Lenovo’s new Legion 9i is a liquid-cooled, Mini LED, RGB monstrosity

Lenovo has introduced a brand new Legion 9i, and it would simply be the wildest factor I’ve ever seen from the Legion line. It’s coming in October, it begins at a whopping $4,399 (you understand, a very regular value to pay for issues), and Lenovo is throwing in all types of eccentric stuff.

The corporate is clearly most enthusiastic about the truth that the 9i is the primary 16-inch gaming laptop computer with a self-contained liquid-cooling system. That is precisely what it appears like. Most laptops use air cooling to switch warmth alongside warmth pipes to a radiator; a fluid-cooled gadget as a substitute does that with water and a pump which, as you may think, can deal with rather more thermal mass. Such a system may theoretically enable the 9i to tug actually huge quantities of energy (as much as 230W, Lenovo claims) for a ridiculous gaming expertise.

To be clear, liquid cooling is a factor that’s been tried earlier than in laptops of this measurement. But it surely’s typically carried out externally — that’s, you plug a thingamajig into a bit of port within the again, and that thingamajig swooshes some water round inside. Lenovo’s declare seems to be that the Legion 9i can absolutely cool itself with this technique, no thingamajig wanted.

Now, this might be very thrilling, however I can not stress sufficient that we do not know how nicely it’s going to work. Additionally, I really feel compelled to level out that Legion cooling is already, famously, superb. The final two Legion 5i generations that The Verge has reviewed have been remarkably cool, with out a lot noise, all through testing. I’m certain a liquid system will make some quantity of distinction, in fact, however how a lot stays to be seen.

So earlier than all of us throw our Legion 7i fashions out the window (and I do know a few of you’re tempted), we’ll must see how this performs when the items really hit cabinets.

One other attention-grabbing characteristic is the solid carbon cowl, which is able to give each unit a novel sample. The design has sort of a cool vibe, and it may be neat to know that your unit appears to be like completely different from the hundreds of others on the shelf.

However what I’m happiest to see right here is the 165Hz 16:10 Mini LED show. This has a 94 p.c screen-to-body ratio, which is spectacular, not simply amongst gaming laptops however amongst laptops interval. Mini LEDs aren’t low-cost, however whenever you spend a while gaming on one, it may possibly really feel downright painful to return to a daily IPS panel. I nonetheless miss the Mini LED on the Razer Blade 16, and I reviewed that half a 12 months in the past.

After which we come to the insides. The Legion 9i will likely be powered by the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090, which is probably the most highly effective cellular GPU in in the present day’s gaming market. As much as 64GB of reminiscence and 2TB of storage will likely be out there. Good things.

The processor I’ve extra blended emotions about; it’s a thirteenth Gen Intel Core i9-13980HX. That is probably the most highly effective cellular processor Intel has ever made, and it’s nothing to sneeze at. Nonetheless, it’s a bit laborious to be too ecstatic about Intel machines proper now as a result of AMD’s 7945HX3D chip is hitting cabinets quickly, and that chip, in our testing, left the Core i9 within the mud. (The ROG Strix Scar X3D, the monstrous 17-incher that homes that X3D chip, can also be a superb deal cheaper than this Legion mannequin.)

So I see this 9i gadget, in the meanwhile, primarily as a wacky concept that can showcase Lenovo’s cooling resolution and the way a lot extra efficiency it really brings. However when you have the money to purchase one, please know that I’m very jealous of you and am cheering you on from afar.