Lenovo has once again produced a value-for-money proposition for gamers who are restricted by budget
With the launch of its LOQ series last year, Lenovo established a new category of budget-focused gaming laptops and desktops. This year we have a refreshed lineup including the new 15-inch LOQ gaming laptop which is available with the latest Intel 14th-gen mobile CPUs.
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The refreshed LOQ 15 looks more or less identical to the outgoing model which made its debut last year. You get a plastic construction, yet it doesn't feel cheap. Lenovo has done a great job in terms of the finish, and the laptop feels worthy of its cost. The edges and corners are nicely refined and the hinge is rock solid, with minor screen wobble.
The base variant of the LOQ 15 comes with a 15.6-inch full HD (1,920 x 1,080) IPS display with 144Hz refresh rate and support for Nvidia G-Sync. This panel is capable of 100 percent sRGB colour gamut with a rated peak brightness of 300 nits.
The laptop boasts a full-sized keyboard complete with a dedicated numpad and a spacious layout. Like most Lenovo laptops, the keyboard has been borrowed from the company's ThinkPad lineup with keycaps that have a curved bottom. Having a 1.5mm key travel and 100 percent anti-ghosting support, the typing experience was excellent. In fact I was able to type efficiently and get used to the layout rather quickly.
The Lenovo LOQ 15 comes with Windows 11 Home pre-installed but you can also opt for the Pro version by paying extra. There is a suite of Lenovo's preinstalled apps all of which are mostly just bloatware, except the Vantage app which can be used to control various aspects of the laptop.
Apart from monitoring the hardware Vantage lets you choose between the various performance modes, control the MUX switch, enable fast battery charging, control audio options, check for system updates, and so on.
When it comes to performance modes, Vantage allows you to choose between Performance, Balance, Silent and Custom. Performance mode offers the most out of the hardware, however choosing the Custom mode allows you to further tune the CPU and GPU power and thermal limits. If you don't understand how thermal limitations work, I would advise you not to mess with any settings as it can potentially damage the hardware.
Using Vantage you can also control the built-in MUX Switch that lets you choose how the system accesses the discrete graphics card (dGPU) and integrated graphics card (iGPU). Disabling the dGPU and using only the iGPU ensures the best battery life, while forcing the system to only use the dGPU and disable the iGPU completely ensures the best graphics performance. There are two additional hybrid modes that automatically switch between both GPUs to offer balanced performance.
As for performance, the system relies on the Intel Core i7-14700HX which is part of Intel's Rocket Lake refresh series featuring 20 cores, 28 threads and a maximum boost clock speed of up to 5.5GHz. There's also 16GB of DDR5-5600 RAM, and a 1TB PCIe Gen 4 SSD. Now while I would've preferred dual-channel memory, Lenovo does offer the option to configure 2x8GB or a single 16GB stick. Powering the graphics is Nvidia's RTX 4060 with 8GB of GDDR6 memory, 115W rated TGP, and 2,370MHz boost clock speeds.
The laptop features an improved cooling system compared to the previous generation where Lenovo is using two heat pipes and two cooling fans that have a ‘sealed chamber' to direct airflow in a single channel. Air is pulled in from the bottom and exhausts from the back. This is nice to see as all the hot air goes out from the back instead of having vents on the sides which usually end up spewing hot air onto your hands while gaming.
At full load, the fans ramp up fast and are quite audible, although that shouldn't be an issue if you use a decent pair of earphones. The CPU has a rated TDP of 157W and it can push well over 100W when stressed, although it hovers around 80W during gaming as most of the power is directed towards the GPU. Speaking of which, the RTX 4060 on the LOQ 15 managed to peak around 110W while both chips recorded a temperature of under 85 degrees at sustained loads.
Here's a look at some of the synthetic benchmark results:
As you can see, the LOQ 15 scored 1,254 points in Cinebench 2024's multi-core CPU benchmark test and 100 points in single-core. As for Cinebench R23, it scored 23,128 points in CPU multi-core and 1,697 points in single core. PCMark 10 is another great benchmark tool to quantify performance and the laptop managed to deliver an overall score of 9,568 points which is a significant jump when compared to the Core i7-13700H. The LOQ 15 also shines when it comes to benchmarks that stress the GPU wherein the laptop scored over 25,000 points in 3DMark Fire Strike and over 10,000 points in Time Spy.
Moving to gaming, I had a pretty satisfying experience at 1080p with the RTX 4060 managing to handle most games with ease. Here's a quick look at what kind of frames per second (FPS) you can expect at various settings.
GAMES AT 1080P RESOLUTION | MEDIUM | HIGH | VERY HIGH OR ULTRA |
Rise of the Tomb Raider | 208fps | 194fps | 156fps |
Horizon Zero Dawn | 145fps | 131fps | 119fps |
Horizon Zero Dawn (DLSS Balanced) | 149fps | 136fps | 131fps |
Far Cry 5 | 160fps | 154fps | 148fps |
Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition (Standard Ray Tracing) | 80fps | 66fps | 44fps |
Cyberpunk 2077 (Ray tracing + DLSS Auto) | 62fps | 58fps | 37fps |
Cyberpunk 2077 (AMD FSR) | 121fps | 111fps | 90fps |
Considering that the RTX 4060 on this laptop can boost up to 110W, most modern AAA games should run without any issues. Even demanding titles like Cyberpunk 2077 can achieve stable framerates of 90fps and beyond, thanks to upscaling technologies.
The LOQ 15 features a 60Whr battery unit and in my testing testing, I was able to get about 4 hours of battery life. That's a bit disappointing especially since there is enough space for a larger battery unit. Now your mileage is going to vary depending on the performance mode enabled, so if you want the most out of the battery, I suggest switching to the iGPU-only mode. Additionally, you can reduce the screen refresh rate and brightness and maybe even turn off the keyboard backlight.
With a starting price of about Rs 1,15,000, the new Lenovo LOQ 15 is a highly competitive gaming notebook. While the standard 1080p display is good enough though, I would rather have a higher resolution 1440p display at this size format. Despite not having premium aesthetics, I was pretty satisfied with the implementation as the laptop doesn't look cheap and seems to justify the cost. Of course, it is bulkier than most modern gaming notebooks, and falls behind when it comes to battery life, which is something that most gaming laptops struggle with anyway. Other minor points of concern are the webcam and speakers, both of which are average. Competitors like the ASUS TUF Gaming A16, Dell G15 Gaming, and the new MSI Cyborg 15 with Intel's new Core Ultra processors, are all viable options available in the same price range.
All said and done, the Lenovo LOQ 15 is one of the only gaming laptops that features Intel's latest 14th-gen processor. That, combined with an RTX 4060 GPU, makes it a great option for gamers who seek a reliable machine for 1080p gaming. The combination of Intel's Core i7-14700HX and Nvidia's RTX 4060 ensures solid performance and Lenovo has ensured users have proper control using the Vantage software too.