no object, I’ve always gravitated towards the premium feel of the 14- or 16-inch Razer Blade.
Features of Legion 9i
PROCESSOR: Intel Core i9 13980HX
GPU: Nvidia RTX 4090
Memory: 32GB DDR5-5600
Storing: 2TB NVMe SSD
Screen size: 16 inch Mini LED
Resolution: 3200×2000
Refresh rate: 165Hz
Peak brightness: 1200 nits
Battery: 99.9 hours
Dimensions: 18.99 – 22.7×357.7×277.7mm
Weight: 2.5kg
Price: $3,693 | £3,950
However, Legion 9i may have changed my mind on this matter. If I want the best laptop I can theoretically buy without the financial constraints of my own reality, then that’s where my bank balance is spent. From where? It’s almost a complete package, but it’s the display and case design that really impresses it for me.
Build quality is actually the first thing that stands out, even apart from the flashy carbon fiber composite on the lid this thing feels SOLI D. I enjoy using it full time. And this composite top layer is also highly tactile and as personal as your own fingerprints.
What’s quite touching are the white ceramic key covers that come hidden in the box. Maybe they’re a little slippery, but they look just as cool as your WSAD ornaments. And the actual keyboard is classic Lenovo fare, in the sense that it’s the best on the market. The full-size board is great for typing, from the ergonomic shape and size of the keycaps to the depth of travel, and the full numpad will always appeal to a particular user.
You alt code users know what I’m talking about.
It’s also impressively thin for something that can accommodate RTX 4090 laptop silicon. And that’s largely thanks to the cooling design, although less can probably be said about what Lenovo pretentiously calls “integrated liquid cooling.” Let’s be honest, a slightly larger steam room; no radiator and almost no pump.
What Lenovo did was create a small loop around the GPU in the laptop and allow the heat pipe to circulate fluid above the VRAM. tiny pump. It’s small, quiet… and to be honest, I don’t really know what its purpose is. As I said, there’s no radiator, so it doesn’t actually cool the liquid very much as it travels a short distance around the hot graphics memory chips and back.
But it’s the rest of the design that provides the extra cooling needed to run this relatively slim high-end machine at top speeds; This is the fastest I’ve seen on any machine running the RTX 4090. The key to this is direct cooling. twin fans can come into play, pulling air from the bottom and expelling it directly from the top and sides of the case.
That’s why the keyboard is moved down so there’s room for ventilated space just below the screen. This has significantly changed the standard ergonomics of typing on a laptop, but I quickly got used to the changed layout and am comfortable using the typically excellent Lenovo keyboard for my recent in-office work. However, this change also had an impact on the trackpad, resulting in a fairly minor incident. This can be a bit of a pain when you’re trying to work on a 3200 x 2000 resolution screen. It wasn’t the most sensitive pad, either, and I didn’t spend a few frustrating moments scraping the smooth surface wondering if the fault was just my calloused fingers.
But when the display panel is this good, I’ll forgive almost anything in terms of crimes against trackpads. The mini-LED display is nothing short of stunning. It’s super bright, and like other high-end mini LED laptop panels I’ve checked, it doesn’t have any of the backlight issues I regularly see in full-size mini LED gaming monitors.
This thing is fantastic when it comes to HDR content, given its DisplayHDR 1000 rating and the fact that it can hit peak brightness levels of 1,200cd/m². Colors seriously pop, and there’s depth and contrast in dark scenes; It’s so moving when it all comes out and I’m here for it.
I can also happily leave HDR enabled in Windows without feeling like I’m compromising the color depth of standard SDR content. This is a feature of modern laptop displays like the Asus ROG Zephyrus M16 and Acer Predator Helios 16 with Nebula panels, but here it’s taken to the extreme.
But this high resolution is a bit of a double-edged thing. A crisp 16:10 display on a desktop is always welcome, and I’ve been happy to use it as my main work machine for the last few weeks (boiler issues at PCG Towers caused the hot desk to disconnect from my desktop). But when gaming, even with the most powerful mobile GPU you can buy, those extra pixels definitely come at a processing cost.
You’re looking at a drop of about a third in terms of average frame rate going from 1600p to the display’s native resolution, and it’s incredibly difficult to parse the actual difference in fidelity when you’re talking about a 16-inch panel. If all mini LED specs were equal, I’d happily take this panel as a 2560 x 1600 display.
And that’s really just me trying to pick faults, because again, at the 16-inch scale, you don’t really lose much in terms of fidelity or make some upgrades to your game settings with FSR or DLSS – as long as you don’t favor the first-gen versions of both or just play games better. You are running it at a low resolution.
If there’s one real flaw worth serious mention though, it’s battery life, or the apparent lack thereof. Now I’m used to gaming battery life being next to useless on modern high-end laptops, but this takes things to a ridiculous level. At just 40 minutes of gaming runtime, it becomes completely trivial when away from an outlet. Far more than other modern laptops, it’s a gaming desktop alternative with no features other than an uninterruptible power supply.
I guess that’s why there are two different chargers in the package: one large 330W and another smaller 140W Type-C charger for when you want to take it out. This 140W mini brick won’t provide enough charge for your gaming, but it’s more about keeping it charged.
Battery woes aside, the only system that makes me wholeheartedly recommend the Legion 9i is the excellent Asus ROG Strix Scar 17 The equivalent RTX 4090 version is a little pricier than Lenovo’s here, but if you’re after the best processor and best gaming performance, the Scar 17 X3D is the most powerful laptop today.
This is not a very desirable thing.
I know this is a pretty complicated, entirely subjective reduction, but as a complete package, Legion 9i has so much more going for it. It’s a smarter design where the Scar 17 has a classically aggressive Asus ‘gamer’ aesthetic, meaning the Legion isn’t even close to being that thick of a device. With the Lenovo laptop’s crushed carbon finish you’d never be able to identify it as subtle, but I’d still be happier turning this on in meetings than the ROG machine.
There is also HE screen. The 1440p display on the Asus laptop is fine, but one of the biggest problems with the Scar 17 is that its 17-inch panel isn’t one of the gorgeous Nebula designs that Asus has on its smaller systems. The Legion 9i’s gorgeous mini LED display is superior in every way.
Although the Scar 17 offers the highest overall gaming performance, the performance difference is really minimal when you run at 1440p or 1600p.
All of this brings me to the inevitable conclusion: Legion 9i the today’s no-money, no-wish gaming laptop. It looks good, performs well, and the screen is stunning. I’d like the RTX 4080 version too (even if I had the cash for the top-tier option), but for me this well-designed and well-built machine is still Lenovo’s finest hour.