Key Takeaways

• The Lenovo Legion Slim 5 14 (Gen 8) is a powerful gaming laptop with a slim and portable design, packed with features that people playing games should enjoy.
• It offers smooth gameplay and fast charging speeds, along with a vibrant 2.8K display and an NVIDIA GeForce RTX GPU for high-fidelity graphics.
• The laptop's design is aesthetically pleasing and comfortable, although it uses hard plastic in some parts of the chassis and lacks RGB backlighting. The memory is also not upgradeable.

Lenovo's gaming laptop line brings power and portability to the forefront with the Lenovo Legion Slim 5 14 (Gen 8). Packed with features gamers love, like an NVIDIA GeForce GPU and a 2.8K display, this device is a solid contender for gamers who want a laptop that almost does it all.

Many of Lenovo's Legion laptops aren't what I'd call lightweight, so gamers have to sacrifice power for portability. But that's where the Slim version of these powerhouses comes in, and the Legion Slim 5 14 (Gen 8) does a darn good job of maintaining non-negotiable features while shedding some weight. I've dealt with the bulkier end of the Legion line, having recently reviewed the Lenovo Legion Pro 5 Gen 8, and while there are some cons to grabbing this slimmer model (such as soldered memory and a lesser NVIDIA GPU), the Legion Slim 5 14 (Gen 8) makes up for it with a hardy performance that'll suit casual to moderate gamers who are willing to spend some cash without going over $2,000.

Design and Comfort: The Lenovo Legion Slim 5 14 (Gen 8) Continues the Tradition

Lenovo's Legion Slim 5 14 looks aesthetically pleasing and feels comfortable. Its sturdy body has rounded corners and smooth edges—something I appreciate after using some laptops with sharper corners. On the top lid is a stunning "Legion" logo in a gunmetal gray. Flip the lid, and there's a 14.5-inch display with an FHD camera integrated into the bezel and two microphones on either side.

The laptop's body features a 10-keyless chiclet keyboard and a 2.95 x 4.72-inch multitouch touchpad. Above the keyboard is the LED-backlit power button (which shines red when charging).

The bottom of the device is where you'll find the bulk of the Legion Coldfront 5.0 cooling system (though there are other venting areas on the sides and laptop body), plus the two 2W speakers (one on each bottom corner).

While the top and bottom of the laptop have sturdy aluminum, it's a bit disappointing to see the rest of the chassis with hard plastic—but this is an understandable tradeoff for a lighter weight.

Side and Rear Ports Galore

There's no shortage of ports on the Lenovo Legion Slim 5 14 (Gen 8) laptop. On the left side of the laptop are two USB-C ports, while the right side of the device has a headphone/microphone combo jack and a full-sized SD Card reader, in addition to an e-privacy switch for the integrated camera.

The back of the laptop is where the rest of the ports are located, including an HDMI port, two USB-A ports, and the power connector port. As someone who hates all the wires that come with charging devices, I appreciated the location of the power port at the back since this meant the AC adapter's wires were never in my way.

The Inputs: Keyboard and Trackpad

I'm a big fan of the sweet spot of a laptop keyboard that lies somewhere between loose yet responsive and springy. For a gaming laptop, the Legion Slim 5 pulls off this balance of quick keyboard action while giving the typist a beautiful spring-back feel and a pleasantly clicky noise while typing. Most gamers should be happy with the keyboard's action, even if they're major proponents of mechanical keyboards. The only bummer to me was the lack of RGB backlighting. Lenovo's other Legion offerings tend to have RGB backlighting as standard, including the similar Slim model, the Legion Slim 5 16 (Gen 8), but it's absent on the Slim 5 14.

If you want an RGB experience, though, you can always invest in a mechanical keyboard to enhance your gaming.

The touchpad, meanwhile, was wonderfully responsive for scrolling, zooming, tapping, and navigating my way through work and games, except for those that required a USB mouse.

Display: Vibrant 2.8K Graphics

Whether I was streaming "Life on Our Planet" on Netflix, catching up on my "Watch Later" playlist on YouTube, or playing games like "Life of P" and "Warhammer 40,000: Darktide," imagery sprang to life on the 14.5-inch OLED screen. With a maximum brightness of 400 nits and a 120Hz refresh rate, everything I watched or viewed looked incredible on this device, no matter what lighting I found myself in.

While there's a big push for 4K in laptops, and I agree it's hard to pass up the idea of 4K everything, I didn't miss anything with the 2.8K resolution, as it was fantastic. The fact that the Legion Slim 5 14 has an OLED display makes up for the glare I noticed in some lighting and probably accounts for the fidelity of color contrast I enjoyed in all media.

YouTube videos of Columbia and Scotland showed detailed scenery of two different coastal locales, and features like thick mist or Atlantic puffins looked clear enough to touch with my hands.

Gaming also brought drool-worthy graphics, no matter when and where I was playing. The contrast and color quality were consistent at all angles.

I was especially impressed with how NVIDIA's GeForce RTD 4060 GPU handled ray-tracing and contrast in games. I've played "Warhammer 40,000: Darktide" on several other laptops, like the Razer Blade 18, and the smoothness of the graphics on the Legion Slim 5 made me feel like I was playing it for the first time again, marveling at all the smoke and fire and shadows.

Performance: Smooth Heavy-Load Processing

I used the Legion Slim 5 14 (Gen 8) for my daily work tasks, including but not limited to Zoom and Google Meet calls, drafting articles, editing photos in Adobe Photoshop, researching with way too many tabs open, and listening to tunes in the background via Spotify or taking a time-out with YouTube.

While I tend to favor Intel processors, the AMD Ryzen 7 7840 handled tasks without skipping a beat, and AMD is notably better for gaming. I did notice a slight drop-off in speed when using a lot of browser tabs (about 30 or more). The performance stutter was negligible enough to overlook, and for the most part, I was sailing through workdays without feeling the need for extra cores and threads. (For reference, the 7840 has 8 cores and 16 threads.)

I was also impressed with how cool the Legion Slim 5 14 stayed during charging or heavy usage. I never felt the laptop's base become so hot that I didn't want to use it, except for one instance when I was charging while gaming and using the Legion on my lap instead of at a desk.

Gaming: AI-Powered High Fidelity Graphics and Smooth Gameplay

I used the default settings on the Legion Slim 5 14, but Lenovo's Vantage app offers plenty of flexibility to customize your gaming experience, including an Adaptive Refresh Rate setting, GPU Overclock, and different power supply modes. I also had the Lenovo AI Engine+ setting switched on, which automatically tunes the CPU and GPU performance. I have to say, the gaming performance was one of the smoothest I've seen in a while, no matter if I was playing games via Steam or Xbox PC Game Pass.

While playing "The Outer Worlds" and "Warhammer 40,000: Darktide," I noticed zero latency during combat and watched as the screen seamlessly sped through scenes. Both games played beautifully with the settings on high for the ultimate graphic fidelity. Similarly, "Life of P," "Forza Horizon 5," and "Apex Legends" managed an average of 60 to 120fps and high settings, with no performance drops due to the demanding graphics.

While gaming, the laptop's fan does get rather loud—something gamers are used to. I occasionally used some headphones to kill the noise and enjoyed a smooth ride through countless gaming worlds.

Camera and Audio: Clear Streams and Nahimic Audio

The FHD integrated camera on the Lenovo Legion Slim 5 14 (Gen 8) offers clear pictures and streams with a nice balance of color and saturation. Many times, I find laptop cameras to be slightly off in this department, and not all 1080P cameras offer equal crispness. The webcam included in the Legion Slim 5 14 is about as good as it gets, capturing a clear stream in dim or bright lighting.

Although the Legion Slim 5 14 only has two down-facing speakers, these small speakers managed to put off some incredible sound. I never expected excellent bass or anything close to some Bluetooth speakers' capabilities, but this device's speaker system was nice enough to make games, music, and movies immersive, thanks to Nahimic Audio. From Sam Cooke to Tom Odell to Hozier, I was pleased to hear the sound quality for tunes and found the sweet spot between 60 to 85% of the volume. Once I hit past 85%, though, things started to sound a bit crunched and muddy with a harsher treble, no matter the media.

I regularly used the Nahimic app to adjust the sound to my liking, but the auto-detect feature did a great job of nailing down the type of audio I was listening to, whether a movie, music, or gaming.

The microphone gave me some trouble with connectivity in Google Meet after using the Sound Recorder app. Unfortunately, there was no way to resolve this than to rejoin the meeting or restart the laptop—but I feel this was an issue with Google Meet and my browser. The actual sound from the microphone was so-so. In a quiet setting, the mic worked fine, but in noisy settings, the sound was often clipped.

Microphone Test on the Lenovo Legion Slim 5 14 (Gen 8) in a Quiet Environment

Microphone Test on the Lenovo Legion Slim 5 14 (Gen 8) in a Noisy Environment

Battery and Charging: Fast Charge, Fast Drain

While using the Legion Slim 5 14 (Gen 8), I noticed a drain of about 30 to 40% per hour while streaming with the brightness at about 60 to 70%, which equaled me streaming about two to three episodes of a show before having to plug in. When using the laptop during my workday, it drained at a speed of about 0.32% per minute, or about 20% per hour.

Gaming, however, had a faster drain average of 1.70% per minute or just over a full drain in one hour. Staying plugged in while gaming was a must.

Charging up was a pleasure, especially with the Rapid Charge capability. The average speed I saw the Legion Slim 5 charge up was 1.15% per minute, with an average of 69% charge per hour—and on occasion, I did see my battery reach 50 to 70% in 30 minutes of charging.

Should You Buy the Lenovo Slim 5 14 (Gen 8) Laptop?

For gamers who want a less bulky mid-range gaming laptop, the Lenovo Legion Slim 5 14 (Gen 8) offers plenty of note-worthy features. From the AMD Ryzen CPU and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 GPU to its Nahimic Audio and the 2.8K OLED display, most casual to moderate gamers will find a lot to love about this device. You can buy the Lenovo Legion Slim 5 14 (Gen 8) today starting at $1,205.27.

If you're looking for something different, the Lenovo Legion Slim 7i Gen 8 offers stand-out performance for a slightly higher price.