Lenovo - LOQ 15.6" Gaming Laptop FHD - Intel Core i5-13420H with 8GB Memory - NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 6GB - 1TB SSD - Storm Grey

Impressive Value for Performance: A Strong Recommendation I recently purchased this laptop in an open-box condition for $385, and I must say, it exceeded my expectations. Despite my initial concerns about potential scratches or missing accessories, the laptop arrived in fair condition without any visible wear or missing parts. Here’s a breakdown of my experience so far: Price & Value At $385, this laptop offers exceptional value, especially considering its specifications. It’s rare to find a product in this price range that delivers on performance without any noticeable downsides related to the open-box condition. Pros: 1. Performance: GPU: The NVIDIA 3050 6GB GPU is impressive, handling even demanding games like Resident Evil 4 remake on high settings with ease. If you’re looking for solid mid-tier gaming performance, this GPU will not disappoint. I also use it for Unreal Engine and machine learning tasks with NVIDIA CUDA, and it performs flawlessly. 2. Size: While I personally prefer using external monitors and typically opt for smaller laptops, the larger display is perfect for users who prioritize screen real estate and higher resolutions. 3. Storage: The 1TB storage capacity is a standout feature, offering more space than most competitors in this price range. It's great for those who need extra room for gaming, development tools, or large projects. 4. Fan Noise & Temperature: Like many gaming laptops, the fans can get loud under heavy load. However, the cooling system does an excellent job of maintaining a balanced temperature, ensuring optimal performance without overheating. 5. CPU: I initially had reservations about the Intel Core i5 13th Gen, but it has proven to be more than capable. It handles most tasks, from gaming to development, with surprising efficiency. Cons: 1. Battery: The battery life is modest, lasting around 3-4 hours with light usage. While this is typical for a gaming laptop, I generally keep it plugged in during use, so it's not a significant drawback for me. 2. RAM: One downside is the default 8GB of RAM, which feels insufficient for modern workloads. However, the good news is that it’s easily upgradable. I upgraded mine to 24GB, and the installation was simple. Final Thoughts: Overall, this laptop was an excellent purchase, offering solid specs for an unbeatable price. The battery life doesn’t bother me as I use it as a secondary device alongside my MacBook, primarily for tasks like software development and exploring NVIDIA CUDA or dual-booting Linux environments. I highly recommend it to developers who primarily work on macOS but want to explore gaming or development tools like CUDA and Linux in a Windows environment. This laptop provides the perfect blend of performance and affordability for such users.

Absolutely love this laptop! The material is very high quality and the keyboard feels good, the design is very nice and not over the top at all like most gaming laptops, and the glowing keys is a nice touch. The laptop runs extremely well right out of the box, it runs all of my games at the highest settings with no problems. I haven’t had to make any adjustments to the laptop and how it runs, but I do plan to upgrade ram to 16gb. However, I do see some lag during combat, and in cpu heavy games like planet zoo and prehistoric kingdom, putting the grass settings high can also cause a little lag. Otherwise it runs great, I haven’t needed to cap my FPS and have not seen too much frame dropping. The display is great, feels nice to use and looks pleasing to the eye, sometimes it’s a little dark for my liking when the game gets dark but otherwise no issue. I love that the screen comes pre-matted, another nice touch. My only issues with this device is that it runs VERY VERY hot. When playing games like path of titans and prehistoric kingdom the middle portion of the laptop gets extremely hot, which can be annoying. I also don’t like how far to the left the trackpad is, I find that sometimes when my hand is placed at a certain angle it will catch on the corner of the trackpad and change the camera angle ingame, which can be annoying. Along with that the battery life is not good at all, but let’s be real when are you going to play any games without a charger, so who cares. Overall though I’m very satisfied, I absolutely love it and would recommend it to a friend/buy it again if I could catch a sale. I got mine for around $700 with tax + fees, which was an amazing deal imo. The ram will need to be upgraded but otherwise the specs are great for the price. Attached are some screenshots I took ingame, I’m so impressed with the graphics! FPS is also great, everything runs so smooth. All in all a very good laptop if you can catch a sale! Consider buying a cooling pad and ram upgrade and you’re all set.

This is a work laptop joined to a domain. I needed win 11 pro...mine happened to show up with pro, not home, not sure about that one. It's heavier than the rest of the laptops around here, but based on the performance, it's not going to be an issue. Has big vents to purge heat which is nice, seems to keep it's temp under control. This will spend 80% of it's time plugged in, so I don't care about battery life, I'm focused on plugged in performance. It came to me with 8gb of ram (I've ordered 32gb to max it out- ddr5 sodimm 5600mhz is what you're looking for) but even with 8gb this thing HAULS! I have a couple year old gaming laptop at home, and a few year old build of a gaming tower, and this thing might smoke both of them. These new intel chips are impressive! Keyboard lighting is great, the bright setting is almost too bright in a dim room. I caught this as an open box excellent condition, while they were on sale for just over $600 which should be a crime, one of the best deals I may have ever gotten. I love the rear facing ports for usb, hdmi, network cable and power too, makes the desk so much cleaner! Yes, Windows 11 has some, "oddities" to it, and McAfee seems to be installed, but there isn't a way to uninstall.. a couple glitchy types of things, but it does come up, quickly, runs the office programs, VPN software, etc. Absolutely worth the money if it's on sale, and is more than likely worth full asking price.