I’m currently in the market for a gaming laptop with at least a RTX 5070ti since I’ve seen that everyone says it will simply last longer with the extra vram, and I want it to last at least as long as my 2019 Legion Y530 did or even longer hopefully. I don’t want to break the bank and although I have money for the Legion Pro7I with the 5080 or for the OMEN Max, I really want to keep my budget bellow the 2000$. I’m not looking for luxury just something reliable that will play games well, for a good number of years and that won’t give me any issues. Stuff like portability( size, weight) is completely unimportant but a somewhat decent battery life would be nice.
The kicker is, I had the MSI Vector 16HX from Walmart but after 2 weeks of testing and resets it had so many issues I had to send it back and I don’t think I want to try that model again since my sister’s MSI Katana seems to also have a bunch of issues (might just be bad luck but still), so now I’m mainly looking at the B&H deal on the Legion Pro7 with 5070TI and the ASUS Strix G16 deal on Walmart. I’m not sure what to do or if I really should stretch for a 5080 for longevity sake.
Any input to help me with a decision is appreciated.
Keep up the great work with the videos and the website.
Do not buy a MSI laptop, never trust MSI- I have the MSI katana GF66 from 2021 and i myself still face many problems like, overheating, fan noise and terrible battery life.
For the sake of future proofing a 5080 would be a suitable pick as games nowadays are quite gpu intensive and need a lot of vram to run in max settings. If you’re a hardcore Gamer and need the best fps in the best settings then go with a 5080 laptop. But honestly, i still run games on 1080p and in smaller titles 1200p. If you’re a casual gamer who just wants to play in medium high settings and you are fine with 60 fps then a 5070 Ti is the one to go. The 5070Ti is the sweet spot between 5080 and 5070. 12+ GB vram is recommended for the sake of future proofing.
In between the legion pro 7 and the strix G16 both are evenly matched, but i suppose the legion has a better display.
Hi, typing this on my MSI Katana GF 66 and after roughly 4 years of use, I can safely recommend everyone to NOT buy MSI laptops. Here are some of the problems I had with mine:
Their keyboard broke within a year and its replacement also broke within another year.
The plastic chassis is very flexible such that the spacebar gets registered when I lift the laptop one handed.
Terrible heat and battery life (although this might be a problem with intel 12th gen alderlake chips)
I can’t confidently provide comments on the Legion 7 vs Strix G16 as I’ve never had the luxury of owning one, but from Josh team’s battery life showdown article, ASUS gaming laptops seems to have better battery life due to its ability to disable dGPU so that might be a consideration.
Yk once i broke my hindge because of how tightly screwed the hindges were in the MSI katana that it tore through the plastic. And my spacebar is broken as well I need to press it twice for it to work. I thought that i could make this laptop work till June of 2026 but ig i have to buy it’s replacement soon.
Man that sucks, I’m glad I returned mine. My cheaper legion y530 from 2019 to today with minor issues really. I’m more o a casual gamer too, always gamed since PS2 days, and I do appreciate de single player games looking good and running well but 1080p is totally fine to me. Hope you find a good deal to replace that MSI of yours.
It would be 2400 though I really don’t want to go over 2000 unless the longevity difference is significant. I’m not one who wants to play above 1080p all the time, but having the game look good without popping textures is nice, that’s while keeping the 60FPS consistent
I’ve been looking at either the OMEN or the Legion, don’t care at all about portability as I can walk with 40LBS on my back without feeling it for many miles. I would like to have battery life that isn’t abysmal and if it last plus 2 or 3 hours with light browsing and youtube that’s enough. The current deal with the Legion with the 5070ti comes with 2 TB SSD which is pretty awesome too but I don’t see reviews of the laptop with anything but the 5080, but it would be good to know how it performs. If the prices still get lower I don’t mind waiting a month or so but it seems risky to lose that deal.
As per Josh’s battery test comparison sheet- the lenovo legions ( 5i, 5 pro, 7i) don’t usually give a lot of battery life. They are performance oriented laptops, the gpu is fed good wattage in the 7i and the 7 pro also does not limit it’s gpu capability hence has not so good battery life. According to Josh the legion 7i could muster up 4-5 hrs of office use and video playback.
The zephyrus G16 on the other hand feeds good enough wattage to it’s gpu and battery life is better than the legion. Although the legion has better resolution display.
If you desire a balance between performance and battery then the zephyrus G16 is the logical choice, but ig you desire a good display and you can adjust with 4 hrs of battery life then the legion is actually the best choice among all laptops.
I can’t say anything about the omen as the omen doesn’t match my vibe, i hate the exaggerated RGB setup that the OMEN max comes with. Hence I didn’t have a good look into OMEN Reviews. But you can also consider that if you like that gamer vibe keyboard it comes with.
Personally I am eyeing at the lenovo legion 7i with the 5060. I am not a hardcore Gamer and the games I spend time the most are League of legends, Marvel rivals and Hogwarts legacy. That’s why not going for 5070Ti or above. The sale is gone and Now I’m in a dilemma, should I buy the legion now or wait for next year’s legion to release as the legion is at full price now without any discounts. I can work with an external keyboard for a few months.
Hi @DruNKnSaiLeR, is the Strix G16 deal on walmart the intel variant or the AMD variant? I saw Jarrod’s tech did a comparison on those two and while the AMD chip performed better, it had significantly worse battery life. That being said both variant seem to have better battery life than the legion pro 7i.
While Nerd and Nemusdark seems to prefer the legion, I think the strix g16 might be better based on your requests as not only does it have better battery, its thicker chassis allows it to be cooler to the touch for a better experience (according to Jarrod’s video too).
Here is the link to the intel vs amd strix g16 video (15:45 for thermals section):
And here is the video of the legion pro 7i showing the thermals:
The Strix seems really good, but it seems the Intel Ultra 9 275HX has better performance than the non 3D AMD Ryzen 9 9955HX. Even with the better cooling of the ASUS, the Legion has 2TB SSD and better RAM, besides I do like the keyboard layout of the legion since it is similar to my current one with the numpad and such. But whatever lasts the longest with the best performance the better
