Prateek in his early 30s is an ardent gamer. He has played games on smartphones, console as well as laptops before. Now living away from his family in a co-living in Gurugram, he wanted to relive his gaming passion for which he reached out to me through a common friend to recommend a laptop.
Prateek works in a multi-national as a developer and has set aside a budget of ₹150,000 to buy a gaming laptop this festive season. So, other than budget, I asked him what exactly is he looking for in a gaming laptop? He enumerated his specific requirements.
- The gaming laptop he intends to purchase should also double up as his professional laptop. Though he has an office provisioned laptop, but he also keeps with the hobby of coding new things leveraging AI and other emerging technologies. So, the laptop should be a pro in experience as well as look and feel.
- For Prateek the benchmark of gaming was a console. He had used PS3 last in his home and after that he has been away for studies and job. He wanted to have similar immersive experience or something better. For him audio was equally important as video.
- He is a fan of FPS games. While he does play other games as well like NFS and other racing games, his favourite genre is FPS gaming.
- Prateek also had a concern about the device being not so bulky and its power management should also be efficient.
- Lastly, Prateek having a tech background, wanted the peripherals to connect wirelessly without any lag so that his response action could be real time for the characters he would take up during the games.
I had a couple of options in this range to recommend. However, I opted to suggest Prateek Lenovo’s Legion Slim 5i to go ahead with. Basis my experience after a comprehensive review of the gaming laptop, I found no other option precisely meeting Prateek’s requirements.
Firstly, Legion Slim 5i retails in the range of ₹135,000 – ₹139,000. So, while offering something that answers all the requirements of Prateek, I could help him save 10% which I suggested him to spend on some accessories and peripherals to further elate the gaming experience.
This laptop gives a very professional look despite being a gaming laptop. Its pro grade material finish along with having a very slim display lets it be used for extended hours at a stretch, something that a developer does. Gaming laptops typically come with a heavy display, hence thick screens which also put a stress on the hinges. Though brands do claim that the laptops can be used for hours, but in due course of normal wear and tear, the hinges are not able to hold the weight in sometime loosening the hinges resulting in a play in display. But with slim display being one of the KSPs of Legion Slim 5i, there is no such concern.
Prateek wanted the gaming experience to be as good as on consoles, his benchmark. The first time to determine that performance is the processor. This device may be slim on the display, but there is no compromise on the performance. Powered with 13th generation Intel i7 processor, the performance cores engaged for heavy computing applications like gaming clock as high as 4.90 GHz. In the latest PS5, the processor can go max to a high of 3.5GHz. To further turbo the performance, the Lenovo Legion Slim 5i is equipped with upto 32GB RAM, a DDR5 5200MHz memory. Again, something that makes the applications run super smooth. In gaming, especially FPS games, the response time is all what makes the difference. For that the monster is equipped with 1 TB SSD of M.2 2280 PCIe Gen4/4 caliber.
The other important aspect is the rich display and graphics handling that make the experience immersive. In this gaming laptop, we have NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 4060 graphics card with a dedicated 8GB memory. Its performance is anywhere 25% above across major gaming titles in comparison to the previous editions of the family. It is undoubtedly a gamer’s love when it comes to selecting a graphics card. The 16-inch WQXGA display results in very detailed and clear display output supporting 16:10 aspect ratio taking it to the ultimate of immersive displays one can desire. With 300 Nits and 165 Hz of refresh rate, the frames flip super smooth.
The third important aspect is audio that makes the holistic immersive experience. To complement the rich display features, the laptop is powered by stereo speakers with Nahimic Audio that loads it with high-definition audio enhancement creating a spatial ring around the player.
All the three taken together would give Prateek the immersive gaming experience equivalent of console-based gaming. At times better than that!
To use gaming peripherals and controllers, the laptop is equipped with Bluetooth 5.1 as well as WiFi 6E 11AX (2×2). This will help Prateek to trigger actions in real-time without any delay to respond in FPS games when it matters and earn maximum kills and emerge as a key player in the team helping others.
Finally, with a 230W slip tip AC adapter and 80Wh 4 cell battery, the device gets enough of energy to play at same performance even when AC mains supply is not ON due to any reason. With all these super specifications, the laptop weights 2.4 Kgs, which is heavy by the regular laptop standards, but in gaming zone its not considered very heavy.
With these specifications and features, I was able to mirror Prateek’s expectations and wish-list who’s now made up his mind to buy one in the upcoming festive season.
If you are planning to buy any smart device including smartphones, tablets, laptops, wearables, or something else, and want me to find out what’s best for you, just reach out to me and I will be more than happy to recommend a gadget that will delight your experience and at the same time would be easy on the pocket.
