My Lenovo Legion 9i Review. The Legion 9 and Legion 7 Pro are the best gaming laptops from Lenovo. But with it's liquid cooling and forged carbon fiber lid, the Legion 9 costs WAY more.
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man the device is a beast it even supports 4k pricing.
😂😂
this was so hilarious man i can’t😂
kekw 🤣😂
😂😂😂
2K likes, we need to double that 😂
When a Laptop tries TOO Hard *to be expensive.*
Daddy
nothing can surpass the designer brands collab fad of late 2000s
how much
@@joseelvir9722$4000-4700
and not expensive enough
from your results, it seems the water acts more as a reservoir than an actual water cooler/ liquid to air heat exchanger setup. the water is heating up but it seems the interface between the liquid pipe and the heat pipe isn't great enough so it can't cool it down. And once the water is heated to the same temp as the V ram, its essentially pointless as it cant store anymore of that heat. the only benefit to this setup is 1. Cooler master gets money form every unit sold 2. you can say its got liquid cooling in advertising 3. you can charge more.
that's exactly what I thought this is so disappointing
this is exactly like the asus rog 1 and 2 phone's "metallic vents"... i personally used the rog 2, and i absolutely loved the looks, but the vents were just a gimmick... like literally nothing was attached to them... in fact the "cooling" was so powerful that my screen actually melted off of the phone... like literally after about a year and a half of solid gaming usage, slowly the whole front screen just peeled off and i was left with a working 120hz screen that just popped out anytime and i tried re-gluing it multiple times, but the phone just got wayyyyyy too hot and melted it off the device... i checked and many other users had the same issue... they fixed that issue, and now actually make working and usable vents and cooling mechanisms... if lenovo goes that way, then who knows, they may also prove the same story...
Agreed. It's probably a prototype design. Later iterations may try to find a way to pressurize the supply line side, which entravels the GPUs chip array, to be depressurized into the ambient air somewhere near the circulating pump.
It got water reservoir lmao
It doesn't have water cooling but water heat reservoir.
Man, this guy and his reviews. Straight to the point and no BS. It's always nice to watch how carefully he handles his review devices.
same
And then he spins it on his finger lol
@@darindial8908 yes 💀🤣
Its an opinion. Nothing more, nothing less.
@krane15 Dumb comment. Of course stripped down its just an opinion. Everything else he includes is why he's successful giving "nothing more" than his opinion.
Bro, i just wanna say that always keep your videos like this, simple, without annoying background music, pure and straight to the point. I appriciate it a lot !!!
i havent watched this guy in months and now he got a head of beautifulass hair too
I didn't expect the first integrated liquid cooling solution to be useless this is still pretty interesting though, it's always great seeing the boundaries being pushed further and further
It looks like the “internal” aspect of it was the afterthought. Everything is laid out for it to be an external liquid loop. Just look at the port placement of the back panel. I think whatever agreement they had with an external liquid cooling company maybe crumbled, or somebody up high said “no external liquid cooling”. So they added a pump internally and closed the loop in on itself.
@@ahgflyguy or perhaps because it's a patented product we already offer;)
@@eluktronics That would be a good reason for them to get some sort of licensing agreement in place before dropping all the cash into the R&D. And definitely before manufacturing or buying so many of the the heat sinks, which look to have maybe been retrofitted to be closed by that pump, that they have to launch a ridiculous product just to get rid of the inventory. Tell BOAT I said hi, if this isn’t you. I can smell the snark. ;-)
Pushed further in the wrong direction
It probably does ok if you're running stuff that isn't 100% duty benchmarks - then that vram temp could stay cooler for longer.
Note: Near the end of the video Dave pondered this laptop for someone connecting it to a keyboard, a mouse, a monitor, etc. Frankly, if setting this up on a desk connected to a bunch of peripherals is your use case, you could build a heck of a nice desktop PC for $4,000.
Exactly my thoughts.
100% agree. I've always been a huge fan of gaming laptops because the idea of something so powerful being portable just makes me geek out. However, the last couple of gens, we've definitely reached a point where these things are more niche than ever and unless you're actually going to be taking it with you frequently and have a genuine use case, you really are just wasting your money otherwise. It wasn't that long ago that a top end mobile system was around 2-2.5k at the high end. Now that these things are 3, 4, 5, even 6k?! These don't make sense for the vast majority of people. I'm more of a windows/linux user, but at these ridiculous price points, you'd be better served by a MacBook Pro, if you're a traveling professional that needs a lot of power and battery life in something actually portable.
Idk, the rtx 4090 alone is 2000$ You would be better with the full computer for 2900$ (price of the lenovo legion 7 pro)
@@Tenkin42mobile 4090 and desktop 4090 are not the same
more like $3k
Would've make sense if the water cooling pipes ran along to the exhaust pipes, that way the internal can be cooled at least by the time it cycled
Agreed. The way they designed the water cooling solution looks pretty piss poor. Almost like an afterthought, even though it was the main thing they were advertising. Take away that 3rd fan and make the whole back half a loop that covers both the CPU/GPU. That's what I was expecting when they announced this. :/
@@27Binx72 You shouldn't call it a water cooling solution. That has like what? 10 ml of water? Once that water heats up, you're just spinning it in a loop. It's not connected to a radiator, you're just pumping hot water around, it doesn't actually cool your system. It's basically false advertising, that's no more a cooling solution than stirring your hot coffee inside your PC.
@@27Binx72 i can bet they tried but airflow in those radiator fins was to clogged then and overall performance was worse
on top of all that i don't see point in water-cooling laptop when you don't have support to push hardware harder. Even Prometheus g2 cooler is pointless when nvidia will never let me to push that rtx 4080 (or how some likes to call it laptop 4090) to 200w cos of that better cooling
I love the straight to the point video, minimal background music/effect/etc., and best of all, I love your in depth analysis, including testing turning off the water cooling. Amazing work! THANK YOU!
I don't even watch these to search for what to buy. Just to see what my wallet is making me miss out on 😂
What you are making your wallet miss out on more like! Wallets are evil things, they want to entice you to buy everything you see with RGBs on :)
@@DailyCorvid ain't that the truth 🤣
Hahaahhaahha. Winner of a spam. These guys are funny.
Excluding future big games, we're clearly reaching a plateau of required specs to play most games. Things can always be better but most expensive laptops are just adding extra features
Yuuuup
The point of laptops like these is exactly "future big games" aka future proofing
future proofing doesn't really exist.@@EyeOfTheTiger777
@@Dave2D But if you want to play competitively, you can always tune down the display resolution and get mor fps, but many gamers would actually enjoy the 3.2k screen for story mode. So I don't really see how having a higher resolution = worse gaming experience
@@Dave2DThere's a telegram scammer in the comments replying to a bunch of people
Great, straight forward and scientific review Dave. Love this one.
You’re a 100% correct . The cooling in your vehicle works the exact same way . Sometimes like when driving on the interstate the fans don’t have to run . But the coolant formula requires air to cool . Without the external air flow to cool the liquid that coolant (that looks like radiator fluid btw) cools the VRAM ONCE the first pass it cools it and after that it’s just pushing hot liquid
Dbrand seeing that lid: Note that down note that down
I like how detailed and thorough you went through this review!
Bought the legion 7i pro 4090 this year on sale for $2,500. This 9i is definitely not worth the extra $1800 for what amounts to about 5 more fps. That's another entire good laptop of money. They shot too close to the sun with this one trying to compete with Razer and Alienware.
I'd have still understood had the 9i came with an inbuilt 4TB SSD & 64GB RAM, but well...they missed that chance as well
you sure that you have bought the 4090 version? not the 4080 ? atleast in my country they only make 9i with 4090 ... im just wondering how they put ddr5 ram with 6400mhz
Is this a real question? I'm sure the 7i pro I have that is labeled rtx 4090 is a real 4090. I benchmarked it and everything too, its genuine. You might not have that model where you live. The ram I have is 5600. heres the part number if you want to look it up on google : 82WQ0005US@@xthundercatx9852
@@xthundercatx9852The USA gets significantly better pricing on the Legion 7i with RTX 4090. The rest of the world gets shafted by prices.
@@aybaws i have any asus strix scar 16 with 4090 and i bought for "only" 3600 on sale
I think if the third fan would exclusively cool the watercooling loop, it could've been a useful solution. Nice to see the innovation here and I hope they continue to research it.
For a dual purpose laptop for gaming and consultant IT work, the high resolution screen is fantastic.
Fantastic video, I love your presentation. Simple, straight-forward, clean, and easy to digest. Also your studio is awesome.
Great honest review !
Hope they improve the liquid cooling on their next devices (at a lower price too)
Kudos for digging into the details about the integrated water cooler, only reviewer I've seen do that. To be fair to Lenovo the dual charger approach is actually very handy and innovative which I hope other manufacturers start to copy, you kind of skim over this which actually is the opposite of the gimmicky water cooler and is real progressive "innovation". Just because one thing is gimmicky doesn't mean you can kind of discount everything else seems a bit of a narrow perspective.
Great review! 😊
Loved the video! feels like the original Reviewer Dave is back.
the fact that it can be disassemble like that is already a big plus !!!
Initially i have good impressions on this laptop from other reviews and you killed it peacefully with your calm voice💀
You are so great in what you do man! So critical in the way of reviewing something! Great job.
Finally a laptop review. This is what we were waiting for!
Dave2D aged like 8 years in 8 months
Man one thing I learned is how your hair makes huge diff. People say I look young now even thought I grew out my beard, but I changed my hair haha. Somehow looked much older WITHTOUT beard but older looking hair
Hi-Res screen now have more purpose unlike back in the day. You can render at 1440p and upscale it up with FSR with basically 0 cost. It makes the difference.
Excellent video, thanks for the review Dave!
Great in depth review cutting the clutter
I actually love the way the back of the laptop looks, they could make something that resembles their line of laptops to differentiate them in the market. Also wish the water cooling solution was better, laptop seem to have hit the maximum plateau in terms of what’s profitably useful to upgrade.
I love the look of forged carbon fiber
Great review. Your comparison between physically turning the pump on and off is very scientific.
Excellent work Dave
It’s a good first step. Future iterations may include a novel liquid mixture that has better heat soaking capacity or a separate larger fan along the loop system that cools down the liquid much faster or even a more radical combo of pettier + water cooler. Personally I’m waiting for the super novel Solid State Coolers displayed like a year or two back to make an entry into laptops in a larger form factor.
Is not even a good first step, the heat in the water is not going anywhere, there is not heat exchanger. It looks like it was designed by a student who never went to a thermodynamics class. Is not even useful
@@fofopads4450 I agree with you halfway. The buyers on this will not be happy for sure. Thing is sometimes the mere appearance of a novelty starts a conversation & often an outbidding competition between manufacturers which more than often leads to actually better products. For example - first phones with liquid cooling were kinda similar too - just gimmicky. But within a year or two the volume of the liquid increased (even if slightly) , the length of the cooling module, the size of graphite pads increased, some companies came out with actual fans inside their phones like the Nubia RedMagic series. ASUS ROG series is having a crazy nice design too with their Thermoelectric Peltier aerocoolers. You may disagree & call me a fool along with many other things but please do include “hopeless optimist” amongst them too 😄🤘🏼
Pelter is quite stupid because of how inefficient it is. It works on phones because they produce so little. There are laptops that have actual water cooling like eluktronics that drops temps by quite a bit.
Love how dave shoots in 60 fps, i wish every creator on youtube does this
i wish no one would shoot 60 fps, it's unnecessary
The best and the most honest reviewer everrrr
This is the real review Awesome dave🔥🔥
Happy to see some innovations but it's clearly still in its infancy, or at least as a tech demo you can buy. Such little liquid would heat soak in no time, so it's no wonder it performs the same as one without a water pump. Glad to see you open up the pump for us to see! Hopefully they'll try carbon fiber as part of the shell for genuine strength and weight savings in the future.
What an excellent review. A nice laptop but way overpriced for what it is.
Really professional review
That's an honest review Dave ❤
The best review I've seen on this machine. I agree with your conclusion. Thanks for going into the details.
They should replace the smaller fan for a bigger pump, them proply watercooler the componentes (CPU/GPU)
It can only get better from here!
wow this is quite a thorough review of this, really solid stuff.
Let's take a moment to appreciate how thorough this review was. You have a way to make complicated things easy to understand. Amazing work.
maybe this laptop was kind of a stepping stone for them to try new things and see what they can get away with. Next laptop they might change things, tone some things down a bit. i love the looks of this laptop though.
That finish looks great
Like always a wonderfully video. One of the VERY FEW honest and unbiased tech KZheadrs. Thanks for your video and keep it up brother.
I like the fancy chipboard look and the screen is neat. The watercooling aspect looks like they got part-way into development and had whatever budget they had cut but were also told they are not allowed to take it out.
i would really like to see these kind of experiments paired with lower end GPUs (4060Ti - 4070) so the power can really be pushed on those and be more equivalent to their desktop counterparts while keeping a relatively cool system
the liquid cooler doesn't cool the gpu or cpu so it doesn't matter. it hardly cools the vram anyway.
This generation is not power limited. They would need different cards with more headroom from nvidia to do that
@@Dark.Syndicateits less about cooling the vram and delaying its heat. Keep in mind he is using benchmarking to push the system. I think dave also leaves out the screen difference in sRGB on 7i Pro vs Adobe RGB / P3 (swappable) 😢on 9i, so for any sort of editor/colourist/etc, this is a great travel machine - especially if you’re working on feature films/TV (not content creation, as then you want to colour towards the lowest common denominator and the colour matters less)
Those chips are so cut down, even if they reach the same clockspeed as their desktop equivalents they won't be close in performance
the perfect review 🔥🔥
This is a very great honest review man, it's amazing that they put that water cooler in there that does absolutely nothing, and I'd be worried that they would be issues of it going wrong etc
thermals have been great on my 7I with 4080. 9I looks to be a cool machine though. step in the right direction. Have they gone with liquid cooling on both CPU and GPU, I might have considered it. Forged carbon top looks cool though.
I think the plan was to have EXTERNAL liquid cooling, but that got squashed too late in the design process, so they kept the Dane liquid loops, and added a pump, and had the loops in each other in the pump, rather than go out the back. The back ports are positioned to have a liquid cooker plug in right in the center, just like with the Eluctronics machines.
this is exactly like the asus rog 1 and 2 phone's "metallic vents"... i personally used the rog 2, and i absolutely loved the looks, but the vents were just a gimmick... like literally nothing was attached to them... in fact the "cooling" was so powerful that my screen actually melted off of the phone... like literally after about a year and a half of solid gaming usage, slowly the whole front screen just peeled off and i was left with a working 120hz screen that just popped out anytime and i tried re-gluing it multiple times, but the phone just got wayyyyyy too hot and melted it off the device... i checked and many other users had the same issue... they fixed that issue, and now actually make working and usable vents and cooling mechanisms... if lenovo goes that way, then who knows, they may also prove the same story...
@@benjackson6260Price of using bleeding edge tech. Sometimes we get an absolute champ & sometimes a stinkin dud. Kinda similar to pioneers in all fields back in the day like say explorers who either found paradise lands or died with their flag on some barren hellhole stump🥲
my rog 2's motherboard got fried just after 1 and a half years@@benjackson6260
Yo Dave keep it up man, these days people are tryna shut others up, I hope ur able to continue doing what u love and speaking what's on your mind 🙏
Now, THAT'S what I call a review!!! 🔥
Do a video on the Microsoft Studio Laptop, you haven't done Microsoft laptops in a while
i appreciate the teardown, i expected as much with the loop. i appreciate the 9 over the 7 because of the downgrades the 7 got. it keeps the glass trackpad (even tho its smaller), better port selection, awesome screen i can use for productivity (i dont use for 100% gaming)
Ports are better on the 7 tho
As always, great review. I believe I can "flex this look" with a cover decal for a lot less. And if you're in the 10% of the population that's left-handed, or are ambidextrous...you LOVE the number pad. And using the directional arrow keys is more natural than the letter keys.
Dave Awesome Video definitely huge fan of their products but not sure about this as well . I do love when you show us what it is comprised of. Great work.✌️💯
Mine arrived yesterday! I recently sold a house so no buyers remorse spending the price of a decent used car on a laptop. Boy is she ever an impressive rig!
It's not a bad idea. Except you now have to game at Starbucks since you don't have a house. Oh well. Priorities!
Unless you’re traveling everyday why buy a laptop when you can get a powerful desktop? Curious
@@chikensaregood9500 he has to travel everyday. My man sold his house for a laptop. Boss gamer.
@@rokko9195 he said sold a house not his house probably a realtor also this laptop doesn’t even look efficient for traveling probably weighs a ton
ill say hi to you if i ever see a nomad with an absolutely specced out gaming laptop
The water loop seems to be there to soak the heat, which I would’ve expected them to do that on the CPU since CPU power draw varies a lot. It’s still a lot of cool features even if the primary selling point is a bit gimmicky
no matter what part they were trying to cool this system would be pointless since the heat is not dumped anywhere since there is no radiator,
most useful review I've seen on the 9i.
Greetings from Romania! I have always enjoyed following your materials. Keep doing what you're doing. Respect!
The knock on the screen seems weird to me. Usually the higher resolution panel would come at the cost of refresh rate which is why most would choose the low rez but higher refreshrate option. But this panel is both high refreshrate and high resolution. If a game was too demanding to be run at native resolution... then we would just lower rendering resolution in game anyway? Like we have always done? Heck even with 1080 monitors some lower the resolution further for more frames so it doesn't feel like that matters. Being able to have high resolution for content watching and general browsing is nice to have and I don't see the issue with that?
They should have just made the legion 7i pro with full aluminum , put in some better speakers and throwed in a mini led panel and called it a day lol
Atleast they should've made the Legion pro 9i an 18" model. Seriously that would've given them enough room for improvements and the 3.2K resolution would've made sense. Front firing speakers and heck more can be done
That's what they did and called it 9i
The worst part is that the Gen 7 Legion 7s were full aluminium, so they took it away to then upsell it in the Legion 9i
@@nellatlis there going to be a Pro 9i ??
It looks beautiful. Impressive because it’s something unique, when there is a lot of plain options out there
Looks like my man's not getting next year legions for review! Good one Dave, as always!
ive always liked the legion laptops for their clean aesthetic, it's something I've only ever seen in gigabyte Aero. This laptop's lid with that stone flake-like texture ruins it a bit imo.
Can be named as "OUT OF LEAGUEion" 😂😂
A very good honest review. I am looking at the Legion Slim 7 to replace my 2019 Legion 5pi
Thanks for the vid and advice
The problem is that they downgraded the Legion Pro 7 this year so much, that the Legion 9 was supposed to slide into this top tier spot. Legion Pros suck this year.
Untrue. The Legion Pro 7i has excellent performance and runs cool. A few oversights that I can live with, given that everything else is excellent.
@fmulleady Untrue. They made have a worse port selection, a worse design, no Windows Hello support, worse trackpad material, and only the RTX 4080 & 4090 configurations get Thunderbolt. Personally, those are deal breakers for the price. I want Windows Hello on a laptop.
@@cameronbosch1213 Windows Hello may be a deal breaker for you, but it's not the same for everyone else. The trackpad is fine and I use a mouse or Xbox controller for gaming. I need Win Hello on my ultraportable. It isn't untrue that the performance is excellent, and it's still a very good laptop. Each to their own. I found the exclusion strange but not the end of the world, given the RTX3080 mobile performance on mine.
@@cameronbosch1213Absolutely true. Atleast the 9i should've received the Windows Hello and 1440p60fps 5MP camera for this price point. This is where Razer shines.
@@allstargaming2500 The 9i has a fingerprint sensor in the power button. This year's Legion Pro 7, despite last year having it, doesn't.
As a content creator, I just appreciate the fact that it comes with two Thunderbolt 4 ports and an SD card reader. Hopefully the next Legion Pro 7i will do as well.
Not likely since the 9i is the new top dog. And it will be the one which has the SD card slot. If Legion pro 7i has the ports you mentioned then the 9i is pretty much useless.
@@allstargaming2500 I'm actually surprised that they included those two features in the Legion 9i, as gamers typically don't require the 40Gbps ports or the SD card reader. At least, that has been their reasoning behind it. Historically, they have directed content creators such as editors, motion graphics designers, and 3D animators to the Thinkpad line of mobile workstations.
Completely agreed. Nice review.
finally a video from Dave where he is reviewing a laptop
8:34 TBH the high resolution of the panel does not really matter for gaming performance since you can just use DLSS to upscale from a lower resolution.
Or you could just play in 1440p with more fps, and enjoy the 3.2k screen for story mode
why not just run 2560x1600? upscaling still has imperfections
@@ACE112ACE112 upscaling from 1600p to 2000p with dlss looks better than native 1600p.
@@mrrgb4954 No.Your eyes and brain does builtin AI upscaling too, and much better than NVidia ever can.
Nah bruv no liquid cooling and dat just put the laptop in a portable fridge yeh and it's finna be lit bruv
I liked the high resolution be cause is so usefull when youre editing videos and photos, and when you show up a 3d render
Nice video! Please do a review of the Yoga/Slim Pro 9i as well!
Damn that mini led screen looks gorgeous though. Never seen overwatch look that colorful. Not sure what the performance is at with it being at 3k resolution but it is very nice screen
That’s a smooth looking laptop ngl
Damn.. I miss these laptop reviews ❤️
"We put water in our laptop that not only doesn't give any tangible improvement but also make it more prone to critical failure. That'll be 1000$ extra."
Tryhard or not, I love seeing tech like this being pushed into consumer products! Not buying into it yet tho lmao
Holy hell. Just built an itx pc then.
I gotta give it to Dave. So far, the best review! He literally posts mortem the whole liquid cooling thing.
I want to see side by side benchmarks with the 7i. I also want to see them do a much bigger loop covering all the components and directing the flow to the fans/fins.
so now lenovo started making collectors item for the show
Wtf just a few weeks and now we all talk about *APL77X* ? I mean sure they outdone themselves with it but holy moly
Spam Bots?
@@asadfarraj SCAM bots.
Its adding heat capacity, since water has a very high specific heat capacity. So it shouldn't matter if you're doing extended fully saturated runs, similar to doing thermal testing between an AIO and CPU air cooler.
The review is very useful. We know which laptop to choose after watching the video. Thank u sir.
You can always set the resolution ingame? I didn't really get the argument at minute nine. I mean yes, it's a bit of work for the GPU to adapt the rendered resolution to the display, but that should be neglegible and an RTX 4080/90 should definitely not be bothered by that xD Great testing regarding the water cooler though! All in all the review seemed a bit too negativ for me ^^' I mean sure, this device doesn't make sense for most people, but for some who want the best of the best, it is a great offering imo
Many gamers would actually enjoy the 3.2k screen for story mode + Video editing would look way better. This dude said that the performance is on par with the legion pro 7, but he also said it doesn't offer top gaming experience. How does that even make sense? Like the legion pro 7i itself offers top gaming experience
@@JustADudeGamer Then just don't run the game at 4k internal right? Use upscaling or just 1440p internal resolution. We have all these modern TAA, dynamic resolution, DLSS, FSR technologies so use them.
Thank you, Dave. I was wondering what the hype was about this laptop because all I saw was a ridiculously expensive price tag that is beyond even the upper price bracket of gaming laptops. Like, the water-cooled Eluktronics ordered at maximum spec is less expensive than the Legion 9... And now it turns out the internal water cooler is just a gimmick at most. Supposedly the exterior cover is unique and hand-made, so I guess they don't expect to sell that many anyways...
The carbon fiber weave looks sick
Lenovo says D2D you are on point! We will send you our next 9i next year!