Lenovo Legion 9i

This RTX 4090-powered beast might just be Lenovo's finest hour

- DAVE JAMES

LENOVO HAS made a hypocrite of Maximum PC. Since this latest generation of gaming laptops rocking Nvidia RTX 40-series graphics chips first landed, we’ve been saying that only a fool would buy a notebook with an RTX 4090 in it. Yet, here we are, bigging up the Lenovo Legion 9i with precisely that GPU inside it, and despite the near $4,000 sticker price.

That said, there’s a moderately more affordable model with an RTX 4080 that will likely deliver practically the same level of gaming performance. Hold that thought while we consider the Legion’s sturdy build quality. There’s no noticeable give to the chassis, and it all feels superbly engineered and robust. The composite top layer is delightfully tactile, too, as are the set of white ceramic key caps that come secreted in the box.

The keyboard itself is classic Lenovo fare in that it’s the best around. The full-size board is great to type on, from the ergonomic shape and size of the key caps to their depth of travel, and the full numpad is always going to appeal to a certain user. You alt-code people know what we’re talking about.