Lenovo Legion 9 18 with RTX 5090 Review: The most powerful gaming laptop on the market

Like the RTX 5080 variant, the RTX 5090 edition of the Lenovo Legion 9 18 — which is absurdly expensive at just under €6,000 — also cuts a good to very good performance figure in most categories. 

One of the strengths of this gaming behemoth is its high-quality chassis, which attracts with its stylish design and many lighting elements. The connectivity is not bad either, with the inclusion of two Thunderbolt 5 ports. 

Under the hood, things are quite lavish when you consider the four fans, four RAM banks, and four SSD slots. The sound quality also lives up to the enormous asking price. 

The Legion 9 18's performance is beyond reproach. Not least thanks to GPU overclocking, the Legion 9 18 is at the top of all laptops with the RTX 5090 Laptop GPU tested to date.

However, this thicc boy also comes with a few disadvantages. For instance, the included 400 W power supply unit is extremely bulky and heavy. 

The laptop requires a lot of power and offers only meagre battery life with high noise levels while playing games. 

The Legion 9 18's RTX 5080 counterpart fares slightly better in these aspects despite its lower performance.

The Lenovo Legion 9 18IAX10 with Core Ultra 9 275HX and GeForce RTX 5090 is available for just under €6,000 on Amazon DE.

The laptop isn't yet officially listed on the Lenovo US site, but variants with the Core Ultra 9 275HX and RTX 5080 can be had starting from $3,299.99 via Lenovo.com.

The Legion 9 18's competition includes other 18-inch gaming laptops with the RTX 5090 Laptop like the Alienware 18 Area-51, the Asus Strix Scar 18 G835, and the Razer Blade 18 2025, which all appear in the tables as comparison devices.

The chassis not only impresses with its textured lid, but also with its good stability and clean workmanship. 3.5 kg is quite some weight for a laptop, outweighing even the Strix Scar 18 or Blade 18 (3.2-3.3 kg). But, as the Alienware 18 Area-51 (4.2 kg) shows, things can get even heavier. 

The 2.8 cm height (without feet) is in line with the Blade 18. We particularly liked the generous 180° opening angle.

The number and variety of connections leaves nothing to be desired, especially since Lenovo has installed modern interfaces (see below). Interestingly, the card reader was slower than on the RTX 5080 version, while the wireless module delivered significantly better results. The 5 MP webcam, which offers an e-shutter, produces decent images. 

The opening of the housing could be more convenient for maintenance. Although the 11 Phillips screws can be removed quite easily, the bottom cover is incredibly tight to dislodge.

Lenovo's display decision is somewhat incomprehensible. Similar to the RTX 5080 version, a glossy IPS panel is used in the RTX 5090 SKU, which can be highly reflective depending on the environment. 

To prevent such reflections, IPS models are usually installed in a matte version, whereas OLED panels are (some would say unfortunately) almost exclusively glossy models. 

The advantage of the glossy version is bright colors, and this 240 Hz panel offers a large color gamut coverage. In addition to Display P3, Adobe RGB is nearly completely covered as well. 

The display is pre-calibrated on delivery, which results in high color accuracy. The values are also good by IPS standards, without being outperformed by the competition. 

An average brightness of 440 cd/m² and a black value of 0.27 cd/m² ensure a solid contrast of just under 1,600:1. There are also no surprises in terms of viewing angle stability and response times. 

Thanks to the high 3,840 x 2,400 (16:10 format) resolution, the picture looks quite sharp.

In terms of hardware, in the particular the CPU and GPU, the Legion 9 18IAX10 belongs to the absolute high-end segment. 

64 GB of RAM should also not quickly reach its limits for most users, but the built-in 2 TB SSD could have been larger considering the price of the test configuration.

The high PL1 and PL2 levels of the Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX ensure excellent performance in the CPU benchmarks, although this is also applicable to the Legion 9 18's competition, all of which are also equipped with a 275HX. 

The results in the Cinebench R15 multi-core loop were also very stable, which speaks for good cooling.

In terms of system performance, the Legion 9 18 and its rivals are also close to each other, which means any differences in daily productivity tasks are hardly noticeable in practice.