Lenovo LOQ 15 Review: Don’t Be Fooled by This Budget Gaming Laptop’s Outdated Looks

7.5/ 10
SCORE

Lenovo LOQ 15

Pros

• Good 3D efficiency for the worth
• Roomy, snug keyboard
• Room to increase RAM and SSD

Cons

• 15.6-inch, 16:9 show appears to be like outdated and limits general use
• Drab design and no RGB lighting
• No biometrics for straightforward, safe logins
• Lacks quick Thunderbolt 4 or USB4 port

The Lenovo LOQ 15 is an old-school 15.6-inch gaming laptop computer powered by present-day AMD and Nvidia silicon. Most gaming laptops have transitioned from 15.6-inch, 16:9 shows to taller, extra trendy 16-inch, 16:10 panels. But the LOQ 15 helps to maintain the widescreen custom alive. Most video games are nonetheless designed for 1080p and different 16:9 resolutions, however you possibly can nonetheless play video games at 1080p on a 1200p show, and I just like the added vertical house for non-gaming pursuits, reminiscent of net looking, writing and spreadsheeting, as a result of extra strains of textual content or rows of a spreadsheet match on the display.

Just based mostly on the show side ratio alone, I desire a 16-inch gaming laptop computer such because the Alienware 16X Aurora, HP Omen 16 or Lenovo’s personal Legion 5i Gen 10. But for those who do not thoughts the outdated look of the 15.6-inch LOQ 15 or search it out for the sorts of video games you prefer to play, then you definitely’ll get good bang on your buck from its AMD Ryzen 7 250 processor and Nvidia RTX 5060 graphics. Lenovo neatly places many of the LOQ 15’s price range towards the RTX 5060 graphics, which helps its 3D framerates compete with these of pricier fashions, albeit on the expense of basic software efficiency. That’s a trade-off most players on a price range will make.

The Lenovo LOQ 15 (15AHP10) sequence begins at $1,000 at Lenovo for a system with an AMD Ryzen 5 220, 16GB of RAM, RTX 5050 graphics and a 512GB SSD. My take a look at system retains the RAM and SSD at their baseline ranges however bumps you as much as a Ryzen 7 250 and RTX 5060 graphics and prices $1,029 at Amazon. All fashions characteristic the identical show: a 15.6-inch IPS panel with a 1,920×1,080-pixel decision and 144Hz refresh fee.

The Lenovo LOQ 15AHP10 begins at £1,144 in the UK and AU$1,699 in Australia. 

Lenovo LOQ 15AHP10 efficiency

The Lenovo LOQ 15 is robust the place it counts: 3D efficiency. Among a bunch of budget-to-midrange gaming laptops I’ve examined lately with Nvidia 50-series GPUs, it completed towards the again on our Geekbench 6 and Cinebench 2024 assessments, on each the single-core and multicore variations of every. That’s to not say that it felt sluggish. Navigating about in Windows and multitasking with extra open Chrome tabs than I care to confess felt speedy and was lag-free. It’s simply that its Ryzen 7 250 CPU was unable to maintain up with Intel-based programs just like the Alienware 16X Aurora, Lenovo Legion 5i Gen 10 and MSI Katana 15 HX on our software benchmarks. 

Things improved, nonetheless, on our 3D graphics and gaming assessments. The LOQ 15 posted body charges on par with different RTX 5060 laptops, aside from the Guardians of the Galaxy benchmark, the place it was barely slower. It had its strongest showings on our latest gaming benchmarks, Assassin’s Creed: Shadows and F1, the place it proved its mettle as a potent 1080p gaming machine.

The Lenovo LOQ 15 additionally carried out admirably in battery testing. It lasted shut to eight hours on our YouTube streaming battery drain take a look at, which is not unhealthy for a big-screen, high-powered gaming laptop computer. The HP Omen 16 lasted 6 hours longer, however its almost 14-hour battery life is an outlier amongst gaming laptops. Going the opposite manner, the Lenovo Legion 5i Gen 10 did not cross the 5.5-hour mark on the take a look at, however it has a high-resolution OLED show, which is a much bigger drain on the battery than a lower-res IPS panel. The LOQ 15’s roughly 8-hour battery life ought to suffice for lugging the LOQ 15 round between gaming periods, the place you are nearly sure to be taking part in on AC energy.

Whether working on AC or battery energy, the LOQ 15’s followers kicked in frequently. The noise they created was usually tolerable, however just a few occasions, they turned annoyingly loud throughout gaming. The LOQ 15 is a bit louder than the typical gaming laptop computer.

In addition to the 2 cooling followers, you will additionally discover some room to increase contained in the LOQ 15. The RAM is user-replaceable, and the 16GB in my overview unit comes as one stick, leaving a free DIMM slot for straightforward enlargement. There’s additionally a free M.2 slot so as to add a second SSD, which is helpful because it will not take quite a lot of video games put in regionally earlier than you replenish the laptop computer’s 512GB SSD. 

Drab design

Aside from the stylized energy button above the keyboard, which glows both crimson, blue or white (relying on the ability mode), the LOQ 15 has a monochrome look that is extra company workstation than gaming laptop computer. The gray-and-black, all-plastic chassis is certainly an instance of operate over kind. It even lacks RGB keyboard backlighting, which might add a little bit of aptitude to the in any other case boring design.

It is probably not probably the most exciting-looking gaming laptop computer, however the LOQ 15 has a strong really feel and a snug keyboard. The plastic keyboard deck is pretty inflexible, holding up nicely below the frantic mashing of keys throughout video games. I want the important thing suggestions felt a bit snappier, however there’s sufficient journey to maintain them from feeling mushy. And I like having 4 full-size arrow keys separated from the remainder of the keyboard, regardless of additionally having a quantity pad, which frequently forces a minimum of two and generally all 4 arrow keys to get the annoying half-height therapy.

The keyboard backlighting is a personality-less white. Lenovo affords 24-zone RGB backlighting on some LOQ 15 fashions, however my eval unit did not have it. I really feel like every gaming laptop computer must have RGB backlighting, even when it is only a single zone. (In reality, I believe the 24 zones had been a bit overkill on the Legion 5i Gen 10.)

In addition to the boring grey enclosure and boring white keyboard backlighting, the 15.6-inch show offers the LOQ 15 its company workhorse look. It appears to be like like a laptop computer your organization might need handed you in 2006. The plastic bezels that body the show give the LOQ 15 a particular price range look, and the underside bezel is comically huge. 

The show itself is a pedestrian 1080p, 144Hz IPS panel that did nothing to differentiate itself apart from show to be a bit brighter than its brightness score. Rated for 300 nits, it hit a peak of 341 nits on my assessments with a Spyder X Elite colorimeter. It additionally coated 100% of the sRGB shade gamut however solely 77% of AdobeRGB and 82% of P3, which isn’t surprising for a low-end IPS panel and the bigger shade areas.

The widescreen 16:9 show is finest suited to taking part in 1080p video games and watching exhibits and flicks. Movement in video games and flicks regarded easy on the 144Hz, and also you even have the power to make use of a variable refresh fee that drops the speed to 60Hz whenever you aren’t gaming to increase battery life.

Like the show, the LOQ 15’s audio system failed to differentiate themselves. It’s a typical pair of 2-watt stereo audio system that emit a usually weak laptop computer sound. 

The webcam, nonetheless, is a step above true price range fare. Some price range laptops nonetheless serve up a fuzzy 720p webcam, however Lenovo outfitted the LOQ 15 with a crisp 1080p digital camera. The picture it produces is nearer to that of the 1440p cam you get with the pricier Legion 5i Gen 10 than the grainy, poorly balanced image of the 720p one in different price range gaming laptops just like the Acer Nitro V 16S AI or MSI Katana 15 HX. Without an IR sensor, nonetheless, the webcam cannot be used for Windows Hello facial recognition for logins. And there is not any fingerprint reader, so you’ve got received no manner for straightforward, safe biometric logins.

The LOQ 15 has an honest collection of ports, however there’s just one USB Type-C port. And the lone USB-C port affords a switch fee of solely 10Gbps, which is a far cry from the 40Gbps you’d get from Thunderbolt 4 or USB4.

Is the Lenovo LOQ 15 a very good gaming laptop computer?

The LOQ 15 is value contemplating as a secondary laptop computer particularly for gaming. Its 15.6-inch, 16:9 show can really feel cramped for basic use in comparison with roomier and taller 16-inch, 16:10 shows, however its decision and side ratio are completely suited to 1080p gaming. And you will get greater than playable body charges at 1080p from its RTX 5060 GPU. 

For a extra versatile gaming laptop computer, I like to recommend the Acer Nitro V 16S AI, which has an RTX 5060 however a much bigger and brighter 16-inch show, extra RAM and storage, some aluminum in its construct and RGB backlighting. It prices about $250 extra however is the higher worth. Moving up the worth scale a bit additional, I additionally just like the Alienware 16X Aurora and Lenovo Legion 5i Gen 10. The HP Omen 16 can be a good selection, particularly when it is on sale.