For casual and beginner gamers looking to kick off their first steps on to a long and awesome PC gaming journey, Lenovo presents its LOQ (pronounced lock) range of gaming notebook PCs, which can be found at a more approachable price tag but without sacrificing capability or limiting the window during which the latest and greatest PC games remain accessible to these newest citizens of the gaming nation.
The 16″ LOQ is a solidly built gaming laptop with an outer shell in dark grey plastic. Like all gaming notebook PCs, it is a bit of a chunky monkey, measuring 359.6 x 277.6 x 21-25.9 mm and tipping the scales at around 2.6 kg. You can still pick it up and carry it from room to room though or throw it into a notebook bag to take it on the road with you, but it will be more of a workout than lightweight (and less powerful) creator laptops for instance.
Power on tap
Speaking of power, beneath the hood you get a 13th Gen Intel Core Series CPU paired with a NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4050 Laptop GPU. In fact, you get Intel’s Core i7-13620H that sports 10 cores (6 P-core + 4 E-core) and Intel UHD integrated Graphics, along with dedicated graphics in the form of NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 4050 Laptop GPU featuring 6GB of GDDR6 RAM and a boost clock of 2370 MHz. The LOQ 16″ obtained a score of 8528 within the Time Spy 3DMARK benchmark which is pretty good with the laptop capable of running games like Battlefield V at over 85 fps in 1440p, and comfortably delivered close to 60 fps within GTA V at the same resolution. We did however, have to drop down the resolution to 1080p for Red Dead Redemption 2 to hit a buttery smooth 90+ fps, compared to a stable 35 fps in 1440p. Other titles played on this notebook included Resident Evil 2, eFootball, and Forza Horizon 4.
Aiding in the buttery smooth feel is the 16″ WUXGA (1920×1200) IPS 350nits Antiglare 16:10 that offers refresh rates up to 144Hz and packs NVIDIA’s GSYNC technology. Furthermore, Lenovo LOQ gaming laptops with NVIDIA GPUs like this one features a MUX switch that enables the integrated GPU to be bypassed via NVIDIA Advanced Optimus during gaming sessions. This allows the NVIDIA graphics cards to interface directly with the display and result in higher frames-per-second with reduced latency, so that games run smoother and look even better. When not gaming, the MUX Switch allows the laptop to use the integrated graphics, optimizing battery life within Windows 11 Home.
These powerful internals are kept cool via up to four heat pipes, dual 85mm 12V high-speed fans, and extra-large air intakes and outlets that total up to 135W TDP while keeping the laptop cool and quiet enough for a library or coworking space according to Lenovo. However, though these might not be the loudest fans we’ve ever come across by some margin, they are still loud enough at full blast to necessitate the use of a gaming headset, whereas the 2W x2 Stereo speakers that have been optimised with Nahimic Gaming Audio would suffice when it comes to normal multimedia consumption such as viewing your favourite Netflix series, or YouTube videos.
Also onboard
Beyond the performance, you also get a keyboard that is well-built, has good 4-Zone RGB backlighting, and provides instant click response and is coupled with a mousepad that highly conventional and on the smaller side, but offers a comfortable touch and good precision. You will probably connect a regular gaming mouse anyway if you play games, or Lenovo’s LOQ M100 gaming mouse in our case. Our review unit came with 16GB 5600MHz DDR5 RAM and a 512 GB PCIe SSD.
In terms of ports, you not only get a nice selection but they are placed at the back of the notebook PC, allowing for a neater setup. There is a USB 3.2 Gen 1 port, two USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports, HDMI 2.1 slot,Headphone / microphone combo jack (3.5mm), Ethernet (RJ-45) and Power connector amongst others. The 16-inch Lenovo LOQ gaming laptops have up to an 80Whr battery for up to 7 hours of battery that supports Super Rapid Charge Pro for faster charging and longer battery life when out and about.
Ultimately, this is one of our favourite gaming notebooks that offers a lot for its RRP of between R26 999 and R31 999.99 depending upon spec level from local retailers like Evetech.
