Lenovo LOQ 15IRX9 review

The latest LOQ series carries some significant design changes over last year’s models. Available in Luna Grey finish with a polycarbonate-ABS outer shell, the device is sleeker without any screaming colours as part of the design elements. This provides a classy look to the laptop with the large LOQ logo and a small Lenovo branding on the lid. Overall, the device feels sturdily built. A well-defined opening lip and smooth hinges trouble-free opening.

The rear vents are now unobstructed with the blue line missing, and there are no vents on the sides, facilitating a pleasing gradient. The underside has strategically positioned extended honeycomb pattern vents for the main heat emitters. Lenovo has retained the main I/O ports at the rear, which include two USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A ports, a lone HDMI 2.0 port, an Ethernet port, and a flat power connector. Corresponding markings appear on top along with a status LED, making it easier to plug in accessories without turning the device to identify the ports. Coming to the right side, you get a third USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A port along with a USB Type-C (USB 3.2 Gen 2) supporting 140W PD and DisplayPort 1.4, a 3.5mm audio jack and a privacy switch for the camera. PD charging support ensures that you don’t have to lug the bulky charging brick while travelling.

The LOQ 14th Gen machines are customisable with two display options — 144 Hz FHD (1920 x 1080) and 165 Hz WQHD (2560 x 1440). Similarly, there are two keyboard options — one with 4-zone RGB backlight and the other with white backlighting. Our review unit (83DV007FIN) featured the FHD display and RGB keyboard. The display is not the best we have seen, but it offers enough punch with 300 nits of brightness and variable refresh rate. If you prefer to have the best option available, you can choose the WQHD display for an extra ₹4200.

The laptop features a full-size keyboard with large keys offering abundant relief whether you are gaming or typing a long essay. Full-size arrow keys and number pad keys ensure that you have enough room to move your fingers around and facilitate better custom key access.

The top-of-the-line LOQ laptops come with Nvidia RTX 4060 GPU and the inclusion of 14th Gen processor offers a significant leap in performance. The 14700HX (Raptor Lake) with its eight performance cores and 12 efficiency cores offers a significant leap in performance and power efficiency, clocking up to 5.5 GHz in Turbo boost. Combine this with the Ada Lovelace architecture of the 4060, and your machine is ready for advanced Ray Tracing, AI-powered in-game enhancements and tonnes of processing power with minimal input latency.

If benchmarking scores and estimates are anything to go by, the laptop aced the game with 3D Mark terming it legendary. With the native settings, Time Spy returned an overall score of 8255 with the CPU scoring 12, 784. It achieved 97.2 percent stability score in stress test with average temperature hovering around 72 degrees Celsius for the processor. In practical scenarios, at FHD resolution, the frame rates averaged 63 fps.

The Lenovo Vantage software lets you extract maximum juice out of the laptop. Apart from the usual power and macro settings, the software helps you in overclocking with options to offset the GPU clock and VRAM clock. It also acts as a single-platform solution for system updates, audio tuning and other features. The PC also incorporates the LA1 AI chip that lends it machine learning capabilities.

Lenovo had already achieved a level of extreme desirability with last year’s LOQ models. The 14th Gen upgrade further enhances this appeal with some incredible results within an affordable price range, considering the specs. The 14th Gen model is highly customisable with a WQHD screen option and supports up to 32GB of DDR5 RAM. With the power efficiency of 14th Gen Intel processor and rapid charging support that gets you 50 percent of charge in 30 minutes, the laptop is ready for long gaming sessions.