Buying a gaming laptop in 2024 is arguably a better experience than ever before. There’s a proliferation of options from manufacturers large and small, across a range of an array of price points, each made for a specific ‘type’ of person.

But with choice comes complications. Although there are lots of gaming laptops, not all of them are made equal. The entry of Intel to the graphics card scene has also caused something of a stir, offering the first real challenge in decades to the Nvidia/AMD duopoly.

It’s laptops like the LOQ Gen 9 which are the spear tip of Intel’s assault on the old guard. It’s aiming to disrupt the likes of the HP Victus line, with the LOQ branding offering something below Lenovo’s Legion line, though not sacrificing in quality.

Lenovo has outfitted the device with an Arc 530M graphics chip, one of Intel’s budget efforts. If Team Blue is to succeed in this space, it needs devices like the LOQ Gen 9 to succeed. This is a laptop at the lower end of the budget segment, priced below many, and will appeal to college students in particular. It’s the opposite of the likes of the Apple MacBook Pro. A laptop is more than its spec sheet however, so does the LOQ Gen 9 do enough to earn a place in your life?

Price, availability and specs

The Lenovo LOQ Gen 9 is available for prices starting from $649.99 direct from Lenovo and other retailers. One color option is offered, Grey.

What I liked about the Lenovo LOQ Gen 9

Plastic but still fantastic

Gaming laptops are often maligned, sometimes unfairly, for their design. The general consensus seems to be that they should be chunky and gaudy, full of aggressive angles, rainbow RGB effects and edgy fonts, but not so with the LOQ Gen 9. Perhaps acknowledging that the people using these laptops might also use them for work, it is offered in only one colorway, a gunmetal grey which might make it a little boring, but also office-appropriate.

There’s a subtle shiny ‘LOQ’ logo on the lid, and the only real detail that distinguishes it from the likes of a ThinkPad is the inverse notch on the screen, which contains the webcam. I found the design classy and, as a bonus, the build feels robust. There’s some creaking and flexing, but this is to be expected at the price point. You won’t come away thinking this costs $400 more than it does, but it feels like it can survive the knocks and bumps that life will throw at it.

Another high point is the keyboard. Again, a typical hallmark of budget laptops is a mushy keyboard with little travel. Here I found that the keys have a reasonable amount of travel, and that it follows the typical Lenovo layout, which is to say that the keys are generously sized and everything is where you might expect it to be. Typing was a fully pleasant experience, and the keyboard was one of the highlights of the device overall. It’s backlit too, making typing at night a breeze. There’s plenty of travel, the keys are clicky, typing anything longform is a delight.

Port selection was good overall, with most of what you’ll need clustered to the rear of the device. There are three USB-A ports, a HDMI port, ethernet, a 3.5mm headphone jack and a single USB-C port. You’ll find a webcam kill switch on the side too, a win for privacy. I would have liked to have seen another USB-C port at the very least, or an SD card slot, but what’s here will cover most of your needs and is relatively robust. Keeping everything round the rear means that you’ll have little in the way of cable clutter ruining your day.

Fast and bright enough screen

The screen also proved to be a pleasant surprise. At 1080p, it doesn’t push any resolution boundaries, but for the price point and typical use cases, it was more than enough. Choosing a relatively low resolution was likely not just a price consideration, as it often means that higher frame rates can be chased as a consequence. It’s also an IPS panel, meaning that viewing angles were pleasantly wide, and it can achieve a brightness of 300 nits, which is decent and makes it sufficient for indoor use.

I found that colors were pretty accurate, supposedly covering 100% of the sRGB color space, meaning this might be of some interest to photographers and videographers, but for gaming it makes very little difference. What does make a difference is that the display has a 144Hz refresh rate, which not only means that just using it feels fast, but that if you are into competitive shooters it might just help you achieve some kind of advantage. For the price point, a high refresh rate isn’t a given, so I was definitely happy to see it included here.

What I didn’t like about the Lenovo LOQ Gen 9

Performance matters

Gaming laptops, as you might expect, live and die by their gaming performance. Here the specifications of the LOQ Gen 9 tell an interesting story. The review unit I was sent came with an Intel Arc 530M graphics chip, 16GB of RAM and an Intel 12th Gen Core™ i5-12450HX processor.

The processor is an interesting inclusion as there are other, newer options available. While it is no slouch, it would have been nice to see something a little more modern stuffed inside. It achieved a single core score of 2032 and a multicore score of 8640 on Geekbench 6, which is lower than I would have expected even for the price point.

Moving on to the graphics card itself, the main point of note regarding the Arc 530M is that it is made by Intel. The processing giant has recently opted to get into the graphics card scene, and this is one of its budget models.

Performance promises to be similar to that of an Nvidia RTX 3050, and I found that proved to be the case some of the time, with caveats. Titles like Starfield were unplayable, whereas Cyberpunk 2077 could run at 30fps and above on low settings, which proved to be the case for Assassin’s Creed Valhalla too. While it is a gaming laptop, it’s definitely a budget one, and the graphics card is an obvious point where costs have been cut. If you have the option to choose a system with an AMD or Nvidia card, I’d recommend you go for that. This is enough for gaming on an absolute budget, but will struggle to run modern titles into the near future and beyond.

The comparison to the 3050 is unfortunate, as while that card is a little old it still has life in it. By comparison, the 530M is new-ish but feels a few generations old, struggling to keep up with more intensive tasks.

I found another issue to be heat management. While the fans on the device dissipate heat to the rear, plenty of it finds its way to the bottom, meaning if you use this on your lap, you’ll find you get toasty pretty quickly. Not an issue in the colder winter months, but at any other point you might find it becomes literally too hot to handle.

There’s the issue of fan noise too. When the going gets tough, the fans get going, and they sound like a small aircraft getting ready for liftoff. If you game in a communal area you won’t be popular, and if you do so by yourself, you’ll want to invest in earphones to block the noise.

Speakers on the Gen 9 are unfortunately located on the bottom of the device, meaning that when you listen they’ll be blaring into your thighs. Placing them in the hinge would have been a useful compromise, meaning that the sound travels towards your face, and therefore allowing a little in the way of stereo separation. While they were reasonably clear, they weren’t particularly powerful. If you care about your audio you’ll use wired options, but in a pinch the speakers on the LOQ Gen 9 will work.

Miserable battery life and cheap components

Battery life was terrible on the whole. As might be expected, while running a high-performance game, performance dropped substantially, and the battery only lasted around an hour under these conditions. For lighter work, I saw around 90 min to two hours in general, well below what I’d expect of a modern laptop, even a gaming laptop. If you plan to primarily use this plugged in you’ll be fine, but don’t harbor any aspirations of taking this out and about as your main computer.

The weight is also an issue for those wanting to bring this device outside. At 5.25lbs this is a hefty device.

As for the webcam, at 720p, it lacks resolution and struggles in most situations. It’s enough for the odd video call, but if you plan to use this for work regularly you might want to invest in an external webcam.

Lastly, the trackpad, while well sized, is clunky and feels cheap.

Should you buy the Lenovo LOQ Gen 9?

With prices starting at $849.99, the Lenovo LOQ Gen 9 is among the cheapest gaming laptops on the market today, and it has some definite qualities to its name. It has a high refresh rate screen that’s bright enough and color accurate, making it a viable option for those who undertake creative work. The port selection is decent, and build quality on the whole is fine, with the textured plastics feeling sufficiently robust and premium. There’s the keyboard too, which is nicely spaced, great to type on and fully backlit, meaning that this could work well as a study computer that can handle some gaming on the side.

That’s what this could best be considered as, because gaming really isn’t its strong suit. Relatively intense modern titles struggled to run, while older titles ran fine. If you want something that will last for a few years and keep up with your gaming habits, you would be best to look elsewhere. Beyond a lack of power, the Gen 9 suffers from abysmal battery life, some thermal management issues, tinny speakers, a low resolution webcam and noisy fans.

So, if you like the idea of something with a decent screen and a good keyboard which can handle some gaming, the Gen 9 might be a good option. If you need more graphical performance, then options with AMD or Nvidia chips will be a far better bet.