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2025 gaming laptops have been great so far, but I got to say they're ridiculously expensive for the most part. So, today we're looking at one of the cheapest ones that just got a refresh. The Lenovo LoQ15. This little guy's got a bit of a cult following as well. So, I'm really excited to test it out. So, is it as good as everyone says it is? Well, let's find out. And please like and subscribe if you like these type of videos.
From the outside, this thing doesn't look very much like a gaming laptop. In fact, with these gray colors and no RGB anywhere, it looks more like an older office laptop. Now, it does have an all plastic body, but this doesn't make it feel cheap. It's actually built very well for the price. It does still have the thickness of a gaming laptop, though, which should mean it has some good cooling. And the same can be said for its weight. It's not really a laptop you can use one-handed. So, overall, it's a bit boring, but built pretty well.
Now, it actually has some really nice specs for its price. An RTX 5060 and a newish AMD chip should mean this thing can handle quite a bit. Its GPU gets basically the highest possible power limit for a 5060 as well, which is awesome. And it also does have higher spec options up to an RTX 5070. It's also got faster Intel CPU options, but I wanted to try the new AMD one since I haven't seen anyone review it yet.
Now, cheaper laptops usually actually have better port selections, and that's no different here. With most of its ports on the back as well, it keeps most of its cables out of the way. I do wish it at least had one extra USBA port on the left side as well, but this is a minor complaint. It uses that yellow Lenovo connector to charge, and it has a pretty decently sized power brick with an okay wattage, but it can also charge through any way smaller USBC chargers for if you're on the go. If you do use USBC for charging, though, the laptop will slowly discharge its battery while you're gaming, and any charger below 65W will probably not work on it.
Now, onto its keyboard. It's only got a white backlight with no other color options, but it does get pretty bright. And the keys themselves, they feel great. They're pretty clicky and well balanced. I can really see why people say Lenovo laptops have some of the best keyboards out there. It's also got a full-size numpad and arrow keys, which some people will appreciate.
As for its trackpad, it is a bit on the small side, and I don't really like it when they're placed on the left of the laptop instead of in the middle, and it's also a bit cheap. But it is very clicky, which I quite like. Look, it's not the best, but at least you can very clearly hear when you actually click something.
One of the most important parts about a laptop though is its display. And this full HD IPS panel is okay, I guess. Now, Lenovo does say that this is an IPS, but it has pretty meh viewing angles. It almost looks like a TN panel, and it does not get super bright. 300 nits is okay, but it's pretty much the bare minimum. It's fine for inside use, but don't you dare try to bring this thing outside. Full HD is fine at 15in, but it isn't the sharpest. And while you might think 144Hz is great for gaming, this panel does not have good response times. So, there's quite a bit of ghosting visible, or in English, that means it looks a bit smeary and blurry when you move around quickly. I believe it is still smoother than 60Hz, but it doesn't look much better. It does have a matte coating on it, so it's not very reflective, which is nice. But this panel's colors are just a bit dull. They're not the worst I've ever seen, but definitely not very accurate. Its hinge opens up to a full 180°, though, which is pretty nice. And while it does slightly wobble when you directly press the display, this is not a problem during normal actual use.
Now, cheap laptops usually have the most god-awful speakers you've ever heard. So, how does the LOQ do? [Music] I am downright surprised by how good these sound. It does only have bottom-firing speakers, so it sounds a bit worse if you pick it off a table. But this thing gets loud, it's clear, it has some decent bass, and overall it just sounds great. And I would even say games sound good on it as well.
The Lenovo LoQ has a pretty basic microphone. Nothing special there, but for some reason it has a really high-quality webcam. So, if you're into video conferencing or other webcam-related activities, you'll love this one.
Now, what we've all been waiting for, performance. You're probably buying a gaming laptop to play some games on it. So, how fast is the LOQ? Well, in Cinebench R23, that Ryzen 7 250 is by all means pretty mediocre. It's still decently fast, but it just performs like a three-year-old chip. But in 3D Mark Time Spy, that RTX 5060 performs wonderfully. This is about as fast or even faster than some laptop RTX 4070 laptops. But benchmarks don't show the entire picture. You need a mix CPU and GPU workload. So, let's play some actual games. I need a bandage. [Music] I'll hack you to pieces. >> You'll never take me down. [Music] What did you do, man? [Music] >> No. [Music]
So, as for gaming performance, this thing does pretty well. It does help that it only needs to run them at 1080p, but the LOQ easily handled every game, old and new, at high frame rates, even the newest titles like Battlefield 6. It does only have 8GB of VRAM, which is starting to become a limiting factor in newer games, but overall it should be able to play every game for at least a couple of years into the future. Oh, and for the people interested in playing with less fan noise, I also tested performance in the silent fan mode. It still performs quite well, but about 20% slower across the board, but it is considerably quieter. I'll show that once we get to temperatures and fan noise in a little bit. But in this silent mode, it does stutter more in games like Cyberpunk. So, it's pretty clear the hardware is being limited.
Which brings us to thermals. The LOQ performs pretty well. But does it also stay quiet and cool? Well, in the highest performance profile, yes, it stays impressively cool for both the CPU and GPU, staying comfortably below even 70°, which is very nice. But that does mean it's still as loud as a gaming laptop. Now, in that silent profile, it obviously stayed even cooler. But this did limit the CPU and GPU's wattages quite a bit, which is why it was slower in gaming. But in this profile, it stayed very quiet. I mean, this is an impressively little amount of noise for a gaming laptop. In that performance profile, it also showed high power limits for its GPU. So, it's not achieving these low temperatures by limiting its hardware. It just genuinely has a really good cooling system.
But gaming laptops have notoriously bad battery life. So, how does the LoQ15 do? Well, I tested it in two scenarios. Under light use and during gaming. In the light use test, I played a YouTube video until its battery died with its display at full brightness at 60Hz and with the dedicated GPU turned off. And it didn't do horrible, but also not very good. It probably will not survive a full school day since in actual real-world use, this number will likely be even lower. But for a gaming laptop, this is above average. In the gaming test, I play Battlefield 1 until its battery died with the same settings as before. And like always, just buy a Steam Deck or an ROG Ally if you want to play games on battery. Gaming laptops are just not made for this.
What cheaper laptops are also better at than most premium laptops is upgradability. And this is no different for the LOQ. It has one M.2 SSD pre-installed, but it's that way smaller format, but it also has a spare M.2 slot available for a full-size one. It also has an upgradeable Wi-Fi card, which could be handy in the future. And it even has upgradeable RAM, which is very awesome.
So far, this laptop is looking great, but how much are you paying for it? Well, the spec I used in this video with the AMD CPU and RTX 560 set me back around 1,200 bucks. Sure, some people might say that 1,200 bucks is not really a budget gaming laptop price, but this is one of the cheapest RTX 560 laptops you can buy. And keep in mind, it performs about on par with last year's RTX 4070 laptops, which were almost double this price. And if you want, there are even cheaper models available. Slower processor LOQs are definitely an option, but I wouldn't buy an RTX 5050 laptop since those are a bit poopy. Either way, this thing is definitely affordable and it will get even cheaper down the road. So, stay on the lookout during the holidays.
Which brings us to our conclusion. Is the Lenovo LoQ15 worth it? I would say yes. It definitely gets my recommendation. The display is a bit mediocre, but it still does the job fine enough. And its CPU is also a bit 2022 in terms of performance. But other than those two things, the LOQ does almost everything right. It does very well even in the newest of games. It has surprisingly good speakers. It has one of the best laptop keyboards. And best of all, it doesn't break the bank. And if 1,200 bucks is still too much for you, it should be getting even cheaper down the road. So, I think the LOQ is definitely a good gaming laptop.
But I do think the Asus Tough A16 is a better deal at the same price. It does basically everything the LOQ does, but in a thinner body, with a faster CPU, and with a better display. So, if those two are the same price, I would go for the Tough A6. But I understand that pricing varies heavily depending on the region. So this does not apply to everyone. And on its own, the LOQ is simply a great gaming laptop.
But now I want to know how much better can a laptop be if you spend double the money? Does double the price mean double the performance, looks, and everything else? Well, let's find out in the next video. Stay tuned.
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