Legion 5 2026 Review: Don’t Buy the Wrong One!

[00:01] value for money gaming laptop. So, I was super excited about these new ones. We thought this video was going to be comparing this new Intel Panther Lake version with the AMD version, but they both perform worse and cost more than

[00:15] last year's Intel model. So, if you can still buy that one at its frequent sale price of around $1,300, that's what we'd recommend. To help you out, I'll link it larger, but still pretty portable Acer Predator Helios Neo 16S, which can still

[00:30] be found close to this range, sometimes with the much more powerful 5070 Ti. If recommend check out our website bestlaptop.deals. Right now, prices are show you the laptop's price history. You can see the price history of older

[00:43] models, so you can know when you're actually getting a good deal. All right, worse, let's get into the changes to the laptop itself starting with the chassis, which is the same across both the new 5A and 5i. They've made the laptop a bit

[00:57] less deep this year, getting rid of the stadium at the back. But everything else around the same size. This helps it fit into more standard laptop sleeves, while and so on. There is a bit more deck flex and screen

[01:11] flex on the newer model, which leads to it feeling less well-built. This is normally where I'd say they made this decision to help it be lighter, but it than the prior one. It does have a larger display though, so they are

[01:24] giving you more screen real estate for a similar weight. All three Legion 5s we have in weigh less than something like the lock, which has a sturdier build. pretty understated for a gaming laptop, which I appreciate. Unfortunately, they

[01:38] do pick up fingerprints pretty badly. Some other things on the chassis are a gaming laptop, but still enough that the squared-off edge might cut into your wrist a bit. It does have stiff hinges, but you can open the lid with one hand,

[01:51] which makes sense since it's heavy. When you do, you'll see a new larger 15.3 you do, you'll see a new larger 15.3 inch 2560 by 1600 OLED panel. This is up from the 15.1 inch of last year's, which is nice to see since the size itself

[02:03] hasn't changed much. It also hits over 500 nits of brightness and refreshes at up to 165 hertz. I'm convinced they used the same panel on the Legion 5s that they used on the Yoga Pro 7i and the Lock since their specs are also similar,

[02:16] but the hardware IDs disagree with me. Anyways, the colors are very accurate. The pixel density is just good enough around 200 PPI. This is where we think small text looks crisp enough for someone like a coder or Excel warrior.

[02:29] I didn't notice a screen door effect at all, but there was PWM flickering at lower brightness levels. Now, there is unfortunately another issue on our Legion 5i specifically. You might have heard about this on our

[02:41] unit we've received because we had an issue with the GPU mode on our first unit. The issue is that you cannot change the brightness when in dGPU only mode. We thought it was an anomaly, but it does appear to be consistent across

[02:55] both units. We've seen this before on maybe one other gaming laptop, but it is with. Many gamers utilize this mode to maximize gaming performance. Josh and Jared wanted me to remind you though that in modern gaming laptops this mode

[03:09] difference as it used to. Now, one of the positives on this laptop and almost all Lenovo laptops is the keyboard. It is comfortable to type on with an ample 1.6 mm of key travel. It also has per-key RGB and full-sized arrow keys,

[03:23] both of which are nice to have. On the other hand, there is a bit of a you can feel when typing, which makes it not quite as enjoyable as some other Lenovo keyboards. This was present on the prior model, too, but it wasn't as

[03:37] bad or noticeable in my opinion. This adds to these new ones feeling a bit less premium than that older one. The trackpad also feels kind of hollow and clunky. It even rattles a little bit on one of the models, which is not the

[03:49] best. Tracking feels smooth and I didn't lose any accuracy when clicking. It's just not a great trackpad outside of that. Very basic. Ports are pretty solid since last year other than their placement. On the right, you have a 5

[04:02] gigabit USB port, a headphone mic combo jack, and a webcam privacy shutter. On the left, you get two 40 gigabit or Thunderbolt USB-C ports and a 1 gig Ethernet port. Although, the placement of the USB-Cs near the front could be a

[04:14] bit obtrusive. On the back, we have the proprietary charging port for Lenovo's 245 watt charger, an HDMI 2.1 port, and two more 5 gigabit USB-A ports, one of which is always on. As far as connecting directly to the dGPU goes, one of the

[04:28] USB-Cs does, and the other uses the iGPU. We like having the option, so you casual tasks where it would heat up the laptop for no reason. The 5A technically connected to the second monitor in dGPU mode, but it

[04:41] couldn't change it even though DisplayPort 1.4 is supposed to support Again, this might be related to the graphics card issues we're seeing on our 5A specifically. Speakers appear to be the same on both new Legion 5s. They

[04:57] bass, but they're both downward-facing and don't get very loud. Take a listen.

[05:24] both 5 megapixels, and they go up to 1440p, and they do offer IR for Windows lighting. Here's how that same webcam looks in normal lighting in my office. intro, you can either get Intel or AMD in this new laptop. The 5i, which is yet

[05:41] to be released in the US as of recording, will have an Intel Series 3 H chip, and the 5A, which is already out, has AMD's new 400 series. Both of these chips are a downgrade from last year's Intel Arrow Lake HX in terms of

[05:53] When we look at Geekbench, which has a variety of common performance tasks, this split is pretty obvious. There's a 15% drop in performance moving down from 15% drop in performance moving down from Intel's Ultra 7 HX to the new Ultra 7 H

[06:06] and this new AMD Ryzen 9 chip. When we move over to Cinebench, which maxes out the processor, the gap widens even more. Around a 26% drop from last year's Legion 5i to this year's, there's an even bigger 32% drop to the 5A with AMD.

[06:21] more budget-friendly lock from this year has the same processor as this new Legion 5i and they perform around the same. Keep this in mind as we go through the rest of our graphs as the lock might provide a better value. Somewhere these

[06:35] new Panther Lake Series 3 CPUs do well though is in drawing much less power. The HX chip draws around 90 W while this new H chip only draws 55 over a 10-minute sustained Cinebench run. The Legion 5A has a weaker showing here

[06:48] with it drawing almost as much wattage as the HX chip for not nearly as much performance. As far as how much the CPU itself heats up, the new 5i stays the coolest here while the CPUs in the older 5i and new 5A get warmer, which makes

[07:02] Moving over to graphics performance, all Legion 5 laptops do feed their GPUs full wattage. Despite their similar GPUs, we actually see the new 5i pull ahead of AMD model in our Time Spy test. As I've shown you, Intel's is more efficient at

[07:17] lower power levels than AMD's 400 series. This is probably why it gets a higher total score even though the GPU is the same. Gaming laptops tend to feed their CPUs less power while pushing the GPU to allow the GPUs to consume more.

[07:29] More expensive laptops like the Zephyrus G16 with a 5070 Ti are in the lead here even with its thinner form factor and the fact it isn't fed max power. I'll mentioned earlier on screen so you can compare to that, too.

[07:42] If you can find a 5070 Ti laptop on a good sale, it will give you better gaming performance than these 5060s and provide more VRAM, which helps with higher resolution gaming. To help you find those, we'll link 5070 Ti laptops

[07:54] down below. Looking at Steel Nomad light, we see similar results across the board, except the 5A pulls a little ahead of the newer 5i. To measure ray tracing performance, we use Port Royal. In this test, integrated GPUs like AMD

[08:06] Strix Halo absolutely flounder. The 5070 Ti does amazingly well, and all the 5060s pretty much line up in the middle. The two 5is fall a little behind the 5A negligible. Looking at in-game benchmarks like

[08:20] Marvel Rivals, a modern AAA title, the new Legion 5i underperforms, especially compared to last year's model. The new 5i and 5A both give us playable frame title like this one, you might be looking for more frames. Before you

[08:35] what we have here, remember that we are already using upscaling to get to so it may not benefit you as much as you think. You might also think it's weird that the new 5i falls behind the more compact TUF A14 in average FPS with its

[08:50] lower wattage 5060, but the TUF actually feeds its GPU more wattage during gaming than the 5i, so it does make some sense. When we switch over to Cyberpunk, the old Legion 5i lands at the top of our 5060 laptops, the 5A is right on its

[09:03] heels, and the new Intel one lands at the bottom again. comfortable FPS, but the order of laptops remains the same. The new 5i its competitors, though, which is an

[09:16] Lastly, we'll check out Forza Horizon 5. This is a benchmark that puts sustained pressure on both the CPU and GPU at the same time, according to our testing, In this [snorts] game, all the laptops keep their 1% lows above 60, which is

[09:29] very nice to see. Here, the newer Legion 5i finally performs closer to how we'd expect, but the older version and the more budget lock, still do better with the same GPU. Again, a 5070 Ti laptop, even fed less than its max wattage, is

[09:44] likely to provide a more enjoyable experience than any of these. In all of the games, we'd consider the frame rates the new 5i and 5a deliver playable in demanding titles at higher settings, especially considering they're running

[09:56] at the screen's native higher resolution. But, they're not buttery smooth. Let's now talk about how comfortable it is to game on these laptops. In Forza, the 5060 and the tough with the less powerful Strix Halo

[10:08] tough with the less powerful Strix Halo both do the best, staying under 40° C. Lower wattage 5060s, like the Yoga Pro 7i, follow, and then the 5a actually does pretty well here, only hitting 41. The two 5is, however, get a bit warm for

[10:21] our liking. You definitely notice the heat, and it could get annoying. You running the fans as high, but that's not really the case, either. Even at the low end, the old 5i is running its fans around 53 decibels, which is pretty

[10:35] loud. It might be on the lower end for a laptop with a dedicated GPU, but none of these are going to be enjoyable to listen to. Best you can hope for is since none of the Legion 5's fans seem to be particularly high-pitched or

[10:49] Alternatively, you could put the laptops into different performance modes to get without losing too many frames. For the new 5i, we think balance is much better for fan noise and temperatures you feel, with only a small drop in FPS.

[11:04] have to pick between heat and fan noise avoid them both. Balance is much better for fan noise, but it gets warmer on the issue just adds to the 5a's list of cons. We're going to breeze through

[11:18] creator tasks because the results are about the same as the rest of these Premiere Pro benchmark, the old Legion 5i does better than the new 5a, and much better than the new 5i. In In we are still seeing that gap, but the new 5i

[11:32] pulls a bit ahead of the 5A here. This is a good time to remind you that than the Legion 5i with the same hardware in almost every test. You can see the same pattern repeated in our 3D rendering test, although the 5A does

[11:46] jump up a bit here. Now, let's talk battery. Somewhere the 5A shines in comparison to both of the 5i's is in the fact that it can maintain most of its performance unplugged. This may seem impressive, but the HX still

[11:58] beats it even after dropping its performance significantly. unplugged, we hit all these laptops with our toughest battery test. The lock pulls way ahead of the 5i here. This is insane considering how much smaller that

[12:11] one's battery is, and they have the same processor and similar screens. We've tried quite a few different things on this 5i including iGPU only mode, but we just couldn't get it working. It always went straight back to hybrid. We even

[12:24] tried setting it up in the BIOS, but the iGPU didn't show up at all. We decided device manager as that could have bricked the laptop if it's driving the internal display via dGPU. Trust us, we've had that happen before.

[12:37] Regardless, Lenovo clearly needs to address this bug. The 5A lands about where we'd expect, which is decent enough for a gaming laptop. For Linux, we booted up Fedora 44 beta a couple days before the full release was out and

[12:49] it worked pretty well on both the 5A and 5i. We only had a couple issues that may be resolved with a full install and updates. On the 5A, the mic didn't work. On the 5i, we couldn't change the screen brightness. On both, the camera app

[13:02] crashed when we tried to record a video. Other than that, everything was fine. the Legions always do well. Not only do they both have two full-size SSD slots, one of which is empty, but they also have replaceable RAM, Wi-Fi card, and

[13:16] battery. This is nice considering the amount of RAM and the Wi-Fi speeds will depend on the configuration you get. So, is the Legion 5 as special and amazing as last year? Absolutely not. These new ones just

[13:29] don't bring enough to the table. They are better in a couple of minor ways, but worse in others. And given they are more expensive, they aren't worth it. Ethan on our team was looking at buying one of these laptops, and he actually

[13:41] waited for our review. He bought the old Legion 5i with air leak HX because we showed him it was a better buy. These new Legion 5s aren't bad laptops, but we don't want to see people spending more if you aren't getting more. We'd only

[13:54] recommend them if you really value the smaller chassis, slightly larger screen, and the price is around the same as last year's model. Even so, you should probably consider the alternatives, too. My personal favorite would be ASUS's

[14:06] older TUF A14, which is much more portable and performs around the same, but it has a smaller 14-in screen. Josh would go for the Acer Predator Helios Neo 16S with a 5070 Ti. It performs a lot better, but is bigger with worse

[14:19] battery life and costs a bit more. If you want something cheaper, Lenovo's own LOQ 15 provides a lot of the same value, but is a little bit heavier and less compact. We'll list more alternatives down below and on our website

[14:31] you today. Thanks for watching, and I hope you all have a wonderful rest of hope you all have a wonderful rest of your day.