Lenovo just made my favorite gaming laptop even better

I’ve only given one gaming laptop a perfect score — the Lenovo Legion 9i. And at CES 2024, Lenovo is making that laptop even better. There are a few big upgrades here. First, Lenovo is switching the processor to Intel’s new Core i9-14900HX and, in the process, introducing the Raptor Lake refresh chip to mobile. I suspect it won’t offer a huge performance improvement over the previous version — read our review of the desktop Core i9-14900K to learn why — but it’s still the latest and greatest. The more impressive upgrades are elsewhere. The most significant change is the introduction of Lenovo’s LA3-P AI processor. This chip, according to Lenovo, enables features like Scenario Detection that dynamically adjusts CPU and GPU power depending on what you’re doing, Smart Control to optimize the fan curve, and Smart FPS, which looks at your frame rate in games and adjusts power allocation to improve it. Lenovo is carrying over many of the aspects that made the previous iteration so impressive. You can still pack in up to an RTX 4090 mobile graphics card, 64GB of DDR5 memory, and 2TB of storage. In addition, the laptop comes with a 3.2K, 16:10 mini-LED display that tops out at 165Hz. It’s a monster laptop, but unfortunately, it comes with a monster price — Lenovo is asking at least $4,400 for the machine now. Thankfully, nearly all of Lenovo’s Legion laptops are getting an upgrade this year. Both the Legion Pro 7i and Legion Pro 5i are getting upgrades to Raptor Lake refresh, with up to a Core i9-14900HX and a 240Hz, 2560 x 1600 display. The Pro 5i goes up to an RTX 4070, while the Pro 7i can pack up to an RTX 4090. These laptops don’t pack the new AI chip, though they still support dynamic power allocation through Lenovo Vantage. Lenovo is also giving its Legion 7i and 5i (non-Pro models) a Raptor Lake refresh with the Core i9-14900HX, as well as offering the machines with Ryzen 8040 CPUs. These, too, feature up to an RTX 4070 GPU, and on the Legion 7i, you get access to Wi-Fi 7 and the new Windows Copilot specialty key. The Pro models are coming first. Prices start at $1,500 for the 5i beginning in January and $2,700 for the 7i starting in March. The non-Pro models will arrive later. The base 5i starts at $1,400 and is launching in April, while the base 7i will arrive in March for $2,100. With only a month to go before Nvidia’s new RTX 50-series equipped laptops go on sale, recent leaks have provided an early look at the performance of the RTX 5080 laptop GPU. According to a 3DMark Time Spy listing on Bilibili, the GPU seemingly offers a notable uplift in synthetic benchmarks compared to its predecessor, the RTX 4080. The RTX 5080 scored 21,948 points in the 3DMark Time Spy graphics test, surpassing the RTX 4080’s average score of 17,601 points (as pointed out by Notebookcheck)—a 24% performance increase. Considering that the desktop variant of the RTX 5080 is about 10-15% more powerful than the desktop RTX 4080, the laptop variant seems to offer a considerably better uplift. At least, from what the early benchmark suggests. It also puts the RTX 5080 laptop in the same league as the RTX 4090 laptop. It’s becoming clear how spoiled I’ve been with handheld gaming PCs. I’ve handled most of them, from the original Steam Deck up to the ROG Ally X, and I’ve learned to love, hate, but mostly tolerate the different pain points of each device. The new Lenovo Legion Go S immediately felt like an upgrade with its rapid-fire triggers, large 8-inch display, and cozy design that nestled into my hands perfectly. There’s just one problem — Windows is awful. There, I said it. Windows on a handheld is a horrible experience and the Lenovo Legion Go S made that abundantly clear after just a couple of days. I’m still knee-deep in benchmarking the device and the Ryzen Z2 Go chip inside of it — don’t worry, I have a few early comparisons for you here — but I need to say my piece on Windows. CES 2025 has been a whirlwind of exciting PC gaming announcements, including new graphics cards and upscaling technologies from Nvidia and AMD. But as much as CES is about showing off new individual components and tech, it’s also a great place to see the gaming PCs of tomorrow. Sometimes CES is full of wacky designs that are more proof of concept than anything, but that’s not been the case this year. We feasted our eyes on some truly gorgeous and impressive gaming PCs, and all of them are either ready to preorder now, or are coming down the pipe very soon. Here are the best gaming PCs of CES 2025.