This is a newer generation of the Lenovo LOQ 15APH8 we reviewed last November, a laptop that boasted some pretty decent gaming chops but was spoilt by only having 8 GB of RAM in a $1,000 laptop, amongst other things. But wait, what's this? A newer Ryzen processor, an RTX 4050 with a higher power limit, and 16 GB of DDR5-5600—all for less than $850? That's an absolute steal, no matter how you look at it.
Let's start with the AMD chip, the Ryzen 5 8645HS. It's an all-in-one APU, sporting six Zen 4 cores, 12 threads, and a boost clock of 5 GHz. Stuffed inside the die is 16 MB of L3 cache and a Radeon 760M integrated GPU with 512 RDNA 3 shaders.
The CPU side of things is fine for gaming, though less so for heavy content creation, and don't worry about the iGPU, as you'll be using the discrete RTX 4050 chip anyway. With a 105 W TGP limit, it'll run better than the 95 W version we tested in the 15APH8 model, and that gave lower-powered RTX 4060 chips a good run for the money—in fact, in most tests, it was faster.
Sure, you won't be able to engage ray tracing in every game or use maximum quality settings, but for normal 1080p gaming, this little RTX 4050 is an absolute trooper. Throw in some DLSS 3.5 AI-powered upscaling and frame generation, and you'll have all the performance you could possibly want in a laptop this cheap.
It wasn't that long ago when sub-$900 laptops only came with 8 GB of slow RAM, but here you're getting 16 GB worth of speedy DDR5-5600. However, there's still only one DIMM installed and Ryzen chips really need a dual-channel kit to properly shine. Fortunately, dual 8 GB kits are very cheap right now, so you'll be able to easily swap the single DIMM for two matched sticks.
Something else you'll probably want to do, sooner rather than later, is add in another SSD. That 512 GB drive will be okay for the operating system but it'll fill up in no time with games. The Lenovo LOQ 15APH9 has two M.2 2280 slots, though the one it comes with is 2242 in size. Add a fast 2 TB gaming SSD and you'll have oodles of storage.
The main area where you'll notice Lenovo's cuts to keep the price down is the screen. On paper, 15.6 inches of 1080p IPS running at 144 Hz sounds perfectly fine but if it's anything like the 15APH8 we tested, it'll be lifeless and dull. There's an HDMI 2.1 port at the rear of the laptop, so if the cheap panel gets frustrating, at least you can attach a decent gaming monitor.
At its full price, I wouldn't really recommend the Lenovo LOQ 15APH9, but at a cent shy of $850, it's a veritable bargain. The CPU and GPU combination are perfect for 1080p gaming, which is exactly what you'd want from a budget gaming laptop.
