My current model is a legion 5 Gaming laptop that I bought in 2021.

Most games (for example Hogwarts legacy, or sons of the forest, Days gone, kingdom come, crusader kings 3, and a plethora of other modern AAA titles struggle to run on it unless I'm on the lowest settings, I run everything through a symlink and have 4 TB on my SSD) specs below...

AMD Ryzen 7 4800H with Radeon Graphics 2.90 GHz
Installed RAM 16.0 GB (15.9 GB usable)
Storage 477 GB SSD SPCC Solid State Disk
Graphics Card NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti (6 GB)
System Type 64-bit operating system, x64-based processor

Basically I'd like to continue with the legion laptop brand and hopefully not break the bank... with say a 3,000 dollar price point or more.... since I spent about 1200 for this one. But I have very little knowledge on the best place to look, or really what to look out for when it comes to the best specs... my hope is finding something with thermals that don't make my PC feel like a furnace. With the ability to run larger music projects without throttling the CPU... and able to enjoy movies/tv shows and video games with fantastic picture/quality, and performance. Many say to build your own PC, which I may in the future, but for now due to my traveling needs, I prefer a gaming laptop. Any recommendations would be appreciated.

 

Legion Pro 7i Gen 10 (16" Intel) 3.099,01 € [GERMAN]
https://www.lenovo.com/de/de/p/lapt...egion-pro-7i-gen-10-16-inch-intel/len101g0039
https://www.lenovo.com/de/de/configurator/cto/index.html?bundleId=83F5CTO1WWDE4

Legion Pro 7i Gen 10 (16″ Intel) Gaming Laptop - Starting at $2,764.49 [USA]
https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/p/lapt...egion-pro-7i-gen-10-16-inch-intel/len101g0039
https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/configurator/cto/index.html?bundleId=83F5CTO1WWUS1

Fastest gaming laptop in the test: Lenovo Legion Pro 7i 16 Gen 10
With the Legion Pro 7i 16 Gen 10, Lenovo once again manages to deliver extreme performance in a high-quality chassis at an affordable price.
https://www-pcwelt-de.translate.goo...=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=de&_x_tr_pto=wapp#
https://www.pcwelt.de/article/2787823/lenovo-legion-pro-7i-16-gen-10-test.html#

 

Last edited: Jun 29, 2025 at 6:31 PM

I know you said you want to stick with the Lenovo Legion series, but I just want to throw out the Asus Z13 w/ Ryzen AI Max as something to look for in terms of specs. You may not even need a dGPU in a laptop anymore when AMD APUs have performance like this for gaming.

I don't like the hybrid tablet form factor of this particular unit, but if they build a true laptop with the same chip, and it should come in under $3000 USD pretty easily, this might be something you should look for.

(Also I'll do some research about specific Lenovo units)

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/asus-r...ram-1tb-ssd-off-black/6619196.p?intl=nosplash

 

there's (new) Lenovo Legion Pro 7 with Core 9 275HX, 16" 2560x1600 240Hz OLED screen, 64GB ram, RTX 5090 24GB, 2TB SSD
no idea about price in $$ but I'm afraid it's around 5000-6000 $$


EDIT - basically pick whatever laptop with best nVidia graphics you can afford, 5090 has 24GB vram, 5080 has 16GB vram, anything worse is probably waste of money

 

Get a Mac M4 for production and a PS5 for gayming. Grow up

 

Windows laptops are trash for music production.

- Bad cooling
- Fans noise
- Latency

M4 Pro for music production
Desktop PC for gaming

You can't do both on a laptop
You can do both on a Desktop PC

You won't catch me making music on windows, audio drivers are just bad
Nothing can touch a retina screen

Source : I have both.

 

I’ve always produced music using a Windows laptop. I buy a new Acer Predator every two years and have never had any issues. I also own an M4 MacBook Pro, which I use alongside a 12.9” iPad Pro, but I’ve never really fallen in love with the Apple ecosystem.


I use both setups with VSTs and external instruments, along with an Apollo external audio interface and a mixer connected to my synths and pedals. So far, everything works great.


As for gaming, I’ve never used a laptop—I rely exclusively on my main gaming PC. It’s the same case I’ve used for the past 15 years, just with continuous upgrades. I went through the GPU price crisis like everyone else, starting with a Voodoo 3dfx back in the day, and now I’m running an RTX 5090. To be honest, in the last seven years I haven’t noticed the same kind of leap in performance that I used to see when I was a kid. But maybe that’s just part of growing up.

 

Last edited: Jun 29, 2025 at 7:56 PM

I agree with the previous comments about Windows laptops overheating, In my experience I don't think they can be used for music production due to this. specifically with Intel CPU's, as I've also had an intel based system and it has always got very hot, and that's only using it with Ableton and a few plug-ins. From what I've read the new Macs don't have the same crappy cooling systems. I'd be open to trying one of the new macbook air for a music production laptop.
Also, I'd be open to looking into the new Windows ARM based machines. I know its early days, but the new ARM based Win laptops look promising, but it could take a while for compatibility for programs to catch up and be optimised. Best of luck with it.

 

Last edited: Jun 29, 2025 at 9:40 PM

You should buy a laptop only if you actually need a laptop. They are always more expensive and/or less performance than the desktop option you consider in place of one. The closer in performance you get between the two options; the more expensive a laptop will get, quickly.

The fact you don't know which platform laptop you actually need says you probably don't need one at all.