It’s very rare that a gaming device is given some level of “professional” treatment in its design. As I’ve observed, a lot of gaming devices tend to have something flashy about it from the design itself. Whether it’s an RGB logo or a matrix of LEDs, these often either bring out more features, or simply provide creative options. However, it’s pretty rare to find a gaming laptop that doesn’t get in your face about it.

When such devices exist, it’s often quite bland even on the hardware side. Apart from simple yet subtle designs, some devices don’t have quite the power and performance as a flashy, RGB-laden gaming machine. However, with Lenovo’s latest offering, they’re trying to break that notion that “professional” can be powerful.

I got the chance to take a look at the Lenovo Legion 5 Pro, a gaming device that promises to bring gaming power in a non-flashy design. With the “Pro” title attached, you would think it’s an upgraded version of the Legion 5 from a few months back. However, this laptop makes its case to be a subtle version, but a more powerful one to boot.

To start, here’s what the Lenovo Legion 5 Pro offers:

It has a 165Hz refresh rate display, with a 16:10 aspect ratio

The big LED Legion logo is placed in the middle of the lid

Most of the media, connectivity, and the charging ports are placed at the back

It comes in a subtle, Space Gray-esque color

Design without flash, in a good way

Out of the box, I was genuinely surprised that the unit came in a Space Gray-like colorway with no indication of any RGB in it. I thought that, as a gaming laptop, it’s a “standard” to have some amount of RGB within the device. Apparently, for the whole build, I can’t find a single trace of RGB on it. However, there are units with an RGB keyboard, so keep that in mind.

Also, they’ve decided to plaster the LED Legion logo as the centerpiece of the lid cover. In previous Legion devices, it’s usually just sitting within the Legion letters to the side. Honestly, I’m a big fan of them doing this considering that it’s the only design piece on the lid with any lights on before.

It’s a subtle way of introducing a brand new gaming laptop. From all angles, it doesn’t show anything remotely flashy, giving it a “Pro” feel and look. It’s so subtle, it might even pass as a thick ultrabook that most young professionals use for their own daily grind. Underneath it, however, is an entirely different story.

Competitive gaming power fitting for the best

Inside this subtle machine are gaming-ready hardware oozing with power for the competitive gamer. This includes an AMD Ryzen 7 5800H and an NVIDIA RTX 3070, which on paper brings the thunder when it comes to competitive gaming. Also, with an AMD chip powering the system, you could expect some power-efficient performance, as well.

For this part, let’s get the obvious out of the way: this device provides stellar gaming performance. With all the games I ran through it, it was absolutely no sweat at all while playing at their highest settings. However, I didn’t particularly think it was perfect enough to maintain the same quality of gameplay all throughout.

Ray-tracing on an RTX 3070 was just… okay

See, the moment I cranked up the ray-tracing in supported games, it made these games barely playable. Now, Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Battlefield V were the exceptions, but in Battlefield’s case, the setting could not be toggled at all. I don’t particularly know why that happened, but this was one of the first games to introduce ray-tracing.

Fortnite and Cyberpunk 2077 hovered around the 40 FPS area, when cranked to a high ray-tracing setting. Even though I could see the reflections and the lighting effects in their full glory, it tanked my gameplay for Fortnite to an extent. In Cyberpunk’s case, it wasn’t a huge bother since I could take everything in quite nicely.

Potential for the creator in you

Apart from the obvious gaming capabilities, you can do so much more with this device thanks to its hardware. Depending on the content you wish to create, the Legion 5 Pro handles those tasks quite well. Of course, most of the credit will go to the RTX 3070 inside the machine doing all the graphical work in the process.

Creating photo and video content

In terms of photo and video editing, my experience was seamless, to say the least. A huge factor was the fact that the display of the device comes in a 16:10 aspect ratio. In essence, there’s a lot of workspace real estate to maximize your application windows on. Plus, it’s an anti-glare display with a 100 percent sRGB color gamut for more accurate colors while editing.

When it came to rendering videos, the RTX 3070 proved its worth in that department. Even for an 8GB VRAM GPU, it holds up when you run heavy-duty renders on it. In rendering my attempts of getting good at VALORANT caught on video, it took about 5-6 minutes on average to render 8-9 minutes with color effects and transitions. Meanwhile, renders on Blender took about 15-16 minutes on average, right around where i expected it to be.

Streaming and video conferencing

If you plan to pick up a laptop for streaming purposes, this is one sound recommendation in my book. Obviously, you will be running both your games and either OBS or Streamlabs in the background. Honestly, I didn’t feel any sort of hiccups when managing the workload, and I could still pop off in some games.

Although, there is just one slight thing I don’t recommend you doing: using the webcam to stream. See, it’s a 720p camera that, upon initial previews, isn’t the best in terms of image quality. When taking pictures and videos with it, the content produced lacks a good amount of detail that doesn’t complement the high quality gameplay.

If you want to go on video calls with your buddies, it gets a pass from me. Even with the dip in quality, it still shows your face in a way that’s not overly grainy. If you don’t plan to use the camera, there’s a physical switch at the right side to turn it off. It’s a nifty touch to have it on the side instead of being above the lens.

Lasts for as long as you’d expect

Factoring in all of the workload I subjected it to, the Legion 5 Pro lasted as long as I expected it to. On average, I got about 6-7 hours using it for productivity, video editing, and light gaming at 60 FPS. Even with an AMD chip inside, I could only squeeze out that much as compared to other gaming laptops with AMD chips inside.

Solely using this device to game at a high frame rate limited the battery life to just two hours. I tried limiting the frame rate to 60FPS while on battery, and I only got an additional 40 minutes on average. It’s not that surprising considering the GPU this device comes with, so make sure the charger is just nearby when you’re knee-deep into a game.

Speaking of that charger, it gives the device roughly two hours before being fully charged. The Legion 5 Pro brought a 300W charging brick to its full package, which is literally massive. When I turned on Rapid Charge on Vantage, it cut the full charge time by 20-25 minutes, so it brings you back in the game.

Stayed a little cooler for the most part

For such a subtle, professional-looking device, it actually heats up quite significantly. Now, Lenovo designed its Coldfront 3.0 to focus on improving heat management for the power-hungry components. It doesn’t mean the device won’t heat up under heavy workload, but it’s ideally supposed to alleviate some of that heat better.

My response to that is, well, it somewhat did that but with some things to call out. First off, it heated up when I was playing for longer hours, but not to an uncomfortable state. Usually, the keyboard is the first component hit by any severe warmth due to heavy workload. I was genuinely surprised that, at least on that aspect, they managed to fix that problem.

Second, when under heavy workload and hot air pumping out of the vents, you’re better off using a table. As much as I like to emphasize that this is a laptop, it grew a little too warm for my liking when I placed it on my lap. If it’s any consolation, I tried playing games with the laptop on my lap so that’s an “mb” on my end.

Is this your GadgetMatch?

Starting at PhP 84,995, the Lenovo Legion 5 Pro gives you a well-rounded gaming machine to work with. It comes with the gaming-ready hardware that will surely help bring out the best in you, in a form factor that isn’t flashy. Plus, it offers some content-creating capabilities that will give you more reasons to continue using the device for the whole day.

With a massive charger to boot, it gets you right back into your work or gameplay when you take a break. Also, the device addressed some of the cooling issues from the past that made the experience a little bit better. It’s not a huge step-up, but it’s one I’m honestly happy they took.

Overall, the Lenovo Legion 5 Pro shows you that you don’t really need all that RGB in a hardcore gaming machine. Sometimes, it’s better to just be subtle and let the hardware shine through. If you plan to take this device to the workplace, don’t make it obvious that you’re getting them one-taps.