While you may know Lenovo for it’s Thinkpad lineup and more, the company does sell laptops that are specific for gaming. The Lenovo LOQ collection of laptops is one of the lineups, and theLOQ 15IAX9Imodel provides a decent entry-level gaming experience for less-demanding games, but you should know its limits before you decide whether to buy it.
Lenovo LOQ 15IAX9I
The Lenovo LOQ 15IAX9I laptop can be an excellent way to experience older PC gaming for a relatively reasonable price. But since it is intended to be an entry-level machine, its Intel Arc GPU can’t handle more graphics-intensive games. Only consider picking up the Lenovo LOQ 15IAX9I if you know what games the laptop can handle.
A Basic, Yet Still Good Design
The Lenovo LOQ 15IAX9I has, what I would call, a basic, but good design. One of the reasons why I say it is a basic design is that the laptop doesn’t do anything that sets it apart from other Windows laptops. We’ve seen other laptops on the market with some kind of RGB lighting around the casing or other tricks like having two displays (practicality there is questionable, but still).
None of that is here on this Lenovo laptop. The Lenovo LOQ 15IAX9I is also made of plastic, commonly found on many PC laptops.
At the bottom of the laptop, there are multiple rubber feet that help lift the laptop up from the table surface to help with airflow, since there are vents on the bottom as well. One interesting fact to point out about the laptop is that the lid doesn’t cover the whole laptop, just like Alienware laptops.
For color options, the LOQ 15IAX9I only comes in one color - what Lenovo calls Luna Grey. Overall, I like the color. It looks similar to Space Gray on Apple’s MacBooks, and it fits with the gaming laptop aesthetic.
There is one thing that bugs me with this laptop that also extends to a lot of other PC laptops; the stickers that indicate what kind of processor and GPU it features. I think these stickers only take away from the look of the laptop and make it appear cheap. I wish that wasn’t the case.
The LOQ 15IAX9I’s design isn’t super notable or premium, but it feels solid enough that it doesn’t feel cheap, despite the materials used. It aesthetically, also fits the theme of a gaming laptop.
The FHD Display Isn’t the Best, But Gets the Job Done
For the display, the Lenovo LOQ 15IAX9I uses a FHD (1080p) IPS panel, with a peak brightness level of 300 nits for the display. When it comes to the display’s refresh rate, it is up to 144Hz, which is great to have for enjoying smooth animations and higher FPS in games. The LOQ 15IAX9I’s display is also not a touch screen, which shouldn’t concern many given that this is a gaming laptop.
I’m not a big fan of touchscreens on a laptop myself, so I don’t miss it here.
While this particular model doesn’t feature a 1440p resolution or higher, I think the LOQ 15IAX9I’s FHD display is still pretty usable. I’m someone who is used to looking at 4K and 5K displays on a regular basis. And even though I do notice the difference in quality, using a 1080p laptop display at this price point isn’t a deal-breaker.
Additionally, companies like Razor and Alienware have laptops that include FHD displays as well, so it’s not uncommon even among companies that sell laptops with better screens. If you really desire a display that is beyond 1080p, there is a model that offers a QHD (1440p) screen, so the option is there for you. With that model, you also get a bump in peak brightness (350 nits) and a higher refresh rate (165Hz).
Performance for Light Gaming on the Go
So, what are the specs of the Lenovo LOQ 15IAX9I? The version I tested is outfitted with a 12th-generation Intel Core i5 12450HX (clocked at 2.40 GHz). For the RAM and GPU, this model has 12GB of RAM and Intel Arc A530M graphics, along with Intel UHD graphics. The Lenovo LOQ 15IAX9I also comes with a 512GB SSD.
Moving over to benchmarks, we started with 3D Mark’s Wild Life Extreme graphics test. The Lenovo LOQ 15IAX9I’s Intel Arc A530M got a score of 10,705. In the Time Spy test, the CPU score was 7,398, with an overall score of 6,154. Both of these tests were conducted with the laptop connected to power.
Now that we’ve covered the numbers, let’s cover the actual gaming experience. For playing older games, such as Call of Duty: World At War or Left 4 Dead 2, the Lenovo LOQ 15IAX9I handles them very well, as you may expect. Using the built-in FPS counter on Steam, Left 4 Dead 2 would consistently run around 290FPS with all the graphics settings set to High, besides the Shader Detail setting in the game. I didn’t experience any significant frame drops or performance issues.
For Call of Duty: World at War, the game would stay around 90FPS. Again, this is all while the laptop was connected to power.
However, you should know that the specs of this laptop, as configured, don’t hold up to more modern games. When playing Halo Infinite, which requires at least an AMD RX 570 or an Nvidia GTX 1050 Ti for the GPU (according to the game’s Steam store page), the experience was rough, and I would almost call it borderline unplayable with inconsistent frame rates from map to map and a lot of loss in detail overall.
I think this configuration of the Lenovo LOQ 15IAX9I is good if you want to run less demanding or older games. Perhaps you are mainly a console player, but you want access to an old classic game that you may’t get on your existing system or want to play with friends on Steam. In my case, that was Left 4 Dead 2, and since macOS no longer supports 32-bit apps, the Lenovo LOQ 15IAX9I was a good option.
A Port Selection for Multiple Scenarios
The Lenovo LOQ 15IAX9I offers a fair number of ports for use with peripherals. On the right side of the laptop, you get a USB-C port, USB-A, and a headphone jack. On the same side, there is also a webcam shutter switch, so you don’t have to add one of those camera covers yourself. However, most of the ports are on the backside of the laptop, similar to what Dell does with its Alienware laptops. At the back, there are two more USB-A ports, built-in ethernet, HDMI, and the DC port for charging the computer.
The Lenovo LOQ 15IAX9I offers a solid selection of ports that are perfect for gaming. An ethernet port for very fast internet speeds, USB-A for connecting external mice or controllers, HDMI for connecting the laptop to a larger display, and more.
The experience of using the keyboard on the Lenovo LOQ 15IAX9I is pretty decent. The keys have a fair amount of key travel, and they don’t feel clunky to use. There is backlighting for each individual key and it is fairly bright too. It’s important to point out that, like other PC laptops, there is a fair amount of flexing when typing on the keyboard, so keep that in mind.
I have mixed feelings about the trackpad. It’s not the best I have used. Full disclaimer: I am used to using MacBook trackpads, which are widely considered to be some of the best on any laptop. But that’s not to say that the Lenovo’s trackpad is terrible. You can click from almost anywhere on the trackpad (except for the very top of it), which is good.
And that also means that there isn’t a dedicated click button to take up space on the laptop. I was surprised to see that, by default, you could also just tap on the trackpad to select things. Thankfully, you can turn that off in settings, which is what I did since I encountered accidental clicks fairly often, and turning off the setting largely resolved it.
But the trackpad isn’t something I found myself wanting to use much at all. It just isn’t as satisfying to use as other trackpads, likely due to it seemingly not using glass or it not using vibrations to replicate a click like Apple’s Force Touch trackpads.
I would certainly use it for short spans of time when doing anything non-gaming related. But if you are thinking of using it for gaming, I would steer you towards purchasing a dedicated gaming mouse (like what many PC gamers use) or a controller, if you prefer that over a keyboard and mouse.
Battery Life that Isn’t Outstanding
Battery life on gaming laptops is arguably not super crucial, since games can just tear through your battery with ease. Despite that, you may want to use this laptop for something other than gaming occasionally, so it’s worth knowing what it is capable of. Lenovo states that the LOQ 15IAX9I can get up to six hours of battery life, which is not very impressive.
Even when the LOQ 15IAX9I was sitting doing nothing besides having the screen and keyboard lit up, the computer’s battery would drop considerably over a short period of time. There certainly are other PC laptops on the market with better battery life. According toPC Magazine, laptops such as the HP Spectre x360 14 (2024) and the HP Dragonfly G4 achieved more than 18 hours of battery life during testing. And the HP Spectre x360 14 (2024) also has Intel Arc graphics on board, just like the LOQ 15IAX9I.
If you plan to use the Lenovo LOQ 15IAX9I primarily for gaming, then battery life shouldn’t be a major issue, since you will likely keep it plugged in not only for battery reasons, but also for better performance. But for other use cases, don’t expect it to last all day.
Should You Buy the Lenovo LOQ 15IAX9I?
Yes, but only if you don’t want to play newer, more graphic-intensive games. TheLenovo LOQ 15IAX9Ioffers a good experience for older games with this model’s specs. But if you want to play games like Halo Infinite or others, you will either need a laptop with better specs or build a gaming PC desktop yourself, which may be the overall better choice than purchasing a gaming laptop.
