Lenovo LOQ 15.6" 15IAX9E Luna Grey 2025

Lenovo stuffed 32GB RAM and a 144Hz screen into a budget gaming laptop, and for a while it was the RAM-per-dollar king. Now it's out of stock everywhere and newer machines have lapped it. Don't chase this ghost.

The RTX 3050 is a solid midpack performer according to our database, sitting comfortably in the 73rd percentile among gaming laptops. Paired with 32GB of RAM, which is in the top 16% of configs we've tested, the LOQ handles DaVinci Resolve and 50 Chrome tabs better than anything near its price. What surprised us is how much that bulky frame helps cooling. During a two-hour Apex Legends session, the keyboard stayed cool and the fans, while loud, never hit that annoying whine cheaper laptops produce. The screen is just okay, its 300 nits and 100% sRGB coverage rank around the middle of the pack, but the 144Hz refresh makes every flick in Valorant feel crisp.

Next to an MSI Prestige or Samsung Galaxy Book5 Pro, the LOQ looks like a dinosaur in portability, those ultrabooks weigh half as much and last all day on battery. But try running Elden Ring on them and you'll get a slideshow. The real fight used to be with the ASUS ROG Flow GZ302, but that's old news now. The current top 5 is stacked with machines that make the LOQ look dated: the Apple MacBook Pro M4 Max is in a different universe for content creation, the ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 GA403WW delivers modern GPU performance in a portable shell, the Lenovo Legion Pro 7i Gen 10 is the proper desktop replacement this LOQ wishes it was, and the HP OMEN Transcend 14 manages to be both thinner and faster. The LOQ's only remaining edge was price, and with it out of stock, that edge is gone.

The value story just fell apart. This config used to pop up around $959, which made the 32GB RAM and 1TB SSD a ridiculous deal. Now it's out of stock everywhere, so the price is whatever a scalper on eBay decides to charge, and that's not a game worth playing. With the ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 and HP OMEN Transcend 14 sitting in the top 5 with newer GPUs and actual portability, paying anything close to original retail for a discontinued RTX 3050 machine is a mistake. If you find one used for well under $800, maybe. Otherwise, put your money toward something that still exists.

The Lenovo LOQ 15IAX9E is a strange beast. It stuffs 32GB of DDR5 RAM and a 144Hz 1080p screen into a budget gaming laptop, which feels like finding a V8 engine in a compact sedan. The catch? The chassis is a brick and the RTX 3050 (yes, the 6GB model, not the gimped 4GB version some listings mention) is a last-gen card that'll handle esports and older AAA titles fine, but don't expect to crank Cyberpunk 2077 past medium settings. The bigger catch now? You can't actually buy it anywhere. The LOQ has vanished from shelves, and with newer machines like the ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 and HP OMEN Transcend 14 crowding the budget gaming space, this Lenovo is starting to feel like last year's clearance item that never got marked down.

Everyone, unless you find it used for a steep discount. It's out of stock at every vendor, so you'd be buying secondhand anyway. The chassis is nearly 8 pounds, the power brick alone could double as a doorstop, and the battery life is tragic. With the ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 and HP OMEN Transcend 14 in the current top 5, you can get a modern GPU in a lighter, faster, actually available package. Even a MacBook Air M4 will treat your shoulders better for non-gaming work.

Don't buy this unless you stumble on a used unit for a song. The RTX 3050 was already the obvious bottleneck, and now that the LOQ 15IAX9E has disappeared from retailers, you're better off with a current-gen machine like the ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 or HP OMEN Transcend 14. The 32GB of RAM was the party trick, but plenty of newer laptops offer that without the cinder block chassis and wheezing GPU. This one had its moment at $959, and that moment has passed.