Lenovo were showing off a new gaming laptop at CES 2020, however it’s a bit different
than what you’d expect, as there are no discrete graphics inside the actual laptop,
allowing for a thinner and lighter machine, so let’s find out just how you’re actually
mean to game on this thing.
The Y740s is a 15 inch laptop, and takes design cues from the regular Y740 that I’ve previously
reviewed, this is kind of like a slimmed down version of it, though there are some other
differences.
The Y740s has an all metal build, the keyboard area on this unit was all silver, it’s just
the lighting making it look purple. The lid has the same clean finish with Legion branding
on the edge, and even the bottom was very clean too, with basically just air vents down
the back and speakers on the sides towards the front.
On the left there’s not one, but two Type-C Thunderbolt 3 ports. The right just has an
SD card slot and a 3.5mm audio combo jack, then in traditional Lenovo style the rest
of the I/O is on the back, which just includes two Type-A USB ports, along with some air
exhaust vents.
So there’s no GPU inside, not counting the Intel graphics that are part of the CPU, meaning
that Y740S requires less cooling capacity to run, and this is why they were able to
slim it down compared to the traditional Y740.
Despite being a thinner and lighter laptop, they’re sticking with Intel H series processors,
rather than doing what most other machines of this form factor do and use lower powered
U series chips.
So where does the GPU power come from? An external GPU, of course, and they’re calling
this one the BoostStation. Lenovo will be offering this solid aluminium eGPU enclosure
for $250 USD. The front just has some Legion branding and power button, the left has some
air holes for the GPU inside to pull in cool air, and the back has the I/O, which includes
power, Type-C Thunderbolt port, three USB Type-A ports, ethernet port, plus whatever
outputs the graphics card you’re using offers. They said you’ll either be able to buy just
the unit alone, or with a graphics card included, so video outputs could vary based on that.
Like other eGPU designs, you pull out the back handle to open it up. There’s a fan
on the front to help pull air in, otherwise inside we’ve just got the up to 500 watt
power supply, as well as a 3.5” or 2.5” drive bay too, so you can install extra storage
and access it just by connecting the laptop with a single Thunderbolt cable. There’s
just a 2060 installed in this demo, but you can install any two slot card up to 320mm
in length, from either AMD or Nvidia.
The BoostStation is also capable of providing 100 watts of power delivery over the Type-C
connection, so if you have a laptop that charges over Type-C then you really can just connect
one cable and get access to power, ethernet, additional storage, and of course beefy GPU
power.
Lenovo said the Y740s was basically them testing the external graphics enclosure market, and
they are fully aware of the overheads involved with such a solution. I think they’re likely
catering to a small niche within the gaming laptop market, however there are definitely
a group of people that prefer having a single portable machine that they can just hook up
to at home for more power, rather than having either a thicker gaming laptop, or a laptop
plus desktop PC combination.
Lenovo acknowledged that an external GPU setup like this will greatly depend on the power
of the CPU, something I’ve found in my own testing too, and this is why they opted to
go for the more powerful i7-9750H option compared to a U series processor. It will be interesting
to see if they’ve also boosted the power limit above the typical 45 watts.
On the gaming side of things, that was all Lenovo had to show at CES 2020, no AMD gaming
laptops it seems, I guess we probably won’t see refreshes of other popular models until
Intel 10th gen H series CPUs are out later in the year.
They did however have a creator version of the Y740 though, however they pretty much
said it’s just a normal Y740, except that it comes with Nvidia Studio drivers preinstalled
and that it has a more colour accurate display for content creation, so a nice bonus if that’s
specifically what you’re working on but there’s not many other differences otherwise.
I also had some time with the new X1 Fold, unlike the Dell Concept laptops in my other
video, this will be an actual product available in August at around $3000 USD. Basically it’s
a single screen like a tablet, but you can fold it over so it takes up less space. It’s
also got an optional keyboard that you can use with it, thereby offering a few different
ways for interacting. Lenovo acknowledge they’re not first to market with a product like this,
as they wanted to get it right if it’s going to carry the X1 branding, anyway it looks
quite interesting, something different than a traditional laptop in any case
That’s all I looked at from Lenovo at CES 2020, let me know if the Y740s is something
you’d consider using, would you use an eGPU setup like this? And of course if you’re
new to the channel, get subscribed for the rest of my CES 2020 coverage.