Lenovo makes some of the most sensible laptops in the market. They may not look the fanciest and over-the-top like the others, but they definitely have the right set of specs and features to cater to the type of user they are intended to. Lenovo’s latest gaming machine, the Legion Slim 5i Gen 8, is just that.

Unlike the other gaming laptops we’ve seen before, this one looks much cleaner and straightforward. Still, it’s feature-packed enough to provide a great gaming and productivity experience like what it’s supposed to do. We’ll show you how it was able to do that in our Lenovo Legion Slim 5i review.

Lenovo Legion Slim 5i Specs

  • Windows 11 Pro
  • 16-inch WQXGA IPS display, 2560 x 1600 pixel resolution, 188ppi
    • 16:10 aspect ratio, 165Hz/240Hz refresh rate, 3ms response time
    • 100% RGB, VESA DisplayHDR 400, Dolby Vision
    • NVIDIA G-Sync, Panton certified
  • CPU
    • 13th-gen Intel Core i5-13500HX, 3.5GHz, up to 4.7GHz
    • 13th-gen Intel Core i7-13700HX, 3.7GHz, up to 5GHz
    • 13th-gen Intel Core i9-13900HX,
  • 16GB/32GB 5600MHz DDR5
  • GPU
    • NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4050 laptop GPU, 6GB GDDR6
    • NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 laptop GPU, 8GB GDDR6
  • 512GB/1TB/2TB PCIe SSD Gen 4
  • 1080p webcam, Tobii Horizon support
  • Webcam e-shutter switch
  • 2x 2W stereo speakers with Nahimic Audio
  • Full-size keyboard, 1.5mm travel, Legion Spectrum RGB
  • WiFi 6e, Intel 2×2
  • Bluetooth 5.1
  • 1x USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 (DisplayPort 1.4)
  • 1x USB-C 3.2 Gn 2 (DisplayPort 1.4, 140W PD)
  • 2x USB-A 3.2 Gen 1
  • 1x USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 (5V2A always on)
  • HDMI 2.1
  • Ethernet RJ5 port
  • 3.5mm Headphone/mic combo
  • DC-in
  • Dimensions: 363.4 x 260.35 x 26.75mm
  • Weight: 2.5kg
  • Color: Onyx Grey
  • 80Whr battery, 300W Super Rapid Charging

Desktop-level gaming anytime, anywhere with the Lenovo Legion Slim 5i

Design and Build Quality

What we’ve always liked about Lenovo laptops is their designs. Unlike its top competitor, ASUS ROG, Legion laptops have a cleaner and more elegant look, with subtle accents to let people know you’re rocking a powerful gaming machine.

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It has a metallic grey color that looks pretty plain by itself, but the reflective Legion and Lenovo logo on the lid was enough to give it a gamer look. It’s subtle, but it’s effective.

The Legion Slim 5i’s casing is made out of plastic since going with metal would make it heavier and would have bad effects on thermals.

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It’s already quite heavy at 2.5kg, but still fairly light considering all the hardware that’s inside. The width and thickness are also decent for a gaming laptop. There’s a lip behind the hinge for the ports, making it slightly longer. Still, it can fit in the laptop compartment of most backpacks.

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Despite the plastic body, the Legion Slim 5i doesn’t feel cheap or fragile. There’s no bending on the keyboard, the palm area feels comfortable, and we didn’t hear any sketchy plastic squeaking during our time with it.

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The hinge is really sturdy, so much so that the screen wobbles for a few seconds every time you adjust the angle. Plus, you can open the screen flat as the hinge supports a 180-degree angle.

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Oh, and since the base is heavy, you can open the lid conveniently with one finger. There’s also a lip on top for the webcam and the microphone, where you can also conveniently place your finger when lifting up the screen.

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The speaker grill is on the top of the keyboard, with the power button in the middle. We’re not a big fan of the pattern on the speaker grill, but it’s not an issue as others would probably like it.

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What we really appreciate about Lenovo is that they didn’t skimp in cooling just to service the design department. A healthy amount of the left and right side, the top, and especially the back panel are vents for the best possible cooling.

The Lenovo Legion Slim 5i knows who this laptop is for: users who don’t care much about gamer-centric looks as long as they get a no-compromise machine for work and play.

Display and Sound Quality

The Lenovo Legion Slim 5i has a large 16-inch WQXGA IPS display with a decent 2560 x 1600 pixel resolution at 188ppi, a wide aspect ratio, and other bells and whistles like VESA DisplayHDR. It has a 3ms response time and comes in two refresh rate options: 165Hz, and the one we have here, the 240Hz.

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Display quality is great for games, especially with that high 240Hz refresh rate. Colors and contrast are great, and since it’s PANTONE validated, you can color-grade videos and photos with good accuracy.

What really disappointed us was the speakers. While it did provide audible separation that lets you hear footsteps in shooter games and the balance between treble and bass is good, the volume is really lacking. We always end up plugging it into our gaming soundbar or wireless speakers for a more acceptable audio experience.

Hardware and Performance

You can get the Lenovo Legion Slim 5i with a 13th-gen Intel Core i5-13500HX CPU, but the review unit we got comes with an i7-13700HX, 32GB of LPDDR5 RAM and 1TB of SSD storage. Also available are 16GB RAM, 512GB and 2TB storage options.

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There’s also an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4050 laptop GPU option, but the one we have here is the RTX 4060 with 8GB GDDR6.

Thermals are handled by the Legion CoolFront 5.0 which has a phase change thermal compound, larger hybrid copper heat pipes and fins, a dual liquid crystal polymer fan system, and a bunch of vents all around the machine.

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Lenovo also threw in its LA1 AI chip that enables its Lenovo AI Engine+ which intelligently allocates wattage between the CPU and GPU for a more optimized performance.

Overall performance is fast and reliable, as you might expect from its high-caliber specs, and as seen in the benchmark scores below.

Lenovo Legion Slim 5i Gen 8 (Intel) Benchmark Scores

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GeekBench 6
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PCMark 10
Lenovo-Slim-5i-CPU-test
3DMark CPU test
Lenovo-Slim-5i-GPU-test
3DMark Speed Way (GPU test)
Lenovo-Slim-5i-Stress-test
3DMark Speed Way (Stress test)
Lenovo-Slim-5i-Render-Test
Cinebench

The Legion Slim 5i has three performance modes that you can easily switch to by pressing Fn + Q: Quiet Mode, Boost mode, and Auto which automatically switches between the two modes.

Boost mode obviously improves performance by ramping up clock speed and the fans, which is very audible. In fact, the fans get so loud you’d feel you’ve gone deaf when you turn it off.

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We measured a loudness of 65.8dB under Performance mode, which is substantially louder than the 46.2dB under Quiet Mode. On the upside, it did do a good job of keeping thermals at bay. No overheating problems, but if you’re in a non-airconditioned room, you’ll definitely feel some heat after extensive gaming on the keyboard area and from the air blast from the right vents to your hand that’s holding the mouse.

Gaming performance was also top-notch as we were able to get smooth frame rates across different game categories. Frame rates are already good under Quiet Mode, but if you want extra frames, turn the performance up and go Boost Mode.

Game GFX SettingsQuiet ModePerformance Boost Mode
Red Dead Redemption 2 (Maxed)Min: 15 FPS
Max: 157 FPS
Average: 42 FPS
Min: 21 FPS
Max: 152 FPS
Average: 64 FPS
GTA V (Maxed)Min: 15 FPS
Max: 205 FPS
Average: 121 FPS
Min: 30 FPS
Max: 308 FPS
Average: 149 FPS
Forza Motorsport (Ultra)Average: 37 FPSAverage: 47 FPS
Counter-Strike 2 (Maxed)Average: 130 FPSAverage: 170 FPS
Starfield (Ultra)Average: 44 FPSAverage: 51 FPS
Valorant (Maxed)Average: 226 FPSAverage: 280 FPS

Overall, our performance test shows that the Lenovo Legion Slim 5i offers one of the best performance for the price, whether it’s for gaming, creative work, or just basic tasks.

Software and Interface

The Lenovo Legion Slim 5i comes with Windows 11 operating system as well as a bunch of Microsoft apps preinstalled like Office, Edge, Defender, Notes, and more. Lenovo also threw in their dedicated apps like Lenovo Now, Vantage, Hotkeys, and more.

Lenovo-Slim-5i-Legion-Arena

Lenovo Legion Arena is here to consolidate all your games, so you can access them easily.

Meanwhile, the Lenovo Vantage shows you CPU and SSD stats and lets you do other things like GPU Overclock, Network Boost, set macro keys, access X-rite color assistant, perform a hardware scan, and more.

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Also within the Vantage app is Lenovo Spectrum, which lets you customize the keyboard’s RGB lighting with different effects, adjust brightness, and save presets that you can easily shuffle through by pressing Fn + Space.

Speaking of the keyboard, this one has Lenovo’s TrueStrike keyboard with a decent 1.5mm travel distance and provides a really smooth keypress while providing ample tactility. Lenovo also included a number pad on the side if you’re doing spreadsheets or want extra macro controls in games.

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The Esc button has an LED light to let you know if the FnLock is enabled/disabled. There’s also an LED indicator on the power button that tells you what performance mode you’re in if the on-screen pop-up gets choppy: White for Auto, Blue for Quiet Mode, and Red for Performance Boost.

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The Legion Slim 5i also offers a pretty robust audio configuration setting with Nahimic Audio by SteelSeries. The app has a lot of settings you can get into if you’re plugging external speakers, but none of them can do anything to improve the lackluster volume of the built-in speakers.

Connectivity, I/O, Webcam

Lenovo equipped the Legion Slim 5i with a bunch of powerful ports to give you the flexibility you need wherever you are.

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Some of the most important ports are on the back, which is perfect for keeping your setup clean from wires when you’re docked at home or at the office.

What we have back here is the DC-in, HDMI 2.1, Rj45 ethernet, USB-A 3.2 Gen 2, and another USB-A 3.2 Gen 2 with a 5V2A always-on feature.

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For easy access, the 4-in-1 SD card reader is on the left side, which will be really appreciated by photographers and videographers. We also have the webcam e-shutter back here.

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On the left side, we have a USB-C 3.2-Gen 2 that supports DisplayPort 1.4 and even 140W power delivery if you don’t want to carry the massive 240W DC charger.

We also have another USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 with DisplayPort 1.4 support and the 3.5mm headphone/mic combo.

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For wireless connectivity, it has WiFi 6E 2×2 AX and Bluetooth 5.1, both worked with no issues during our testing.

Meanwhile, the 1080p webcam provides decent image quality in case you want to take selfies with it or scan barcodes. It’s also more than enough for video calls paired with the dual microphones.

Battery and Charging

There’s a beefy 80Whr battery that powers the Lenovo Legion Slim 5i. Under Normal performance mode, we were able to play Valorant for about 1 hour and 9 minutes before we received a pop-up asking us to plug in the charger.

For work-related tasks, we were able to write articles and play YouTube videos in the background on Google Chrome for about 1 hour and 50 minutes before the battery dropped to 8%.

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That said, battery life is definitely below average, but since you’re getting a gaming laptop and not a productivity-focused one, you should already expect that you’d always be using it with the charger. That’s the usual catch with laptops like this one.

Speaking of charging, the Legion Slim 5i ships with a relatively compact charging brick. The brick itself is large, thick, and has some weight to it, but the clever design was able to make it look sleek and easy to put in a bag.

In our tests, we charged it from 7% while still using the laptop for work, and we managed to get it full by around 1 hour. If you want a faster charge, do it with the laptop off and you shall be able to trim a couple of minutes on the charging time.

Verdict

The Lenovo Legion Slim 5i is one of the most practical gaming laptops you can get. Just by looking at it, you’d know that all the money you’d be paying was put to good use and not on aggressive gaming-centric design and other things that are really not that important.

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Lenovo built a laptop that offers staggering performance for both gaming and creative work, a no-compromise cooling system, an ultra-fast display to give you a competitive advantage, and a capable battery to keep you going — things that people really care about. Oh, and for us, the simplistic design gave it an advantage as it looked clean and elegant compared to other gaming laptops in the market.

Still, it’s not perfect as we have a few complaints about it. For one, the stereo speakers are quite underwhelming. Also, we wish the battery life was longer and, while it does have a Quiet Mode, the fans under Performance Boost can be too loud for the ears at times.

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But if you want to have the most performance you can get for the price, you can’t go wrong with the Lenovo Legion Slim 5i.

Lenovo Legion Slim 5i price and availability in the Philippines

The Lenovo Legion Slim 5i has a starting price of Php129,995 in the Philippines and is available at Lenovo and Legion concept stores, partner sellers, and e-commerce websites.

Pros

  • Clean, elegant design for a gaming laptop
  • Beefy CPU and GPU setup for gaming and productivity
  • Thermals are well-handled with a bunch of vents
  • Fast display with good colors

Cons

  • Underwhelming speakers
  • Fans get really loud under Performance Mode
  • Decent battery life

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