1. The list in brief
2. Best overall
3. Best budget
4. Best RTX 4070
5. Benchmark comparisons
6. Recently reviewed
7. How to choose
8. How we test
9. Why trust Laptop Mag
If you're hunting for a great gaming laptop in 2025, a few fantastic Lenovo laptops should be at the top of your list.
Lenovo consistently delivers some of the best gaming laptops you can buy and offers a range of models catering to different price brackets and needs, from the budget-friendly Legion 5i to the full-featured Legion Pro 7i. Regardless of price, Lenovo gaming laptops consistently deliver great performance for your money paired with high-quality displays and clicky keyboards that are hard not to love.
We review hundreds of gaming laptops each year, and put every one through rigorous lab testing to make sure you're getting a reliable laptop that delivers on its price. The gaming laptops on this list are the best Lenovo has to offer and some of the best gaming laptops in general in 2025.
So, whether you're an entry-level budget gamer or a pro looking for the best performance out there, you don't want to miss out on these top gaming laptops from Lenovo.
The Quick List
Best overall
The Lenovo Legion Pro 7i Gen 9 is one of the best gaming laptops you can buy right now, delivering top-tier performance with an RTX 4080, a stunning display, and a great keyboard.
Best budget Lenovo gaming laptop
The Lenovo Legion 5i 16 (Gen 9) deftly balances price and performance, making it the perfect choice for gamers on a budget or entry-level users. Plus, it's powered by an RTX 4060 and sports a stunning 16-inch display.
Best RTX 4070 Lenovo gaming laptop
The Lenovo Legion 7i (Gen 9) nails the sweet spot between pro and budget with superb mid-range specs powered by an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 and an Intel Core i9 processor for a great all-around gaming experience.
Best overall Lenovo gaming laptop
Why you can trust Laptop Mag Our expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing products and services so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about how we test.
The Lenovo Legion Pro 7i (Gen 9) is not only the best Lenovo gaming laptop in 2025, it's one of the best gaming laptops you can buy, period. It pairs a top-tier Intel Core i9-14900HX processor with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 laptop GPU boasting 12GB of VRAM, which makes for some of the fastest, smoothest performance you can find on a gaming laptop.
As if the raw performance on the Legion Pro 7i (Gen 9) wasn't enough, it also sports a phenomenal 16-inch (2560 x 1600) display with a 240Hz refresh rate that reproduced an impressive 108.7% of the DCI-P3 color gamut in our testing. That means this sharp, speedy display is also colorful and vivid, making for a stunning graphics experience.
To add even more icing on the cake, the Legion Pro 7i (Gen 9) also features some seriously punchy audio and a snappy keyboard complete with a number pad and full-size arrow keys.
Of course, like most gaming laptops the battery life on the Legion Pro 7i (Gen 9) is underwhelming and it's pretty heavy at almost 6 pounds. However, those drawbacks are minor considering the incredible performance you're getting.
Read our full Lenovo Legion Pro 7i (Gen 9) review.
Best budget Lenovo gaming laptop
Gaming laptops can be pretty pricey, bu the Lenovo Legion 5i 16 (Gen 9) manages to make great performance more affordable. It pairs an Intel Core i9-14900HX with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 laptop GPU with 32GB of RAM and 1TB of storage, which delivers a lot of performance for its $2,044 price tag. You can often find it on sale for hundreds of dollars less and the base configuration starts at just $1,524.
While the battery life is disappointing and the design isn't anything flashy, those are minor trade-offs considering the performance you get for the price. The Legion 5i 16 (Gen 9) outscored other budget gaming laptops, like the Acer Nitro V 15 and the Dell G16, in most of our gaming tests.
It also crushed our overall performance tests, scoring an impressive 17, 687 on the Geekbench 6 benchmark. Plus, it boasts a vibrant 16-inch display and a full-size keyboard complete with a number pad. Overall, it's hard to go wrong with the Lenovo Legion 5i 16 (Gen 9).
Read our full Lenovo Legion 5i 16 (Gen 9) review.
Best RTX 4070 Lenovo gaming laptop
Looking for that Goldilocks Zone between budget gaming laptops and pricey premium gaming laptops? The Lenovo Legion 7i (Gen 9) is the perfect fit. This is a superb mid-range gaming laptop featuring a powerful Intel Core i9-14900HX and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 laptop GPU that's a step up from the budget-oriented 4060.
The Legion 7i (Gen 9) is a step up from the Legion 5i, but less expensive than the Legion Pro 7i, making it a sweet balance of price and performance. It also boasts a pretty stylish design with a sleek silver-white chassis.
Inside, you get a bright, vibrant 16-inch (2560 x 1600) display with a speedy 240Hz refresh rate. That's paired with a clicky full-size keyboard complete with a number pad and RGB backlighting. To top it all off, the Legion 7i (Gen 9) stayed surprisingly cool during our thermal tests.
If you're looking for pro-level performance at a more affordable price, the Legion 7i (Gen 9) with an RTX 4070 is the way to go.
Read our full Lenovo Legion 7i (Gen 9) review.
Benchmark comparisons
Click to view chart data in table format
| Header Cell - Column 0 | Lenovo Legion Pro 7i (Gen 9) | Lenovo Legion 5i 16 (Gen 9) | Lenovo Legion 7i (Gen 9) |
|---|---|---|---|
Geekbench 6 (Higher is better) | 17,329 | 17,687 | 17,261 |
Handbrake time (Lower is better, (MM.SS)) | 3.11 | 3:26 | 3.08 |
Far Cry 6 (Higher is better) | 105 | Row 2 - Cell 2 | 96 |
Assassin's Creed Mirage (Higher is better) | 123 | 96 | 98 |
Red Dead Redemption 2 (Higher is better) | 96 | 65.56 | 68 |
SSD Transfer rate (Higher is better, MBps) | 2,025 | 1,998.1 | 1,705 |
Battery life - Web surfing (HH.MM) | 4.29 | 3.36 | 3.01 |
Battery life - Gaming (HH.MM) | 0.51 | 0.45 | 0.47 |
DCI-P3 Color Gamut (Higher is better) | 108.7 | 79.2 | 81.6 |
Display Brightness (Nits) | 456 | 346 | 479 |
Hottest temperature (Lower is better, 95 degree comfort threshold) | 106.7 | 102 | 101 |
Recently reviewed
How to Choose
When shopping for a gaming laptop, there's a lot to consider. To help you choose a system, here are five key points to keep in mind when choosing a system.
Budget: What you get for the money
You can find good inexpensive gaming laptops for under $1,000. However, more powerful mainstream gaming laptops are often priced between $1,500 and $2,000. Premium systems typically cost more than $2,000 and come stacked with a host of high-powered goodies such as high-powered specs and tricked-out software.
Screen Size: 15 inches is the go-to
It's very rare that you'll find a 13 or 14-inch gaming laptops nowadays as smaller bezels and lighter frames have paved the way for seriously thin-and-light gaming laptops. That means the days of chunky 15.6-inch laptops putting a strain on your back are over (almost).
From there, you have the 17.3-inch desktop replacements that like their smaller counterparts are becoming super svelte. But there are still the big behemoths that don't skimp on the specs. However, weighing upwards of 8 pounds, those big boys are made for your home gaming station.
Screen Resolution: 1080p for high refresh rates, 4K for detail
When it comes to gaming laptops displays, you want to strike a balance between frame rates and aesthetics. And in case you're planning to get a truly mobile system battery life is also deserves consideration. We recommend checking out a system with a 1080p resolution. Panel makers are now serving up screens with high refresh rate, topping out at 360Hz with a 3 millisecond response rate. But don't count out 4K screens yet as we're starting to see laptops with 4K displays with 120Hz. Keep in mind that laptops with lower resolutions tend to have longer battery life overall.
Refresh rate: 120Hz is the sweet spot
Depending what kind of games you're playing, particularly first person shooters and MOBA, you'll take anything that will enhance accuracy. Surprisingly, the higher a display's refresh rate is, the more accurate your shot become. It's a phenomenon that we've experienced first hand during many demos. And while 60Hz is passable, right now we recommend investing in a panel with at least a 120Hz refresh rate.
Intel or AMD?
A couple of years ago, the answer to this question would have been undoubtedly Intel. But AMD has made a furious comeback with its new Ryzen CPUs, which are delivering great overall performance. Thanks to the architecture in the new Ryzen chips, they're super power efficient without sacrificing productivity. The Ryzen 5000 series CPUs have consistently impressed with its performance versus battery life.
Not to be outdone, Intel's 11th Gen chips are nothing to sneeze at. Laptop manufacturers have started rolling out systems with the Intel's 11th Gen H-series Tiger Lake chips. The 10-nanometer chips are extremely powerful, but still at the low-end of the spectrum with the overclockable HK-series CPU, due to launch soon. Why do you want to invest in an overclockable processor, because with the touch of a button, you can squeeze even more power out of the system. It comes in handy when you're multitasking or playing a really demanding game.
Battery Life: At least 4.5 hours
Unless it's plugged in, gaming laptop battery life tends to be very short, especially when gaming. However, gaming laptop battery life has gotten increasing longer over the years. So much so, that anything under 4.5 hours is considered below average. But we've just reviewed our first gaming laptop that's lasted into the double digits. With results like that, we expect gaming laptops will match their non-gaming counterparts sooner than later. Our most power-efficient gaming laptop ran over 11 hours and sits on our longest-lasting laptops page.
Specs: 1080p / Core i5 / 16GB Are Best Bets
You can spend a lot of time delving into specs, but here are the key components to think about. If you just want really good mainstream performance, go for a Core i5 CPU, 16GB of RAM, a 512GB SSD and a 1080p screen.
How We Test the Best Lenovo Gaming Laptops
We put each laptop through extensive benchmark testing — both synthetic and real-world — before they end up in the hands of our reviewers. We evaluate each aspect of the laptop, including its performance, battery life, display, speakers and heat management.
In our benchmark testing, we use a Klein K10 colorimeter to detect the brightness and sRGB color gamut of the laptop's display. For performance testing, we run the laptop through a gauntlet of benchmarks, including Geekbench 4.3 and 5.0 and 3DMark professional graphics tests.
To determine real-world performance, we task the laptop to convert a 4K video to 1080p resolution and to duplicate a 4.97GB multimedia file. Our real-world graphics test is the Dirt 3 benchmark with medium settings at 1080p resolution.
We also run heat tests by playing a 15-minute full-screen video and measuring temperatures in different areas of the laptop. Last but not least, our battery test consists of continuous web surfing over Wi-Fi at 150 nits of brightness. For MacBooks and premium Windows 10 laptops, a runtime of over 9 hours is considered a good result whereas gaming laptops and workstations that can stay powered for longer than 5 hours deserve praise.
These tests are complemented with extensive hands-on testing from our reviewers who critique everything from the laptop's materials to the feel of its touchpad.
Why Trust Laptop Mag
Laptop Mag reviews over one hundred different laptops every year, from paperweight ultralights to everyday workhorses to lumbering gaming notebooks that scorch the frame rates of even the hottest AAA games. We're not just experts in the laptop field, as we go one step further by meticulously testing smartphones, tablets, headphones, PC accessories, software, and even the latest in gaming.
We are 100% independent and have decades of experience to help you buy with confidence. In fact, Laptop Mag has been testing and reviewing products for three decades, and we continue to deliver trustworthy reviews you can rely on.
Our experienced team of writers and editors scour the available information about the laptop and put it through its paces to determine which is best for you. But before they start, the testing team subjects each system to a rigorous regimen of synthetic and real-world tests to see how a system handles the type of work and games you’re most likely to throw at it.
Our editorial trustworthiness is enforced by one of the world's largest technology publishers, Future Publishing. As a company, we have unrivaled experience across every tech sector — and we're the group's specialist for all things mobile tech.
