Lenovo Legion 5 Pro Review: You can’t argue with low cost | Engadget

There’s one thing a bit counter-revolutionary about high-end gaming machines made by suit-and-tie PC companies. The thought of Lenovo, makers of the ThinkPad, making a gaming machine worthy of remark feels a bit bizarre, and but the Legion 5 Pro is simply that. The Walmart-exclusive mannequin that I’m testing prices $1,530, pairing AMD’s Ryzen 7 5800H with NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 3070 graphics. Powerful and reasonably priced? That’s nearly revolutionary.

Rounding out that spec record is 16GB RAM and a 512GB SSD and, mercifully, each parts are user-upgradeable. That piddly drive will barely maintain greater than a pair Calls price of Duty earlier than you’re reaching for an exterior HDD. But these are the kind of sensible compromises that Lenovo have opted for to maintain the worth down, letting you add extra RAM and storage once you’re feeling extra flush.

And then there’s the display, a 16-inch, 165Hz QHD, X-Rite Pantone-validated IPS show with the brand new, taller, 16:10 side ratio. At 500 nits, the panel can maintain its personal in vibrant gentle in comparison with a lot of its rivals, and the matte display reduces the chance of glare. Watching 4K video on this factor is a really nice expertise and I’ve loved working from this machine throughout the week I’ve been utilizing it. It definitely makes you need to spend hours at a time looking at gigapixel pictures of, say, Paris, which I undoubtedly didn’t spend a very long time doing this week (cough).

Lenovo wasn’t trying to pull up any timber with this design, which is little greater than a refinement of what went earlier than. It’s not as skinny or gentle as its rivals, and appears higher in a darkish room lit solely by the glow of an RGB keyboard and the odd Nanoleaf panel. But in case you’re shopping for it as a desktop alternative that’ll spend 90 % of its time plonked on the identical desk, it’s advantageous. Oh, and the aluminum chassis is rock stable, providing you with confidence on these events once you do have to take it someplace. That matte gray paint job, whereas very business-forward, hides a mess of palm sweat-based sins however will appeal to each speck of mud in a 3 mile zone.

The Legion 5 Pro’s chunky chassis additionally signifies that you’ll discover a superb provide of I/O working round its deck. You get 4 USB-A (3.2 Gen 1) ports, two USB-C (3.2 Gen 2), HDMI, Ethernet and a 3.5mm headphone / microphone jack, in addition to the proprietary energy jack. On the proper hand aspect, you’ll additionally discover a {hardware} digital camera mute button, which replaces the devoted {hardware} shutter from earlier variations.

Even after a number of days of use, utilizing Lenovo’s TrueStrike keyboard stays a pleasing however bizarre expertise. The keys have a depth of 1.5mm, however Lenovo makes use of “soft landing” switches to make every actuation really feel a bit deeper than that. Every time you hit a key, you’re anticipating the laborious jerk of a mechanical keyboard, solely to discover a pillowy finish and bounce again up. It’s like filling your footwear with water on a sizzling day after which moving into them, it’s very helpful, however your mind is telling you that one thing’s amiss right here.

One factor worthy of remark is that Lenovo took benefit of the Legion 5’s greater deck dimension to incorporate a numerical keypad. The firm says that the numpad itself is full dimension, however to my eyes and fingers, it feels a bit squashed in comparison with an everyday exterior PC keyboard. The RGB backlighting is probably appropriately muted however may be set to 4 totally different lighting zones when required. The trackpad, in the meantime, is completely useful, however the greater dimension is welcome given how tight earlier fashions have been.

I’ve much less to say concerning the machine’s 720p digital camera, which is the very definition of serviceable, or helpful in a pinch. Light blooms, every part’s uncomfortably fuzzy and the general impact is that of most ‘60s TV shows when they’d get the Vaseline-smeared lens for close-ups. If you’re trying to make a residing from streaming, otherwise you’re knowledgeable Zoom-call-haver, purchase an exterior machine, please. Poor webcam apart, Lenovo will get props for providing a devoted digital camera disconnect button since there wasn’t room within the space-starved lid for its customary shutter.

Benchmarks don’t inform the entire story, however the Legion 5 Pro is available in shut sufficient to machines priced a pair hundred bucks extra. When taking part in demanding AAA video games like Cyberpunk and Shadow of the Tomb Raider, I obtained between 50-60fps with the settings appropriately tweaked. Naturally, you’ll lose a bit little bit of that once you allow ray tracing, however it could deal with laborious work comparatively properly. The Legion 5 Pro has three pre-set efficiency modes which may be set contained in the Vantage utility, or cycled by means of once you hit Fn+Q. One neat addition is that the facility button will change shade relying on which mode you’re in: Auto presents a white glow, Quiet a cool blue, and Performance an offended purple. 

Using a machine like this for basic productiveness work is a bit like taking an F-150 to purchase a field of cereal, but it surely’s greater than potential. After all, if all you’re doing is crunching paperwork, writing time period papers, poking at spreadsheets and utilizing Slack, then this has greater than sufficient. When transcoding a 28.2GB UHD H.265 video file to 1080p, Handbrake was capable of crunch by means of it at over 40 fps, making it sturdy sufficient for even midway skilled video editors.

The Legion 5 Pro makes use of a dual-fan system which pushes sizzling air out of its chassis by means of a quartet of exhausts. Two vents on the again are complemented by one on all sides, and in case you’re not blessed with large quantities of room, beware. Leave your hand, mouse, gamepad or drink subsequent to a kind of vents for too lengthy and they’re going to turn into uncomfortably heat. Playing Cyberpunk and Shadow of the Tomb Raider was kicking out sufficient warmth that I questioned if I might make s’mores.

This drawback is exacerbated with the aluminum underside of the chassis which will get too sizzling to the touch. After a pair hours gaming, I picked up the machine to maneuver it some other place and rattling. I believed I’d picked up a baking sheet straight out of the oven and practically dropped the factor by means of muscle reminiscence. It’s not sizzling sufficient to burn you, but it surely’s not one thing you wanna contact in case you worth not being in ache.

It’s not possible to sugarcoat the sheer noise that this machine makes when the followers spin up, both. This factor is noisy, noisy sufficient that you just’ll have to dial your audio system as much as drown it out or seize a pair of headphones to claw again a few of that immersion. This is an occupational hazard of gaming laptops, but it surely’s price noting that this factor is loud.  

Another tick within the “not ideal” column is battery life, and regardless of packing an 80WHr battery, it won’t final for lengthy when divorced from an outlet. Our customary battery rundown take a look at loops a video till the pc dies, with the brightness set to 65 % and all battery-saving tech disabled. It managed to final for 4 hours and 43 minutes whereas utilizing the built-in Radeon graphics, which is advantageous within the gritted-teeth sense of the phrase. Certainly, when you can deal with a couple of emails or some gentle shopping whereas sat in your sofa, this isn’t a tool you possibly can take away from a socket for a full working day with out fuss.

One of the explanations that the Legion 5 Pro is compelling regardless of a few of its flaws is its worth, which is one thing. Lenovo has managed to undercut a number of of its rivals right here, and there’s no surprise it’s solely intermittently on sale proper now. If you need a machine from Alienware with related specs (the romantically-named M15 Ryzen Edition R5 Gaming Laptop) it’ll value you $1,899.99. For that, you’ll get a Ryzen R7 5800H (identical as right here), RTX 3070 with 8GB RAM (identical as right here), 16GB RAM and a 512GB SSD (identical as… you get the concept). 

If getting RTX 3070 graphics is a dealbreaker, then you possibly can go for the Razer Blade 15 Base Model with a 15.6-inch FHD show, Tenth-generation Intel Core i7-10750H, 16GB RAM and a 512GB SSD. You will, nevertheless, should pay $1,999.99 for the privilege, which can be one thing of a dealbreaker. ASUS additionally presents the ROG Strix G15 — an all-AMD model of which we reviewed a couple of weeks again — with an RTX 3070, priced at $1,799.99. If you have been on the lookout for a machine in that $1,500-or-so bracket, you possibly can get the $1,599.99 Razer Book, with a Core i7-1165G7 and Intel Iris Xe Graphics. Alternatively, gor $1,499.99, Acer’s Predator Triton 300 SE packs a Core i7-11375H and NVIDIA’s RTX 3060 GPU, which looks as if a reasonably affordable deal all issues thought-about.

Despite the entire chaos that has to this point made up the ‘20s, we’re seeing a brand new daybreak of AMD’s high-er finish chips winding up in gaming laptops. This Ryzen 7 5800H can beat (choose) Intel chips in a variety of benchmarks, and you may anticipate to see it crop up in a variety of different machines throughout this yr. And whereas wealthier consumers could also be tempted by a far pricier machine with RTX 3080 graphics, the 3070 right here shouldn’t make you’re feeling like a second-class citizen.

There is a lot to love about this machine, though the snips made to get its worth to this degree will rankle. The battery life is properly beneath par, the thermals might do with refinement, and the webcam would look retrograde on a machine 5 years its senior. But, in case you’re going to stay this on a desk, hold it always plugged in to energy and by no means do greater than the odd Zoom, does that matter?