1. My Introduction And Initial Purchase Of My Legion

My introduction to the Legion series of laptops came around in 2023, for two main reasons: B&H Photo was running a sale and I needed a powerful computer that wasn't a desktop. I don't like desktop towers—too clunky, too much room, and I hate being chained to a desk.

I chose the Legion Pro 7i Gen 8 with an i9-13900HX, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Laptop GPU (really a 4070 based on the AD104 die), 1 TB SSD, and 32 GB RAM. After plenty of debate, I clicked "buy" on Wednesday, September 20th, 2023 at 06:59 AM. It arrived Friday, September 22nd at 18:07.

This is the part where I have to explain how the initial impression was, right?

2. First Impressions, And What I Immediately Loved

First experience? Great! Windows 11 isn't my favorite, but I didn't care—it was my first proper workstation laptop.

  • It was fast—very fast.
  • Conservative RGB; it doesn't scream "gaming laptop."
  • While not 100 % perfect, it suited my needs.

Initial setup: signed into Windows, installed Forza Horizon 5, ran a test—CPU averaged 81 °C and frame rates hovered 90-120 FPS. After years of awful laptops, it felt like breathing fresh air.

Lenovo, please stop pre-installing McAfee. Nobody wants that garbage. Also, a better sound chip than the Realtek ALC3306 would be nice on a $2 k machine.

2.1 What I Didn't Love, And Its Major Problems

Nothing's perfect. Minor early issues:

  • Pre-installed McAfee.
  • Cheap sound card.
  • Small cracks within a month.

Then the big ones arrived:

  • After nine months, actual keyboard trace failure.
  • Mysterious mark on the display.
  • Lenovo support is awful unless you escalate to a supervisor.

3. Support and Technician Experience

This is where things got messy. Lenovo support—no sugar-coating—is fucking awful. Highlights:

  1. Keyboard replacement
  2. Technician trapped Wi-Fi antennas under the board → zero signal
  3. Liquid-metal carelessness

On-site repair was scheduled via a third-party (Hemmersbach) for November 6th. They never showed. Rescheduled for the 13th; I had to leave the laptop with my partner. Returned home to find Wi-Fi still broken.

My Wi-Fi signal strength is very weak… Damn you, Lenovo.

Eventually they fixed it, but fast-forward to January 13th…

THE LAPTOP IS FUCKING LEAKING LIQUID METAL!!! AHHHH WHAT DO I DO?!

4. Aftermath And Resolve

Deep breath. I contacted Lenovo, got escalated to a supervisor, and was promised an upgrade: a Gen 9 Legion with i9-14900HX + RTX 4090 plus two free SSDs. I shipped the unit back.

Waiting sucked—I was stuck on my old Dell Inspiron 17R 5720—but on January 22nd the replacement arrived… after the UPS driver literally threw it into the street of Los Angeles.

You motherfucker! why did you throw a $4 000 laptop into the street, you absolute cunt! >:(

Luckily the laptop survived unscathed. Setup was smooth, extra 4 GB of VRAM is sweet, and I'm back to normal. Lenovo can get better, but enshittification feels inevitable. At least I have a working machine again.