Lenovo LOQ 15.6" 83DX00B2US Review

The Lenovo LOQ is a solid mid-range gaming laptop that gets the fundamentals right. Its AMD 8845HS CPU and RTX 4050 GPU land in the 76th and 73rd percentiles for performance, which means it's punching above its weight class for the price. You're getting 16GB of DDR5 RAM and a 512GB SSD, which is a decent starting point for gaming and some creative work.

But this isn't a premium machine, and the specs sheet tells that story. The 1080p screen sits in a lowly 16th percentile, and connectivity is limited to WiFi 5. At 2.27kg, it's not exactly a featherweight either. It scores a 50.7 overall, which is a fair rating for a budget-friendly gaming rig that focuses its budget on the core components that matter for frames per second.

Performance is where the LOQ makes its case. That AMD 8845HS is a strong 8-core chip, and being in the 76th percentile for CPU power means it handles games and multitasking without breaking a sweat. The star, for gaming at least, is the RTX 4050. A 73rd percentile GPU score is genuinely good for a laptop in this tier. It'll push high frame rates in esports titles at 1080p and handle modern AAA games with DLSS enabled on medium-to-high settings.

Just don't expect miracles from the rest of the system. The 16GB of RAM is perfectly fine, landing right at the 50th percentile mark. The 512GB SSD, however, is in the 34th percentile. You'll be managing your game library carefully, as a few big titles will fill it up fast. The thermal design seems reliable, scoring in the 75th percentile, so it should hold its performance during long sessions.

At around $1100, the LOQ's value proposition is clear: it's a budget-focused gaming laptop. You're paying for the RTX 4050 and the 8845HS CPU, and you're getting good performance for that money. The trade-off is everything else. The screen, storage, and port selection are where Lenovo saved costs to hit this price. If your only metric is frames-per-dollar at 1080p, it's a compelling option. But if you need a good screen for content creation or lots of storage, you'll be spending more money very quickly.

Stacked up against its peers, the LOQ is a focused machine. Compared to a similarly priced MSI Vector with maybe an RTX 4060, you might get slightly better GPU performance from the MSI, but you'd likely compromise elsewhere, maybe on build quality or thermals. The LOQ's biggest weakness is its screen when you look at something like an ASUS Zenbook, which would demolish it in display quality and portability for creative work, but wouldn't come close in gaming. Against a Lenovo Legion Pro 7i, you're looking at a completely different league of performance, cooling, and build quality, but for more than twice the price. The LOQ carves out its niche by being the affordable, no-frills gaming option.

The Lenovo LOQ is a straightforward recommendation for a specific buyer. If you want the best 1080p gaming performance you can get for about $1100 and you don't care about having a great screen, lots of ports, or tons of storage, this is a smart buy. The data backs it up: strong CPU and GPU percentiles for the price, with reliable thermals. But if any of those compromises—the mediocre screen, the small SSD, the lack of ports—is a dealbreaker for you, you need to look at spending more on a Legion or a different brand entirely. For pure, budget gaming frames, it gets the job done.