Gaming in 2026 feels like a mad scramble to get what you need and not much else, lest you have to pay over the odds for it. The Lenovo LOQ 15 AMD Gen 10 feels like an entry-level gaming laptop very much of its time. Its modest processor and GPU aren’t going to blow you away, but its hardware and overall design might just be what you need to get gaming at 1080p, without breaking the bank.
Lenovo LOQ 15 – Design and Features
The LOQ 15 isn’t about to win design awards. Just like its predecessor, the Lenovo LOQ 15 has a clean design without the extra frills that more expensive gaming laptops seem to require these days. . It’s functional, with a solid feel to it and the ability to smoothly and easily close the lid one-handed.
The port selection includes a USB-A, USB-C, and a 3.5mm headphone jack, on the right-hand side, and a couple of extra USB-A ports and an HDMI output on the rear. There’s also an Ethernet port if you want to play games where stable Wi-Fi isn’t readily available. There’s no high-speed USB4 or Thunderbolt 4 or 5, but unless you’re planning on transferring RAW image files or UHD video from an external device, that’s not likely to be something you’ll miss. Three USB-A ports are plenty for a keyboard, mouse, and webcam, or other external device, and the USB-C port is great for recharging your phone or connecting external storage devices. Keeping the majority of the connections on the back ensures the cables are tucked out of the way too.
Though the onboard Wi-Fi 6 is hardly cutting-edge, it’s plenty fast for everyday office work and gaming.
At just over 5 pounds, the LOQ 15 isn’t the most portable laptop, but it’s lighter than most gaming laptops and it’s not a chore to carry around – I can’t see it causing much strain being carried around in a backpack either. It’s big enough that I probably wouldn’t want to game on my actual lap, but it’s portable enough that gaming on a train or plain table isn’t outside the realm of possibility.
Lenovo cites RAM and storage upgradeability as a benefit for this laptop, and indeed it is. It’s just a shame RAM is so expensive that actually doing so anytime soon in a budget gaming laptop seems unlikely. The 16GB is fine for most games, but there are some AAA games that demand 32GB for anything beyond low settings, so you may find some experiences limited until you can upgrade.
The model I reviewed comes with a 512GB SSD, which is fine for indie libraries, but while testing a handful of AAA games I often found myself having to uninstall something just to install the next game – though that’s something most people won’t have to deal with. The 1TB model isn’t a big cost upgrade, just adding an extra $100 if you customize the build yourself, so before AI-inspired shortages send that northwards, grab the larger model while you can.
The display is reasonably bright at 300 nits, and its 144 Hz refresh rate is welcome for more casual games and esports – though don’t expect this laptop’s entry-level GPU to be putting out triple digit frame rates in AAA games.
The keyboard is a real contender for one of my favorites in recent memory, with a solid feel and satisfying light click-clack as you type away. There’s 1.5mm of travel, and none of the keys feel crammed together. One of the advantages of a laptop this size is you can let your fingers roam a little more, and Lenovo takes full advantage of this with its keyboard design. There’s only white backlighting, but as long as I can see the keys in the dark, I’m not too concerned with what color they are.
Audio is what you would expect from a more affordable gaming laptop with a mere pair of 2W speakers. There’s basically no bass to speak of and at higher volumes there’s a distinct drop in clarity. The support for Dolby Atmos is a welcome addition if you’re movie watching, but you are 100% better off listening through headphones as you’ll find the experience much improved.
The Lenovo Legion Space software the laptop ships with is somewhat useful, in that it can help you manage power profiles for the laptop’s various components, and it gives you an insight into their utilization, temperature, etc. It’s a handy tool but one that likes to radiate from the taskbar with notifications aplenty every time you boot it up. I don’t need it, I doubt most users do, but it’s there.
What I really wish wasn’t, was the McAffee antivirus trial which had almost expired by the time I got the laptop up and running. I feel like I’ve been haunted by trials of this antivirus for 30 years and they’re still coming. Windows Defender is plenty for most – and anyone who wants more, will want to choose their own. “Free trials,” like this, are more annoying than anything else.
Lenovo Loq 15 – Performance
As much as looks are important for a gaming laptop, performance is still king. That’s not to say that I went into this expecting the Lenovo Loq 15 to be the kind of gaming laptop that dominates the competition; It’s an entry level gaming laptop, after all. But for an affordable device with entry-level components, it was perfectly capable of playing everything I threw at it.
All tests were conducted at 1080p resolution, with maximum settings, and where available, with DLSS set to quality.
In synthetic tests the Lenovo LOQ 15 put out perfectly serviceable numbers. It’s around 30% slower than the Alienware Aurora 16X we reviewed recently, but costs 40% less, and its real-world gaming results are even more impressive.
In Call of Duty Black Ops 7, the Lenovo laptop managed 78 frames per second which looks buttery smooth on the 144Hz high refresh rate display. Cyberpunk 2077 was naturally more demanding, but we still managed to get 49 fps with ray tracing at Ultra settings. We were even able to achieve a playable 32 fps when using RT overdrive, which for an entry-level mobile GPU like the RTX 5050 feels like an impressive achievement.
Unfortunately we couldn’t get the benchmark to finish with Frame Generation enabled – it just crashed towards the end of the benchmark every time I tried running it. Hopefully, it’s just a weird anomaly on our test system, it remains an option for improving performance even further despite the sky-high detail settings.
Metro Exodus: Enhanced continues to be a demanding game for even modern GPUs and the Lenovo LOQ 15 was only able to manage 37 fps there. Very playable, but not the smoothest of experiences when the action picks up. Total War: Warhammer III was much more playable, though, with 84 fps on average for a very smooth gaming experience, despite using Ultra settings.
Assassin’s Creed Shadows is one of the newest games in our benchmark list and it shows: The game looks utterly gorgeous. Even on an RTX 5050 we were able to manage 38 fps without frame generation, and 66 fps average with it enabled. I did encounter a strange blocky artifact in the benchmark for this game during testing, but it wasn’t present in the main game itself, so I’m taking that as a weird quirk of the benchmark than any real issue – one worth mentioning just in case, though.
All of that gaming power does come at the slight cost to noise levels. When plugged in and on high performance mode, this laptop does get rather loud and I wouldn’t want to game on it without headphones. But that’s hardly a huge ask. And if you don’t mind taking a slight hit to performance and playing in more balanced power modes, the noise levels are no way near as distinct.
General performance in Procyon was decent – comparable to some other AMD laptops we’ve reviewed recently like the Razer Blade 16, despite its newer and higher-end CPU. However it’s very clear Intel holds an advantage in these kinds of benchmarks, so consider that carefully if you’re primarily interested in this laptop for general office work.
Battery life, unfortunately, wasn’t amazing. It’s not terrible, lasting just over five hours in our Procyon battery test. But that’s more comparable to high-end gaming PCs with more powerful processors and big, hefty GPUs. The Lenovo LOQ 15 has a small battery, and that helps keep weight and size down, but it’s not the kind of machine you’ll use on the go for a full day of work or play.
I found the Lenovo LOQ 15 AMD a pleasure to use day-to-day. It’s light enough, and I particularly appreciated that despite being an entry-level laptop when it comes to gaming, it’s far from entry-level in style and design. The lid opens and closes easily with one hand, the design is sleek whilst still giving little nods to its gaming chops, like the honeycomb air intake grills on the underside.
The somewhat limited battery life wasn’t an annoyance day to day, but getting a little battery anxiety around a full work day on a brand new laptop isn’t ideal. This is one laptop you’ll want to keep the charging brick handy if you’re planning a long session.
feedzy_import_tag
About the Author
