Lenovo LOQ 2024 review: a Rs 60,000 gaming laptop that punches above its weight

The Lenovo LOQ 2024 gaming laptop is an impressive contender in the affordable gaming segment, offering a balance of performance and affordability. Under Rs 60,000, this laptop can’t boast an AMD GPU nor an Nvidia GPU. So, how does this laptop be slotted into the gaming segment? Well, we have a third contender, none other than Intel. Intel’s Arc graphics power this laptop. So, how does this laptop fare compared to the big boys? Let’s find out in today’s Lenovo LOQ 2024 laptop review!

Here is a video review of the laptop by Florence George.
This device was originally reviewed by Florence George, and this article is based on his evaluation. 

Design

The Lenovo LOQ series comes with a subtle design, which is appreciated. The intake for the fans is located at the back, and the two fans blast out the hot air from below. There are no vents on either side of the laptop. The hinge is fairly good and opens up to 180 degrees. There is very minimal flex on the lid as well as the keyboard.

Display

In terms of display, you get a 15.6-inch Full HD IPS display with a peak brightness of 300 nits and a refresh rate of 144Hz. The display also has a 100 percent sRGB colour gamut, so be it for content consumption, gaming, or video editing, this display can get everything done without any hiccups.

Keyboard, trackpad and I/O

There is a full-size keyboard with White LED backlighting, and the brightness levels can be adjusted with three levels: Low, Medium, and high. There is a decent I/O with a single USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 port, a USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type C port on the side, a headphone jack and on the rear, you get two more USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A ports, an HDMI 2.1 port, LAN port and a DC input.

In terms of trackpad, you get a decent-sized one and it works pretty well, including all the gestures supported in Windows 11.

Performance

Before talking about performance, let’s get the specifications out of the way. The laptop is powered by an Intel Core i5 12450HX CPU, which is a beast of a chip with 8 cores, 12 threads and up to a max clock speed of 4.4 GHz. Alongside the CPU, you get 8GB of LPDDR5 which is a single channel memory and can be upgraded to a dual channel by adding another 8GB as it has an extra SODIMM slot. We upgraded the RAM to 16GB at a frequency of 4800MHz. It’s 2024, and 8GB of RAM is simply not enough. Hence, we would recommend that you upgrade your 8GB RAM variant to 16GB on day one.

In terms of storage, we get a 512GB NVMe SSD, with respectable speeds. You also get an additional slot for expanding your storage. In terms of GPU, we have a discrete Intel ARC A530M GPU with 4GB of DDR6 memory with 70W TGP.

The thermal performance is also pretty good, all the testing was done at an ambient room temperature of 30 degrees, and the temperatures never crossed 80 degrees Celsius at any point.

When talking about performance, the Lenovo LOQ performs admirably in our tests. Before we go any further, let us tell you about the Lenovo Vantage software. This software determines the power needed to run applications and can prioritise based on battery life or performance. You get a performance mode, quiet mode, balanced hybrid mode, as well as a dGPU mode (discrete GPU mode) disabling the internal GPU of the laptop for maximum performance. All the testing was done in dGPU mode for the best results.

Gaming performance

In terms of gaming, we tried the following games at the following settings to get an overall look at the gameplay on this laptop:

• Alan Wake 2: Quality rendering mode, FSR (720p upscaled to 1080p)
• GTA 5: High preset
• Red Dead Redemption 2: Balanced preset
• Cyberpunk 2077: Using Intel XeSS supersampling, Low preset
• Forza Horizon 5: Did not start
• Valorant: 1080p, Medium settings

The experience has been mixed, with some games playing brilliantly like GTA 5 and Valorant, whereas other games such as Alan Wake 2 struggled to play, and Forza Horizon 5 did not start at all even after troubleshooting multiple times. Here are the average FPS of the games respectively:

Battery

The Lenovo LOQ laptop has a 60 Whr battery, and as per our testing which we performed on hybrid auto mode, we got a runtime of 6 hours and 40 minutes with the screen brightness set at 80 percent, and running video playback test on PCMark 10, which is respectable for a gaming laptop.

Verdict

With the LOQ 15IAX9I (2024), Lenovo did its best to build an affordabke gaming machine, especially for those with a tight budget of Rs 60,000. It offers a sturdy build and a great selection of I/O ports including an RJ45 port. The Core i5 12th Gen-HX chip paired with a discrete Arc GPU from Intel, can handle older AAA titles with ease. The default 8GB RAM affects the performance, but thanks to the additional slot, it can be upgraded.

Editor’s rating – 7.5 / 10

Pros:

• Sturdy build quality
• Impressive thermal performance
• Decent CPU and GPU performance
• Easy upgradability

Cons:

• Default config is at 8GB RAM
• Small battery
• Mediocre webcam
• Subpar speakers