Lenovo Legion 5 Pro 2023 version features a design with slightly more aggressive details, looking a bit more like a gaming laptop. However, compared to brands that feature RGB LED strips all over the chassis, the Legion Pro 5 is still “too tame,” but this is also a characteristic of this product line. Legion 5 Pro 2023 focuses more on performance and cooling than other flashy elements.
If you want something vibrant, you can still opt for the Legion 7 or Legion Slim 7—ultra-premium gaming laptops where RGB LEDs are a given. I previously used the Legion Y530 for a long time, which was a gaming laptop with excellent performance for its price at that time, and it also lacked a bulky or flashy appearance.
Simple and somewhat Cool Design
The Legion 5 Pro 2023 no longer comes in the jet-black version like the old Y530. Although the current color is still beautiful and simple, I personally prefer the black on the Y530; it looked cooler and more powerful. This year, Lenovo calls the color Onyx Grey, which leans more towards grey.
With Lenovo Legion, they offer up to 4 different gaming laptop lines: the Pro series, Slim series, 5 series, and 7 series (according to the Lenovo US website). The Legion 5 series or 5 Pro features a 16” screen, while the 7 series features a 17” screen. Therefore, the name of the laptop in this article is the latest Legion 5 Pro 2023.
The 2023 Legion 5 Pro has an overall rounded design with more pronounced curves, especially in the rear ventilation area. Compared to the Legion 5i Gen 7 (2022), the Legion 5 Pro (2023) is slightly more aggressive, with design details that differ slightly to convey a “Pro” feel.
Ultra-thin bezels on all four sides, a sturdy design, and solid build quality are all things you can feel when touching the Legion 5 Pro.
On this Legion 5 Pro 2023, the A-cover is still finished in aluminum while the rest is ABS plastic; the A-cover can attract quite a bit of sweat and fingerprints if you are someone with sweaty hands. This year, with the Gen 8 generation (available only on the Pro series), there is the 5th generation Coldfront cooling system, and the Legion AI Engine+ management system has also been upgraded. The LA1 chip, which manages performance and adjusts it in real-time based on a series of internal sensors, promises to help the Legion 5 Pro achieve great performance and excellent cooling.
After “tinkering” with this laptop for a while, I really like the design of the Pro series; it is angular yet rounded, with very well-finished small details, making it look better overall than the Legion 5 series.
Regarding the ports on this machine, there are plenty: two USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 ports, one of which supports data and DisplayPort, and the other supports 140W PD (though following Lenovo’s proprietary standard). Next are four USB-A ports, including one with Always On charging, one HDMI 2.1 port, one RJ-45 port, one 3.5mm jack, and one webcam privacy shutter.
Sharp Display with High Color Gamut
For this product line, Lenovo offers users two display options. Both have a 16” size, IPS QHD+ panels, and a 16:10 aspect ratio, but one option has 300 nits brightness and a 165Hz refresh rate, while the other offers 500 nits and 240Hz.
The version I have is the 165Hz, 300 nits version, which also supports Anti-Glare and Low Blue Light.
With these specs, you are more than ready for gaming. For me, 165Hz vs 240Hz is not as important as brightness and color gamut coverage. The 500 nits version also features DisplayHDR 400 and Dolby Vision certification. Fortunately, both versions provide 100% sRGB, which is more than enough for gaming. The Legion 5 Pro 2023 also supports a 1080p webcam.
The Legion keyboard is one of my favorite aspects, especially when compared to other laptops. The Legion 5 Pro layout provides a confident typing feel with deep travel and good tactile feedback, featuring 4-zone RGB lighting. Overall, there are no complaints about the keyboard, but the touchpad has a bit of friction because it is plastic-coated rather than glass-coated. While the tracking remains high, the lack of a glass layer makes the mouse movement experience not entirely smooth.
Powerful Configuration
My version uses a relatively high-end configuration for the Legion 5 Pro 2023 line: a Core i7-13700HX and an RTX 4060 8GB GDDR6, which is enough to handle any current game with complex graphics effects. This machine also features 16GB DDR5 4800MHz RAM and a 512GB PCIe 4.0 SSD.
The Raptor Lake generation Core i7-13700HX has 16 cores and 24 threads, with a PBP of 55W. The Core i7-13700HX features 8 P-cores and 8 E-cores, with 30MB Smart Cache. Theoretically, the power of the Core i7-13700HX is not significantly inferior to the high-end i7-13850HX version; I will test this more thoroughly and share the results with you later.
For the GPU, NVIDIA’s RTX 4060 Laptop is the 4th most powerful graphics card in this year’s RTX 40 Laptop series. Its TGP ranges from 35-115W according to NVIDIA, but Lenovo sets it at a maximum of 140W. The RTX 4060 Laptop features 8GB of GDDR6 VRAM, utilizing the AD107 chip with 3072 CUDA cores, 256 GBps bandwidth, and a 128-bit bus width.
When comparing CUDA core counts and bandwidth, the RTX 4060 is lower than the RTX 3060, but thanks to upgrades in RT and Tensor cores, the RTX 4060 is approximately 10% stronger than the RTX 3060 in some 3DMark FireStrike tests.
My tests with 3DMark FireStrike, Port Royal, and Blender showed quite impressive results from the RTX 4060. I will provide a more specific comparison with the RTX 3060 Ti in a later report.
With the Legion 5 Pro 2023 series, Lenovo always brings its latest technologies to this line, most notably the new configuration and the Coldfront 5.0 cooling system, featuring larger vents, larger fans, and thinner blades… providing highly effective cooling. In practice, when I ran a GPU stress test, the temperature only reached 85°C, while the CPU reached about 90°C. The C-cover (keyboard deck) remains very cool and comfortable, which is a strength of gaming laptops with thicker designs.
The PCIe 4.0 SSD on the Legion 5 Pro 2023 is also a high-speed drive; Lenovo uses an OEM Samsung drive (model MZVL2512HCJQ) with sequential read speeds of over 6500MB/s and sequential write speeds around 4900 MB/s.
Battery & Connectivity
The Legion 5 Pro features an 80Wh battery, and according to Lenovo, the Legion 5 Pro 2023 supports fast charging: 40% charge in 10 minutes, 60% in 30 minutes, and a full charge in 60 minutes, with a 300W power adapter. Lenovo also claims this laptop can last 6.5 hours for video playback and 5.3 hours in MobileMark tests.
The Legion 5 Pro also features a dual-microphone system and 2W x2 stereo speakers optimized by Nahimic Audio. For wireless connectivity, the machine is equipped with Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.1. Based on my inspection, the Legion 5 Pro uses an Intel AX211 Wi-Fi card and a Realtek ALC3306 audio chip.
I really like this Legion 5 Pro 2023; it maintains a primarily simple look but is accented with details that show the necessary strength of a gaming laptop. The performance and display are sufficient for playing AAA titles at QHD resolution, and the keyboard feels great to type on. The reference price for this laptop is approximately 40 million VND.
