Lenovo Legion Pro 7 (16″, 2023) review – it receives the 175W RTX 4000 treatment too


Design and construction

The first thing we noticed when we took the laptop out of its protective cloth, is that it has a rather lowkey design. Nothing screaming in your face, and no obnoxious lines and stripes. And then we turned it on… RGB started pouring from various places of the laptop down to the desk it was sitting, requiring us to immediately go looking for sunglasses.

There is also built-in software that can ease the pain in your eyes, or increase the dopamine injections deep inside your brain. Still, on the physical side, the laptop is made out of aluminum. It still shows some flex in both the lid, and the base, but the overall build quality is fantastic.

In terms of measurements, the thinnest point of the laptop sits at 22mm, while the thickest is 25.9mm in profile. Now, 2.80 kg might seem like a lot, but considering the beastly hardware trapped inside this chassis, we feel it is kind of light.

The lid of this notebook opens easily with one hand. The hinges feel stable and smooth, while the bezels around the matte display are very thin. Up top, you will find a notch with an optional Full HD Web camera. According to Lenovo, it supports Tobii Horizon head movement tracking.

As with the Legion models from the past five years, the Legion Pro 7 has its heating components moved upwards, so the keyboard doesn’t get too hot during gaming sessions. In terms of comfort, the keyboard is great. It features long key travel, clicky feedback, and huge Arrow keys. Moreover, it is equipped with a Number Pad, and unsurprisingly, it has a Per-key RGB backlight.

Once again, the “Function” plus “Q” button combination toggles between performance presets. The changes are indicated on the display, and on the power button LED – Blue means “Whisper”, White is for “Balanced” and Red is for Performance”.

While we are at the input devices, we have to mention the touchpad. It is a very smooth 75 by 120 mm mylar unit with accurate tracking. However, we observed low responsiveness when you need to be really precise with it – this is not ideal, but we suggest that it is just a software thing.

Unlike some of its direct competitors, this notebook features only two 2W speakers. Their cutouts are placed on the bottom panel, where you will also find the ventilation grill. It draws copious amounts of cool air during gaming and dumps it out through four vents – two on the back, and one on each side of the machine.

Ports

On the left side, there is a USB Type-A 3.2 (Gen. 1) port, and a Thunderbolt 4 connector. Switch sides, to find another USB Type-A 3.2 (Gen. 1) port, the E-shutter for the camera, and an Audio jack. The rest of the I/O is located at the back. There, you will see a LAN port, a USB Type-C 3.2 (Gen. 2) port with Power Delivery 140W and DisplayPort, as well as an HDMI 2.1 connector, two USB Type-A 3.2 (Gen. 1) ports, and the power plug.



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cammatador
cammatador
1 year ago

isn’t the touchpad on the legion 7 gen 8 series mylar and not glass?

TomJerry
TomJerry
10 months ago

Apart from the obvious CPU, GPU, RAM upgrades, there are some features removed from the previous 2022 model:
no fingerprint reader, plastic keyboard & palm rest area vs aluminium, plastic touchpad vs glass, 1000Mbps vs 2500Mbps Ethernet, 1 vs 2 USB-C Thunderbolt port, more subtle RGB lighting + no LED for rear input ports

Superguy
Superguy
8 months ago

4070 version doesn’t have Thunderbolt.

Rolf Wolf
Rolf Wolf
4 months ago

2.80 kg might seem like a lot, but considering the beastly hardware trapped inside this chassis, we feel it is kind of light. Thank you!! Finally a reviewer who understands to rate the weight and thickness of a laptop in context to its hardware! Personally would prefer an even slightly thicker chassis to get it quieter under load. The vapor chamber is very good but the fans look very shallow. The Alienware M16 has 3 fans and although it is pretty heavy at 3.3kg, this would be fine for me and I would instantly go for it, if it had… Read more »