5. Lenovo Legion 5 Pro
The Legion Pro 5 proves that AMD is absolutely a serious competitor in the gaming laptop space. Pairing the mobile Ryzen 7 5800H with the RTX 3070 results in a laptop that not only handles modern games with ease, but that can turn its hand at more serious escapades too.
The QHD 16:10 165Hz screen is a genuine highlight here and one that makes gaming and just using Windows a joy. It’s an IPS panel with a peak brightness of 500nits too, so you’re not going to be left wanting whether you’re gaming or watching movies.
The Legion Pro 5 really is a beast when it comes to gaming too, with that high-powered RTX 3070 (with a peak delivery of 140W it’s faster than some 3080s) being a great match for that vibrant screen. You’re going to be able to run the vast majority of games at the native 2560 x 1600 resolution at the max settings and not miss a beat. The fact that you can draw on DLSS and enjoy some ray tracing extras for the money all helps to make this an incredibly attractive package.
This is a lovely laptop to actually type on too. Folks have always gushed about how good Lenovo keyboards are; I always ignored them because I don’t trust people that are too into keyboards. But, I will admit, I think I get it. The rounded bottom keycaps have a nice feel to them. Add that with the large 4.7 x 3-inch touchpad, and you’ve got yourself a lovely work laptop that plays games well. I wish other laptop makers would take advantage of the added space of 17-inch gaming laptops and use it to make our lives easier.
If anything knocks the Legion 5 Pro, it would have to be its rather underwhelming speakers and microphone combo. Anything with a hint of bass tends to suffer, which is a shame. The microphone was another surprising disappointment. My voice, I was told, sounded distant and quiet during work calls, which paired with a mediocre 720p webcam doesn’t make for the best experience. I will commend the Legion for fitting a webcam on a screen with such a small top bezel though—A for effort.
The Lenovo Legion Pro 5 made me realize that Legion laptops deserve a spot at the top, being one of the more impressive AMD-powered laptops we’ve gotten our hands on recently. From the bright, colorful screen to the great feeling full-sized keyboard, The Legion Pro 5 has everything you want in a gaming laptop for a lot less than the competition manages.
6. MSI GS66 Stealth
The MSI GS66 is one hell of a machine: It’s sleek, slick, and powerful. But it’s not Nvidia Ampere’s power without compromise, however. MSI has had to be a little parsimonious about its power demands to pack something as performant as an RTX 3080 into an 18mm thin chassis.
The top GPU is the 95W version, which means it only just outperforms a fully unleashed RTX 3070, the sort you’ll find in the Gigabyte Aorus 15G XC. But it is still an astonishingly powerful slice of mobile graphics silicon.
It can get a little loud, but thankfully, you have the benefits of all the Nvidia Max-Q 3.0 features at your disposal. This includes Whisper Mode 2.0, which will bring gaming down to barely audible levels, for when you want to be stealthy.
The GS66 also comes with an outstanding 240Hz 1440p panel, which perfectly matches the powerful GPU when it comes to games. Sure, you’ll have to make some compromises compared to an RTX 3080 you might find in a hulking workstation, but the MSI GS66 Stealth is a genuinely slimline gaming laptop.
It’s a shame laptop manufacturers are seemingly just content to use old chassis and cooling designs for their new Nvidia-based gaming laptops. Things are getting ever more thermally constrained when it comes to performance because new hardware is being dropped into old designs. This is the compromise with the GS66, and you have to be absolutely invested in having a low-profile gaming laptop to make it worth paying the price. And remember, that price is paid both in frame rates and in dollar bills.
Nvidia’s new suite of Max Q goodies help, although it’s a shame they are likely to be overlooked as manufacturers fail to offer consistent messaging about them and users aren’t necessarily going to go digging into exactly how they all work. But they do work, and this latest tranche of gaming laptops will absolutely be the best we’ve ever seen. Unfortunately, it might just be tougher than ever to figure out exactly which machine is right for you.
There’s a lot to love about the latest MSI GS66. This implicitly means there is also a lot that will frustrate. The overall machine is rather lovely—it’s seriously thin, especially for a gaming laptop, and comes with some seriously tasty internal specs too, but there are places where it feels like it might have benefitted from a little extra design time.
