Design
Visually, the revised chassis has fewer accents and angles for a flatter and more professional look than last year’s model, especially along the rear. The two-tone gray and silver color scheme is gone in favor of a more uniform appearance. We prefer the new design as it leans towards minimalism while maintaining many of the distinctive Legion features. Chassis rigidity is excellent on our unit with no audible creaking or weak points. The base and lid exhibit more twisting than the stiffer Blade 16, but not enough to be of any huge concern. The Legion Pro 5 16 is noticeably larger and heavier than many of its peers. The Aero 16, Blade 16, and Zephyrus M16 are all thinner and lighter than the Lenovo by up to 8 mm or 400 grams which is not insignificant. Though it’s certainly nowhere near as bulky as many 17.3-inch gaming laptops, the Legion Pro 5 16 isn’t exactly the most travel-friendly option in its 16-inch size class, either.
Processor
The Lenovo Legion Pro 5 16IRX8 is equipped with the Intel Core i9-13900HX a fast high-end mobile processor of the Raptor Lake series. It was announced in early 2023 and looks like it is based on the desktop Core i9-13000K with a combined 24 cores and 32 threads. Eight fast Raptor Cove performance cores (P-cores) with Hyperthreading that clock between 2.2 GHz (base) and 5.4 GHz (single core boost, 4.9 GHz for all cores) and sixteen Gracemont efficiency cores without Hyper-Threading (1.6 – 3.9 GHz). Compared to Alder Lake, Raptor Lake offers improved P-Cores (Raptor Cove micro-architecture) with bigger Caches and more E-Cores (same Gracemont micro-architecture). Furthermore, the chip supports faster DDR5 memory (up to 5600 MHz for the 13900HX).
Keyboard
The keyboard offers 1.5 mm travel, 0.2 mm pitch, and 100 percent anti-ghosting for gaming purposes. The travel and feedback alone are already deeper and stronger, respectively than the keyboards on the Razor Blade 16 or Asus Zephyrus M16 for a more satisfying typing experience than either competitor. Certain features remain exclusive to the higher-end Legion 7 Pro series such as the mechanical keyboard and per-key RGB lighting. The former is understandable, but we find it ridiculous that Lenovo doesn’t offer the latter for our $1500+ configuration. Owners have to settle for quad-zone RGB lighting instead.
Touchpad
The click pad (12 x 7.5 cm) is about the same size as the one on the Inspiron 16 Plus 7620 (11.5 x 8 cm). Gliding is smooth and responsive with just a bit of sticking at slower speeds for more accurate clicks. However, travel is very shallow when clicking and feedback isn’t very strong. Nonetheless, the clickpad works reliably enough for simple tasks when a mouse isn’t available.