LOQ Essential 2025 Debacle

Links

To be added later if they ever release in India. For now only Sri-lanka seems to be the one where it is going to be launched[1].

Videos

Preview

This is a pathetic attempt at using the name of a good series and trying to sell something shit instead. It's pathetic. And the only reason I am doing this is because I know this is going to confuse the heck out of people if it ever launches.

The immediate thing that puts me off is the wattage on the GPU: 

Graphics
NVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ 4050 - Laptop GPU 6GB GDDR6 (65W)
NVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ 3050 - Laptop GPU 6GB GDDR6 (65W)
NVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ 2050 - Laptop GPU 4GB GDDR6 (65W)

Paired with the fact that it's coming with 12450HX and 12650HX makes no sense. Why bother with HX CPUs when you are giving an under-powered GPUs?

And then to top it all of, it has a 135W adapter. So basically the system will take about 50W, GPU 65W, the CPU might only be left  with 20W(Later I found the CPU runs at 30W mostly) and for which it might even struggle. The only way to make sure there is no battery percentage drop even while plugged in, the CPU must be under-powered to account for the same.

So we are left with an underpowered CPU and under-powered GPU in a light weight one-fan machine with a small adapter.

This reminds me of all the laptops I DON'T RECOMMEND if you're buying a gaming laptop. These are disguised gaming laptops like:

1. Don't buy Acer Nitro V 13420H 4050 ANV15-51 | Aspire ki boo aa rahi hain isse [1min summary]
2. DON'T BUY ASPIRE 5/7 thinking it's a gaming laptop | Aspire Owner for 4 years
3. MSI GF63 and other thin laptops

I have never put these laptops in my Gaming Laptop Sheet and I didn't put them in the non-gaming section either. These laptops are somewhere in between and somewhere in between usually means shit and requires extensive and exhaustive testing because these are the laptops pulling way above what they are designed to do and should in theory die quicker than any of the other category. Well, the main thing that will be a deciding matter will be at what price they are released and if they come with three years ADP or not because that way at least one can argue they lasted for three years.

The question as to if I will be forced to look into this laptop depends on if there are competitors out there. Just like how we were forced to look into LOQ 2023 Intel only because they made the LOQ 2023 AMD one obsolete. And then we  were forced to look into LOQ 2024 only because the LOQ 2023 was made completely obsolete. Lenovo is like a crazy-ex who keeps killing every new girl I fell in love with so I will have no choice but to love her.

Here are some other things that I don't like as well.

1. The biggest problem is giving it the LOQ name. That's my major concern. It should have been called Ideapad Pro or something and not LOQ at all. That is going to confuse people so much because they will think it's the proper LOQ from last two years when it's not.
2. 4050 only goes to the same 65W whereas the best performance given is around 100W. That's a difference of 6000 vs 8000. A 25% decrease in performance which makes the raw performance of this 4050 more close to 3050 than a 4050. And you should know DLSS and upscaling things: 1) Looks absolutely terrible 2) Requires some decent FPS out of the box to work on top anyways.
3. Single Fan and single channel RAM slot. & Both SSDs are 2242 smaller size which are very hard to come by:
   
4.  Terrible Fan Design that blows air directly on the screen. It was the default back a few years with the last Ideapad gaming which my sister is still using. But this might be alright since due to such low powered components the laptop doesn't heat that much.
   
5. Here are other things mostly from Jarod's Review of the same.
   1. Cheaper build quality than proper LOQs.
   2. A lot of flex to the keyboard and the whole chasis altogether.
   3. Keyboard might not be backlit in some regions.
   4. Keyboard isn't good compared to older LOQs.
   5. Slowest Wi-Fi and SD Card speeds.
   6. Battery life is alright ~5 hours on youtube but that is to be expected in such low powered components.
   7. GPU on quiet mode was limited to just 14W.
   8. 3050 only goes upto 57W where a proper 3050 can go upto 90W. The difference is just 5000 vs 5600 so might be alright with 3050.
   9. CPU maxes out at 55W where the long term power is just 30W.
      1. And hence this CPU is actually close to i5 1340P than an actual 12450HX. It's even lower than a 5800H.
   10. Screen is still better than other budget gaming laptops.
   11. Webcam is pathetic.

References

1. LOQ 15IAX9E Psref Sheet
2. Hardware Manual
3. Jarod's Review