The Lenovo Legion Slim 5 is a big technical step forward for gamers on a budget, and I can easily vouch for it.

Gaming laptops are a dime a dozen, but finding one that respects your wallet is not the easiest task. Typically, if you’re trying to find a gaming laptop that doesn’t break the bank? You’re going to need to sacrifice a fair amount of performance to make that happen. Comparing the Legion Slim 5 to something like the Lenovo Legion Pro 7i, which costs nearly double, proves that Lenovo isn’t messing around when it comes to their more “budget-friendly” line of laptops. It’s not perfect. But it’s hard to find another laptop in the same price range that offers what the Slim 5 can.

Starting at roughly $1529.99, it’s hard to think that this is considered “budget-friendly” for a laptop. But when you consider that the Lenovo Legion Slim 5 is packing an RTX 4070, 16GB of DDR5 memory, and 1TB of internal storage? You’ll quickly see why it’s a bargain at its asking price. Pair this with an attractive exterior that doesn’t scream “gamer”, and you’ve got a laptop that can do your daily driving, while also being as powerful as you need it to be.

Even comparing it to its more expensive counterparts. There are a few things that the Lenovo Legion Slim 5 does better. The battery life is quite a bit better than the more “premium” model. Seeing as gaming laptops typically have terrible battery life, I was expecting this to be more of the same. But I was pleasantly surprised to see I could use it as a daily driver. Especially without needing to run to the charger every couple of hours.