Hannah Stryker / How-To Geek

The Lenovo Legion Pro 5 Gen 8 follows its Legion gaming laptop predecessors in its (mostly) outstanding form and function. Rugged and ready for users to game or complete various PC tasks, the latest beast of the Legion Pro 5 line performs well, but its bulk won’t be for everyone.

Packed with features like an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4000-series GPU, a large WQXGA display, the Lenovo Vantage app with “Legion Edge,” plenty of memory, and a keyboard with RGB lighting, a lot is going for the Legion Pro 5. Even if you’re unfamiliar with the Legion line’s track record—our tech experts previously considered the Lenovo Legion 7i the best gaming laptop available—you’ll find something to geek out about when using the latest Legion Pro 5.

Despite its near-perfection, the Legion Pro 5 Gen 8 isn’t quite the eighth wonder of the world. Its heft, bulky charger, and quick-to-drain battery will keep you tethered to your desk, and you may feel the trackpad and the speaker system don’t quite hit it out of the park. Additionally, it’s a bit expensive, with my particular model, the 82WM0005US, running over $1,500 (with an estimated worth of over $1,800).

How-To Geek's expert reviewers go hands-on with each product we review. We put every piece of hardware through hours of testing in the real world and run them through benchmarks in our lab. We never accept payment to endorse or review a product and never aggregate other people’s reviews. Read more >>

Design: Sleek and RuggedPorts and ConnectivityThe Inputs: Keyboard and trackpadDisplay and Graphics: Winning Refresh Rates and StreamsSights and Sounds: Webcam, Speakers, and MicrophonesMicrophone Test on the Lenovo Legion Pro 5 Gen 8 in a Quiet EnvironmentMicrophone Test on the Lenovo Legion Pro 5 Gen 8 in a Noisy EnvironmentPerformance: Powerful ProcessingLenovo's Legion Edge AppGaming With the Lenovo Legion Pro 5Battery and Charging: Plug In, Plug OutShould You Buy the Lenovo Legion Pro 5 Gen 8?

Like the previous Lenovo Legion Pro 5 (Gen 7), the Legion Pro 5 Gen 8 has a heavy build. In fact, the design hasn’t changed much from that of the Gen 7. But if I know anything after reviewing plenty of Lenovos, like the ThinkPad X1 Carbon (Gen 10), it’s that Lenovo builds their laptops solidly, even if they look subtle.

Starting from the top lid, you’ll see a stylish “LEGION” logo positioned vertically in the right corner. The body of the Legion is a dark grey, which Lenovo calls “Onyx Grey.” When open, you’ll find the power button centered above the keyboard. Below the keyboard is the trackpad, which isn’t centered (as it hasn’t been on past models) but sits slightly left.

There’s also a little Lenovo logo on the right side of the laptop base and some nice beveled detail around the keyboard. At the top of the display is the integrated camera in a center bevel, and beside it are the two microphones. Back to the base, you’ll find the two speakers on the left and right side corners of the laptop.

The cooling system is massive, with a vent on both the left and ride sides of the laptop and two more located in the back. (These fans generate quite the noise, but I’ll discuss that later.)

Most of the ports for the Lenovo Legion Pro 5 sit in the back of the laptop base. On the left side of the laptop, there is a USB-C port (DisplayPort 1.4) and a USB-A port. At the back is the DC in port for charging, two USB-A ports (one is always on), an HDMI port, a USB-C port, and the RJ-45 port (aka Ethernet).

The right side, meanwhile, has the headphone/microphone jack, a privacy shutter for the camera, and yet another USB-A port.

Typing and scrolling on the Legion Pro 5 is a pleasure. For those who like a balance of stiff and springy, this Lenovo delivers. Of course, you won’t get a mechanical keyboard feel with a gaming laptop, so if you’re looking for something adjustable, you may want to consider the SteelSeries Apex Pro TKL Wireless Keyboard or read up on how to choose a mechanical keyboard.

But if you enjoy a standard laptop keyboard with a satisfying type feel and RGB backlighting, this one will do the job for you.

As far as the trackpad goes, I had zero issues with it, except for its positioning. The trackpad is acutely sensitive, which makes it perfect for gaming, scrolling, and tapping, but once and a while, it gets in the way because it isn’t quite centered. Its location, which falls close to the WASD keys on the left side, can cause your wrist to accidentally brush against it while gaming or typing. Lenovo did, however, give you the option to disable the trackpad in its Lenovo Vantage/Legion Edge app.

Whether I was gaming, watching YouTube videos, streaming on Netflix or Peacock, or the graphics were immersive enough not to care about whether or not this laptop has 4K. Its WQXGA resolution did enough justice to captivate me while watching yachties on “Below Deck” or playing games like “Assassin’s Creed Odyssey.”

The 165Hz variable refresh rate helps your games and shows stream smoothly. Although you can score a gaming laptop with a higher refresh rate and other upgraded specs, you’ll pay more for it. For instance, the Razer Blade 18, which has a refresh rate of 240Hz, will run you close to 3K or more. In any case, the 165Hz refresh rate will do the job for casual to moderate gamers and marathon streamers.

Integrated laptop cameras aren’t usually considered the best webcams—but the camera on the Lenovo Legion Pro 5 Gen 8 does its job well. I was impressed with the quality of the camera (which is 1080p), and the inclusion of an E-shutter is always welcome.

If I had to compare the camera quality to another Lenovo, I’d say the Legion Pro 5’s camera is just as good as the integrated camera on the ThinkPad X1 Extreme (Gen 5), which was clear and stunning.

As for the speaker system, the Legion does its best with what it has, but the dual 2W speakers aren’t going to deliver the intense sound you may hope for. Watching shows or movies with the integrated speakers was a bit too dull, and I usually switched to a JBL Bluetooth speaker instead. Gaming was satisfactory if you’re in it for the casual experience, but I’ve heard better laptop speakers, and the placement of the speakers on the edges of the laptop corners doesn’t always result in clear sound. If you have the laptop on a pillow or blanket in bed, for example, the sound easily becomes muffled.

The included Nahimic app saves some of the speaker integrity, as you can change the profile of the audio to suit your media, such as for “Gaming,” “Movie,” “Music,” or “Communication,” which does help give the audio quality a boost.

The microphones included are average. They do the job and capture the human voice, and it doesn’t sound muddy, but it does have some compressed sound to it in recordings.

All in all, the Lenovo Legion Pro 5 Gen 8 can handle quite a bit of multitasking. With an AMD Ryzen 7000 series CPU, this laptop does well, but there’s a slight lag I notice when browsing with over 20 tabs I wouldn’t have felt as much with say, an Intel i7 13th Gen CPU (which has more cores and threads, which makes a difference when you’re a major multitasker). The lag, in most cases, is negligible enough to overlook for most consumers.

When the Lenovo Legion Pro 5 is exerting itself (such as when it’s plugged in while using CPU/GPU heavy programs or games) the fans emit a lot of noise. At one point, I was watching a movie with someone on the Legion (while plugged in), and they asked me if there was a toilet running down the hall. (No, it’s just the noisy fans on this beast).

For the most part, though, my experience with the Legion Pro 5 Gen 8 was positive—I enjoyed streaming, work tasks (such as using Photoshop, WordPress, and a lot of internet browsing), gaming, and video editing with little to gripe about.

To briefly mention the Lenovo Vantage app, which houses the Legion’s Edge system, is important because it’s an integral part of managing your Legion’s settings. In this included application, you’re able to adjust your laptop’s performance settings. I found it helpful to adjust the Legion to suit whatever I was doing. From the Legion Edge page, you can change the RGB profile settings on your keyboard (and also toggle it off), view the CPU, GPU, and VRAM usage, and toggle on and off the GPU Overclock, Network Boost, Adaptive Refresh Rate, and Rapid Charge settings.

I think any casual, moderate, or even lightly competitive gamer will find the Legion Pro 5 a joy to game on.

Playing a combination of casual simulations and indies like “Car Mechanic Simulator 2021,” “Dordogne,” and “Planet of Lana,” to highly-produced games like “Forza Horizon 5,” “Assassin’s Creed Odyssey,” and “Cyberpunk 2077,” each game ran as smooth as glass. I didn’t notice a stutter even when I cranked up the ray tracing graphics options on “Cyberpunk.”

For a demonstration of how the Legion Pro 5 runs a competitive racing game, I ran a benchmark on “Forza Horizon 5.” The benchmark measured a 119 FPS refresh rate and 14.4ms of latency. For reference, anything below 20ms of latency is considered really good.

If there’s one major fault the Legion Pro 5 has, it’s the battery life. Although it drained an average of about 9% when left on sleep, which wasn’t terrible. But when using the laptop, the battery’s average drain over two weeks was 0.62% per minute or 37.2% per hour—which meant I was charging the Legion at least once daily (sometimes twice or thrice!).

The charger is nearly eight inches long, one inch thick, and three and three-quarters of an inch wide (not counting the cables), but because it’s 300W and charges speedily, you’re sacrificing portability for power. In most cases, the Legion charged up from 10-15% to 100% in 50 minutes (with the Rapid Charge setting on).

If you’re looking for a gaming laptop that doesn’t cost over $2,000, the Lenovo Legion Pro 5 Gen 8 gives you a good bang for your buck. With its CPU and GPU, the Legion Pro 5 delivers incredible graphics, low-latency gameplay, and top performance in most situations.

But if you think you prefer a true desktop replacement, the Razer Blade 18 may be the answer.

You can buy the Lenovo Legion Pro 5 today starting at $1,082.88.