Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5 16IRU9 review

A 2024 ultrabook hiding a real RTX card

The IdeaPad Slim 5 16IRU9 (2024) is the most surprising machine in its corner of the shelf: a slim 16-inch with a Core Ultra 5 125H, 64GB of RAM, and a genuine GeForce RTX 3050 Mobile with 6GB of video memory, at $674. Against an ultrabook class whose graphics median is a modest 3.84, its measured GPU score of 66 sits 1,618 percent above the median in the top quartile; performance reads 80 out of a 41.7 median, and the memory ceiling is double the class norm. The honest trade-off is mobility: 46 against a class median of 64, the price of pushing a real GPU into a thin shell.

What the RTX card actually buys

The capability flags confirm this is not a paper GPU: Overwatch, Grand Theft Auto V, and Rainbow Six Siege all clear their recommended bars, Adobe Premiere Pro and Photoshop clear their minimums for video and photo work, and Visual Studio Code clears its recommended level for development. That combination — rec-bar gaming plus creative-tool minimums plus 64GB of RAM — is rare at any ultrabook price, and at $674 it reads fairly priced for the class. The machine is a genuine hybrid: an all-day thin laptop that can also render, cut video, and game at 1080p.

Price and value trajectory

From a $1,400 launch price the Slim 5 has shed value at 11.29 percent per year to land at $674, with a projected $530 (a further 21.3 percent) two years out. Modern-hardware depreciation is faster than the vintage end of the catalog — buyers get more capability per year of age, but the slide continues.

Against its price neighbors

The nearest analogs run cheaper: the IdeaPad Slim 3 16ABR8 at $595 and the HP Envy 13 at $604. Both give up the discrete GPU and the 64GB ceiling to get there. In this price band the Slim 5 16IRU9 is the configuration to beat for anyone whose workload mixes portability with GPU-accelerated work — the neighbors are fine thin-and-lights, but neither carries an RTX card.

Bottom line

For a buyer who wants one machine for everything — office, light 1080p gaming, photo and video editing, development — this is the strongest ultrabook-shaped argument in its price band. Accept the mid-band mobility score as the cost of the GPU, and note the still-active depreciation before paying the $674; everything else about the data says this is the capable end of the shelf.