Lenovo Legion 5 Review: Interesting gaming performance for € 1000 laptop

The Lenovo Legion 5 has dark blue plastic on its screen shell as well as plastic around the keyboard. The edges of the slab are black grain plastic, like the bottom shell. The hinges are slightly developed on the frame or, depending on the perspective, the frame is placed 3 cm behind the screen.

When opened, the screen reveals a keyboard with a numeric keypad. The position of the keys is relatively dense, but Lenovo was careful to turn the arrow keys down. The Fn-Space shortcut switches between the backlight and each mode on two levels of the keyboard. The typing is of good quality and the keyboard does not suffer from any significant error. The touchpad is wider than the space bar and offers better glide and better left and right click view. Middle click is very hard and does not allow drag and drop while maintaining pressure.

The Legion 5’s connection is particularly great, with a USB Type-C port on the left and a headphone / microphone combo socket. On the right, Lenovo has a USB 3.0 port, a switch for a webcam and a PC power-on light. The latter is also duplicated with the start button placed on the keyboard and is accompanied by an LED. Finally, there are three USB 3.0 ports between the two holes in the back of the chassis, a proprietary charging socket, an HDMI 2.1 port, an RJ45 port and a USB Type-C port suitable for power delivery and displayport.

Wireless connectivity is provided by WiFi 6 (2400 Mb / s) and Bluetooth 5.2 provided by the Intel AX201 chip. The 720p webcam at the top of the screen is once again substandard with a well-recognized blur effect.

Cooling is provided by two fans, which blow on the four radiators in the lower corners of the screen keys. Keyboard shortcut allows Lenovo profile change without having to go through software with FN-Q. The Start Button LED changes color depending on the mode selected: blue for silence, white for automatic and red for turbo mode.

In turbo mode, we find that the maximum temperature between the arrow keys is 47.5 C. ZQSD keys are relatively cool measured at 34 C. So on the right side of the keyboard is the hottest part of the chassis, the RTX 3060 above and its 130W TDP. The pits of the RTX 3060 are much warmer than those dedicated to the Raison 7 5600H (52.2 and C and 50.2 C) (58.7 and C and 55.4 C).

Noise pollution is in silent mode with 41 dB readings in the game. In automatic mode, Legion 5 is a little louder with 46 dB. However, we are in the middle of what laptops have to offer Gaming. In turbo mode, Legion 5 is confusing with 50 dB readings, which results in a draft Digital Comments from office neighbors.

Note that the performance difference between automatic mode and turbo mode is not recognized. With integrated benchmark ofAssassin’s Creed Valhalla, Sharing both modes in favor of the turbo only 1 fps on average. This mode disperses the calories generated by our processor-graphics card pair.

Access to the parts is achieved by removing the 10 Phillips screws. The hull is very difficult to unclip. We recommend that you start with an old bank card or specific tool. The most critical part is at the level of the tightly clipped pits. It is sufficient to lift the shell to free all rear connections.

Once open, there is a free M.2 position on the left under the aluminum plate that has three screws. Below the square aluminum plate are two DDR4 slots, only one of which is occupied (we will return to this later). The SSD is housed in an M.2 format and on a WiFi card under an aluminum plate on the right. The battery is not stuck and comes free after removing 4 screws. When traveling, we retain the empty space on the left side of the battery. As Asus does, Lenovo could take the opportunity to expand the latter capacity from 60 Wh to 80 or 90 Wh.

Lenovo has equipped its Legion 5 with an IPS panel that displays 1920 x 1080 pix at 120 Hz. Its integration into the frame is not particularly careful as we measured the screen occupancy rate at 72%. However, it is at a competitive level at this stage.

Legion 5’s panel shines with its quality. We found a maximum brightness of 292 cd / m², which is a good value, supported by 16% of the reflected light by the low reflection of the matte coating. By reducing the brightness to reach 200 cd / m² for our color‌metry and autonomous measurements, we found that setting the brightness to 90% was sufficient. By reducing a line to 80%, the brightness drops to only 100 cd / m²! Therefore, less than 80%, the light intensity is superfluous. A good setting of this parameter is welcomed.

With a value of 1145: 1 in contrast is less. In use, blacks tend to be gray. Color temperature 6262 K, which is slightly lower than the video standard, but nothing forbidden. Finally, the panel does not provide reliable colors since Delta E peaks at 6.8. As a reminder, colorimetric drifts with a delta E less than 3 are not visible. For example, the slightly artificial green color of our test sample is almost khaki.

Good point for gamers, only 15 ms in the afterglow, which is a decent value for a laptop PC Gaming It does not see stripes on the fast moves in the game.