Lenovo LOQ 15 review

One of many nice points of a PC maker like Lenovo is that it doesn’t make a single design of something, and its LOQ 15-inch gaming laptop computer isn’t any exception. Whereas this evaluate covers an Intel-based possibility that begins round a grand, there are extra highly effective decisions and designs with various GPU configurations and as much as 16-inch shows.

The mannequin reviewed right here is £1,069 within the UK (15IHR8), and an identical mannequin begins at $1,029.99 within the USA. That outlay will get you a Thirteenth-Gen Intel CPU, Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 GPU and a 15-inch 144Hz, 1080p show. Whereas this specification doesn’t spell 4K gaming, even related to an exterior show, it’s greater than sufficient horsepower for some fluid 1080p gaming on the transfer.

Nevertheless, this can be a crowded a part of the market, and this LOQ competes towards no less than fourteen different laptops on this collection made by Lenovo, the Asus TUF A15, the up to date Acer Nitro 5 and different contenders on our Greatest Low cost Gaming Laptops 2024 chart. 

Design & Construct

• Plastic on the surface
• A restricted port choice that may want a docking station
• At 2.4kg, a wrist take a look at to deal with single-handed

The place Asus likes the army look with its gaming machines, Lenovo has pitched for a barely sci-fi motif with the LOQ, and the rear of the machine has a distinctly Star Trek vibe. Vents on the rear have an impulse engine styling, however regrettably, Lenovo didn’t deploy warp nacelles.

Apparently, the display hinge place has been moved away from the again line by about 23mm, leading to simpler entry to the central port space on the backbone. When folded flat, this creates a particular shelf on the rear quarter.

What isn’t in proof is any metallic, with your entire exterior of the LOQ completed in varied shades of gray plastic. Not that this seems low-cost, as high-quality mouldings have been used, however given how a lot plastic was used, the LOQ is surprisingly heavy. At 2.4kg, that’s one other 200g greater than the Asus TUF Gaming A15, and even 50g greater than the hefty HP Omen 16.

The place this machine is considerably missing is in respect of the ports supplied. {That a} gaming machine in 2024 solely has a single USB-C port and never even USB 4.0 or Thunderbolt is a disappointment.

The supplied port is positioned on the left aspect alongside the audio jack, whereas the suitable edge has a single USB 2.0 port and a curiously positioned digicam disabling swap.

Most ports are on the again, however it solely presents two USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports (Sort-A), a single HDMI 2.1 out and a gigabit LAN port. That the LAN isn’t 2.5GbE isn’t a shock, however no less than the interior Wi-Fi is 2×2 AX specification.

Ideally, this machine wanted a second USB-C for charging and connecting a docking station, however as a substitute, Lenovo went with a proprietary rectangular energy connector and a 170W PSU. The dimensions of the PSU hints at why they didn’t select USB-C for the facility since these sometimes peak at round 100W.

Total, the edges of the LOQ are massively underutilised for ports, and the mass makes it extra of a luggable desktop with an built-in display than a laptop computer. Nevertheless, it has different virtues, as we’ll uncover.

Keyboard & Trackpad

• An amazing keyboard really feel with RGB LED lighting
• Massive however unresponsive trackpad hints at utilizing a mouse

Whereas the keyboard on this design is a membrane construction, the dimensions of the keys and the inclusion of many enhancements make this a good typing expertise.

What’s barely completely different is how the cursor cluster is projected down in entrance of the primary keyboard line, making these keys simpler to search out throughout a firefight. Nevertheless, this leaves a sliver of open house between the trackpad and the house bar.

The keytops are smaller than the remainder, however a full numeric pad and an entire row of operate keys are included.

Your entire keyboard is RGB backlit, and when booting, it shows a rainbow preset to point out off the chromatics obtainable.

The keys have a really constructive motion, however the trackpad is way much less responsive, and whereas the pointer strikes easily sufficient, clicking on it might probably sometimes go unnoticed. For gaming, built-in mouse buttons to the trackpad may need been a greater possibility. Lenovo believes that together with the right-side USB 2.0 port reveals that almost all players will use a mouse.

In contrast with many laptops, the LOQ is ergonomically sound. Loads of palm house is under the keyboard, and the spacing of the keys isn’t excessively cramped. And, whereas the no-mans-land between the trackpad and keyboard is a bit of odd, it avoids bashing the house bar and having it register as a mouse motion.

Display screen & Audio system

• A 1080p IPS panel at 144Hz
• Shiny at most, however not sufficient for out of doors gaming
• Low-performance audio system

There are a number of panels that gaming system makers are interested in, presumably on account of worth, and the LOQ has a type of. Utilizing IPS expertise and with a pure refresh fee of 144Hz, this display presents a peak brightness of simply 350 nits.

What’s curious in regards to the brightness is that it doesn’t ramp in a linear trend, because the 120nits degree that we use for video playback testing comes at round a 70% setting. These selecting a brightness of fifty% will expertise about 50 nits, which is darkish.

The colors on this panel additionally aren’t extremely saturated or consultant. Maybe I’ve seen too many screens designed for artistic use, however this one has a gamut that doesn’t method 100% of sRGB on its greatest day. Round 70% of sRGB is one of the best it might probably handle.

Equally unimpressive is the audio expertise, as the 2 down-firing 2W audio system mounted on the LOQ have a restricted vary that doesn’t lengthen to delivering a lot bass, if any. Most quantity appears remarkably low and unlikely to trigger complaints from an adjoining room.

Briefly, if you wish to hear higher, purchase some cheap exterior audio system or headphones.

Specs & Efficiency

• Intel Thirteenth-gen processor
• Nvidia GeForce RTX 4050 or 4060 graphics
• 16GB DDR5 reminiscence and 512GB SSD

The headline act right here is the GeForce RTX 4060 in our evaluate {hardware}. This discrete graphics card has 8GB of devoted GDDR6 reminiscence and makes use of the newest Nvidia GPU expertise utilizing the Ada Lovelace structure. Working alongside that’s Built-in Intel Iris Xe GPU, a graphics platform we wouldn’t usually advocate for correct gaming.

Relying on the LOQ mannequin chosen, it might probably include both the RTX 3050, RTX 4060 or RTX 4050, and from our expertise, we’d keep away from the lower-level playing cards and go for the a lot better RTX 4060 possibility.

What’s uncommon in regards to the RTX 4060 is that the desktop half and the one used for cellular platforms are the identical die, the place these chips are sometimes branded the identical however have wildly completely different specs.

That’s true of the 4070 and 480 cellular elements, however the 4060 is a desktop GPU shoehorned right into a laptop computer. Nevertheless, it’s value noting that the cellular AS107 GPU used within the RTX 4060 has a decrease increase clock, barely slower reminiscence, and marginally much less reminiscence bandwidth.

However the true constraint on the cellular RTX 4060 is the quantity of energy that the laptop computer will sanction for the GPU, and the place on the desktop that is at all times 115W, on the cellular variant, this ranges between 35W and 115W. As unhealthy as that may sound, with so many elements in play, the precise distinction between the desktop and cellular elements is just about 8-10%, making the RTX 4060 one of many higher decisions for cellular players.

The opposite significant factor in these outcomes is the Intel Core i5-13500H, a twelve-core CPU with 4 efficiency P-Cores and eight effectivity E-Cores. The 4 P-Cores have hyperthreading, boosting the variety of simultaneous threads to sixteen. This Raptor Lake-H design with a most energy envelope of 95W and a base energy of 45W is taken into account to be on par with the AMD Ryzen 5 5600X3D and Ryzen 7 5800X.

The benchmark numbers this GPU can generate we’d seen earlier than within the Asus A15, and its skill to method 90fps in Cyberpunk 2077 with extremely settings hints that it’s attainable to activate much more eye-candy, corresponding to Ray Tracing with out it changing into unplayable.

Conversely, for individuals who use the LOQ with a 1440p monitor, this decision isn’t past the skills of the RTX 4060 to drive that decision with medium element settings.

The 3DMark Night time Raid rating of 51,283 is very respectable, particularly in comparison with this processor utilizing the built-in Iris Xe, which delivers a typical rating of between 16,500 and 17,000.

Whereas 16GB of RAM is sufficient, factoring that the graphics card has its personal devoted reminiscence, what barely lets the LOQ down is the 512GB of storage that Lenovo contains with most fashions.

Nevertheless, for these prepared to take the underside off their machine, a free and unused M.2 SSD slot is out there, permitting for a comparatively cheap improve path (examine our chart of one of the best SSDs). These are each M.2 2280 PCIe 4.0 slots, and the one caveat to utilizing them is that they have to be drives that don’t have an built-in cooler, as there isn’t vertical house contained in the case for these.

Lenovo LOQ 15 benchmarks

Battery Life

• 60Wh battery
• Poor lifespan
• Quick recharge

The issue with placing a strong processor and a demanding GPU in a laptop computer is that they demand loads of energy. Until the machine has an enormous battery, it’ll eat by way of what’s obtainable in brief order. And once I say ‘brief’, I’m not kidding.

Utilizing our normal battery video loop, the LOQ barely made it by way of one loop of our film earlier than it needed to close down, managing a disappointing 3 hours and 58 minutes. Primarily based on this efficiency, I believe that taking part in a recreation would final not more than a few hours on battery.

The quoted battery life by Lenovo is larger than 5 hours, which appears wildly optimistic. The system additionally has a high-performance mode that, if activated, reduces battery life much more.

The one upside to this less-than-stellar battery efficiency is that the battery will recharge rapidly, hitting 100% energy from virtually exhaustion in over an hour. Nevertheless, when you insist on utilizing it whereas charging, it may take longer.

Value & Availability

Within the US and UK, the Lenovo LOQ 15 comes with both an RTX 3050, RTX 4050 or RTX 4060 discrete video. Lenovo does the standard mixture of pre-configured SKUs and utterly customisable methods the place virtually each side is adjustable.

For UK clients, the processor choices embody the i5-13450HX, i7-136050 and the i7-14700HX. Reminiscence will be 8GB, 12GB or 16GB. Storage begins with 512GB with 1TB choices. The place most LOQs include the 1080p show seen in our evaluate, there may be additionally a 1440p panel, however each are non-touch.

The retail SKU that almost all intently resembles the evaluate machine is that bought by Argos with the half code 82XV00C0UK. That prices simply £949 and contains the 1080p display, RTX 4060 graphics, i5-13500H processor, 16GB of RAM, and 512GB of storage.

US costs begin at solely $1,209.99 for a LOQ with the i5-13500H CPU, RTX 3050 GPU, 8GB of RAM and 512GB of storage. A system with RTX 4060 graphics begins at $1,319.99. American clients additionally get the choice for AMD Ryzen fashions from $949.

For US clients, this machine is out there at Andorama, Walmart, Newegg, and immediately from Lenovo. Relying on the place you get it, the value can fluctuate. It’s obtainable immediately from Argos, Amazon, Very, Ebuyer, John Lewis and Lenovo within the UK.

Do you have to purchase the Lenovo LOQ 15?

There are issues to love right here and others which might be a lot much less compelling.

What’s greatest about it’s the CPU and GPU mixture, which may ship playable framerates on most fashionable titles at 1080p resolutions at a really engaging worth level. And, when you join an exterior monitor, it’ll work at 1440p with some changes in texture high quality.

Nevertheless, to get probably the most from the CPU and discrete GPU requires energy, and that’s the one a part of this technique that Lenovo curated, most likely due to how heavy it was already. The 60Wh battery capability doesn’t go far in gaming or taking part in video. And it gained’t take the LOQ by way of a working day. That’s the standard actuality of gaming laptops and the compromise that those that personal them confront.

Nevertheless, the opposite factor that’s not nice about this machine is fully addressable, particularly the software program detritus that Lenovo thickly utilized to the Home windows set up. How typically this technique tried to push one thing at me whereas we tried to benchmark was disturbing, and every time I eliminated one software program drama queen, one other was wanting to take its place.

It takes lengthy sufficient to get the truckloads of Microsoft updates onto this laptop computer with out making the prep to be used even longer by including the additional hours to throw all this unrequested rubbish off it. How a lot better the system runs when it’s gone is a reward worthy of the hassle of that train, however it’s a disgrace that performing this can be a requirement.

Specs

• Mannequin examined: 82XV00C0UK/15IHR8.
• OS: Home windows 11 Residence
• Show: 15.6in IPS, 1920 x 1080 144Hz
• CPU: Intel Core i5-13500H
• Reminiscence: 16GB DDR5 onboard
• Graphics: Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 6GB
• Storage: 512GB PCIe NVMe M.s SSD
• Webcam: 1080p with twin microphones
• Connectivity: 1 x USB-C with DisplayPort, 2 x USB 3.2 Gen 2, 1x USB 2.0 Sort-A, 1 x HDMI 2.1, 1 x audio, 1x LAN
• Networking: WiFi 6, Bluetooth 5.2
• Battery capability: 60Wh
• Dimensions: 265.8 x 359.6 x 22.1mm
• Weight: 2.4kg
• Guarantee: 1yr RTB