Lenovo IdeaPad Pro 5-2025 16" Review

The Lenovo IdeaPad Pro 5-2025 is a bit of a puzzle. It's got this gorgeous 16-inch OLED screen that's smooth at 120Hz, which is fantastic for watching movies or scrolling through photos. But then you look under the hood and find a single-core AMD 350 CPU running at just 2.0GHz. That's a head-scratcher in 2025. This laptop feels built for someone who cares deeply about display quality for media consumption, but doesn't need much processing muscle for heavy tasks. It's a niche machine, and whether it's right for you depends entirely on what you prioritize. If you're all about that screen and basic tasks, keep reading. If you need to do anything demanding, you might want to look elsewhere right now.

Let's talk numbers. The CPU lands in the 3rd percentile. That's not a typo. A single-core, 2.0GHz processor in a modern laptop is going to struggle. Opening multiple browser tabs, running office apps, and even basic photo editing will feel sluggish compared to almost anything else on the market. The GPU, sitting in the 54th percentile, is the more capable part of the equation. With 4GB of VRAM, it can handle video playback and some light graphical work on that beautiful OLED panel, but the gaming score of 16.5/100 tells you everything you need to know about its limits for anything 3D. This isn't a machine for rendering or gaming.

At $1359, the value proposition is tough. You're paying a premium for that excellent OLED screen and a large SSD, but you're saddled with a processor that belongs in a budget laptop from five years ago. For the same money, you could find laptops with far more balanced specs, including better CPUs, similar screens, and lighter designs. Lenovo is asking you to pay for the display and storage while accepting severe compromises everywhere else. It's a lopsided deal.

Compared to something like the ASUS Zenbook Duo, you lose the innovative dual-screen functionality and get a much heavier, less portable machine with a worse CPU. The Zenbook would likely be more versatile for the price. Against the Apple MacBook Pro 14" with an M4 chip, there's simply no contest in performance or efficiency, though you'd pay more. Even within Lenovo's own lineup, a Legion Pro 7i gaming laptop at a similar price point would offer a massively better CPU and GPU for creative work, albeit with a different type of screen. The IdeaPad Pro 5's main advantage is its OLED panel, but every competitor forces a trade-off you need to consider.

This is a hard laptop to recommend for general use. If your entire workflow is watching high-quality video, editing photos where color accuracy is paramount, and doing very basic web browsing, the screen might justify the cost and the weight. For literally anyone else—students, business users, casual gamers, content creators—the anemic CPU is a deal-breaker. You'll feel that slowdown every day. My advice? Only consider this if the OLED screen is your absolute top priority and you're willing to accept severe performance limitations in every other area. For everyone else, there are better, more balanced options out there.