which gaming laptop is better lenovo's
legion 5 or hp's viktor 16. i've
compared both to find out all of the
differences both of my laptops have
similar specs amd's 8 core ryzen 7 5800h
processor nvidia's rtx 3060 graphics 16
gigs of memory a 512 gig ssd and a 1080p
screen with high refresh rate 15.6
inches for the legion and 16.1 inches
for the victus both laptops have decent
build quality considering they're both
plastic the only thing i'd really felt
the victus for is that it has more
screen wobble
legion stopped victor's still going
still going
still going and stopped it just goes for
ages though it's not really a problem
unless you bump the laptop or desk or
move the laptop around i never found the
screen to actually wobble while just
typing on it normally my legion 5 has a
dark blue finish but it's also available
in white while i've got a white victus
but it's also available with darker blue
or silver finishes the vectus was a
little wider makes sense as it's got a
slightly larger 16-inch screen the
legion was a little deeper but it's
extremely close and thickness was quite
similar the legion weighs slightly less
if we're just comparing the laptops
alone but it's larger and heavier 300
watt power brick makes the overall
package heavier compared to the victus
now both of these laptops have 1080p
screens but the legions is 165hz while
the victus has a 144hz screen however
the legion is also available with a
slower 120hz screen while the victus has
a 1440p upgrade path or for 40 us
dollars more it also seems like you can
upgrade the vectors to a higher quality
1080p screen unfortunately the only
vectors that i could buy had the worst
possible screen option only the legion
has a lock switch so you've got the
option of running it with either optimus
enabled for best battery life or with
optimus disabled for better gaming
performance with invictus you're stuck
with optimus enabled the lowest end
victor screen doesn't even have freesync
meanwhile the legion 5 has freesync when
optimus is enabled but it also has
g-sync when optimus is disabled the
legion 5 screen shown by the red bars
has a much higher color gamut compared
to hp's victor 16 in the purple bars but
this might be different if you get the
screen upgrade on the victus the screen
brightness of the legion 5 was better at
90 to 100 percent brightness otherwise
at lower levels the victus was a little
brighter the victor still felt dim at
full brightness for me so paying 40 for
that screen upgrade is probably worth it
the response times are also quite
different the vectus has one of the
slower 144hz panels that i've tested
with a 17 millisecond response time
while the legions was much faster at
under seven milliseconds but again
results will vary with different screen
options slower screen response time
contributes to the total system latency
which is the amount of time between a
mouse click and a gunshot file on the
screen in cs go the legion was
definitely quicker while the victus was
one of the slower results i've recorded
both had very minor backlight bleed i
never noticed it during normal use on
either laptop but results will vary
between laptop and panels both laptops
have a 720p camera above the screen in
the middle neither have irf or windows
hello face unlock but the legion has a
switch on the right to physically
disconnect the camera this is what the
camera and microphone look and sound
like on the legion 5 and then this is
how things look and sound like over on
the hp victus both laptops have backlit
keys my legion has a 4 zone rgb keyboard
but there's also a white only version
while my vectus just has white keys
which were hard to see with a white
finish due to a lack of contrast unless
you're in a dark room so for that reason
alone i'd recommend anything other than
the white finish personally i preferred
typing on the vectus the legion still
has an above average keyboard i just
like the clickier feel on the victus
the legion also has larger arrow keys
which i personally prefer the victus has
its power button right next to delete
and backspace but fortunately an
accidental miss press doesn't do
anything you have to hold it to sleep
both have precision touch pads the one
on the vectus is physically larger in
both dimensions but the click just felt
nicer to me on the legion and i never
had an issue with its size both have
their speakers on the left and right
towards the front i thought both sounded
decent but the vector sounded better to
me the legion was just a bit tinnier
sounding comparatively the latency mon
results were fairly similar from either
laptop no big differences only the
legion has an air exhaust vent on the
left side they both have a usb type-c
port though the legions is faster gen 2
while the vectus is slower gen 1.
otherwise both have a 3.5 millimeter
audio combo jack the vectus also has its
power input gigabit ethernet hdmi 2.1 a
usb 3.2 gen1 type a port and an sd card
slot on this side both laptops have an
air exhaust on the right the victus has
two usb 3.2 gen1 type-a ports while the
legion has one and the legion also has
the camera disconnect switch here the
rest of the legions i o is on the back
which i personally prefer as bulky
cables run out the back and stay out of
the way from left to right the legion
has gigabit ethernet a second usb 3.2
gen 2 type c port three more usb 3.2
gen1 type a ports hdmi 2.1 and the power
input on the right the legion also has
these icons above the rear ports which
help with seeing where you're plugging
cables into without turning the laptop
around so basically the main io
differences are that the legion has four
usb type-a ports while the victus has
three the legion has two usb type-c
ports while the victus just has the one
but the legions are also faster gen 2
while the victus has slower gen 1. and
the one on the back of the legion can
also be used to charge the laptop the
victus does not have type c charging but
the victus does also have an sd card
slot something that the 15-inch legion 5
does not have but the 17-inch legion 7
does have that now all type-c ports on
both laptops offer displayport 1.4
support and both that along with the
hdmi ports connect directly to the
nvidia graphics bypassing optimus so
this does mean that we can attach an
external screen to the victus in order
to boost its performance in games the
legion has an extrusion on the front in
the middle which makes opening the lid
easier but that said i didn't really
have any problems opening the vectus the
legion also has flipped a boot as an
option you can enable through software
or bios and this powers the laptop on
when you open the lid underneath both
appear to have plenty of space for air
ventilation towards the back but we can
see that both only really bring air in
directly above the fans through circular
cutouts the black rectangle that covers
the vents on the legion is a mesh dust
filter while the vector says solid so i
suppose the legion might have more
airflow in that regard here's how both
look inside the legion 5 has some
additional metal coverings with those
removed we can see that both laptops are
quite similar they've got their
batteries down the front two memory
sticks in dual channel two m.2 storage
slots and wi-fi six cards though it
needs to be noted that the wi-fi in the
victus is underneath the cooler for some
reason so a wi-fi upgrade on the vectus
would require you to remove this and
re-paste the cpu and gpu far less
convenient compared to the legion
granted that's probably not a change
you'll make often despite both laptops
having the exact same model of real tack
wi-fi card installed the vectus was a
little faster though both were a fair
bit behind many of the intel options but
you could upgrade this yourself for like
20 all testing in this video has been
done with both laptops running their
stock memory that they shipped with i
think this better represents a fair
comparison as it represents how both
laptops would perform out of the box if
you would actually go and buy them so
this means that technically my victus
has better x8 memory while the legion
has slower x16 memory though we could of
course go and upgrade that it would just
cost more money the battery in my legion
is around 14 percent larger than my
victus in terms of what our capacity but
you can also get the legion with a
smaller 60 watt hour option so expect
different results with that
interestingly the vectors with smaller
battery was lasting around 16 percent
longer in the youtube playback test
though the legion was ahead in the game
test both results are great and well
above average the software experience on
the legion 5 is better compared to the
victus both give you the option to swap
between different performance modes but
i had some weird bug on the victus where
i would undo my selection sometimes
hopefully that gets fixed in an update
lenovo's advantage software is just more
centralized and you can do more
everything is done through here
including getting updates on the vectus
that's managed through a different
program the legion also lets you change
the performance modes with the function
plus q shortcut and this changes the
color of the power button to reflect it
the vectus has no such shortcuts so you
have to use the software only lenovo's
vantage software also lets us enable or
disable hybrid mode aka optimus
something that vectus does not support
at all the legion also lets us modify
battery and power settings here again
something i didn't find on the vectus
just before we get into the thermals
i've got to say the bios on the legion
was much better it looks more modern and
there are just more options for you to
customize compared to the victus though
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coupon code jarrod let's compare
thermals next i'm only going to look at
both laptops in their highest
performance modes if you want to also
see thermal results of both laptops in
every single performance mode available
then refer to the full review videos
linked in the description below the blue
bars represent the cpu while the green
bars represent the gpu temperature the
victus was warmer on these components
when just sitting there idle with the
cpu plus gpu stress test running though
the legion was warmer on the cpu and gpu
the cooling pad i test with linked in
the description below was able to
improve both laptops however the vectus
was still cooler the cpus were the same
with the game running but the gpu in the
legion was warmer and then again both
could be called further in the game with
the cooling pad these are the clock
speeds for the same tests just shown
during the stress test the legion was
reaching both higher cpu and gpu speeds
so it's performing better with the same
hardware which is probably why it was
warmer too they don't change too much
with the cooling pad as thermals weren't
much of a limit and then in the game
they're much closer together though the
legion still had the lead we can see
that during the stress test the legion
has both higher cpu and gpu power limits
more power equals more performance but
also more heat basically the victus has
a 95 watt 3060 while the legions is full
powered at 115 watts though it can boost
to 130 watts with nvidia's dynamic boost
plus the victus seems to cap the cpu to
35 watts while the legion can go to 45.
granted in this game the difference in
cpu usage was small in cinebench r23 a
cpu-only workload with the gpu now idle
the legion 5 was performing better
despite both technically having the same
ryzen 7 5800h processor the legion was
scoring around 9 percent higher in
multi-core granted single core was much
the same as generally no laptops are
subject to power or thermal constraints
there things change when running on
battery power the legion was still ahead
when it came to single core but it's
margin of error stuff the vectors
however was ahead in multi-core now
there are only by five percent so hp
seems to perform better on battery the
legion was cooler to the touch when both
were sitting there idle but that's not
to say the victus was warm low 30
degrees celsius as normal in this test
the legion was just below average
neither were hot to the touch while
under heavy worst case stress test the
victus was perhaps a little warmer but
it's close let's have a listen to the
fair noise
the legion was more audible when sitting
there doing nothing at idle and it also
ends up being just a little louder with
the stress test going again at least the
victus has some basic level of fan
control you get nothing on the legion
now let's test out some games and find
out how both laptops compare and as
mentioned earlier both laptops are
tested with their stock memory here and
the legion has optimus disabled as it
does have the advantage of a mock switch
cyberpunk 2077 was tested in little
china with the straight kid life path on
all laptops i've got both the legion and
victus laptops highlighted in red and we
can see that the legion is reaching
around 10 percent higher average fps on
this one this is in part due to the
higher gpu power limit of the 3060 in
the legion but also because it has a
mock switch which lets us disable
optimus and generally improve
performance in games anyway it's not as
if the 3060 in the victus was bad or
anything we're still above 60 fps at
higher settings red dead redemption 2
was tested with the game's benchmark and
this time both laptops were scoring
essentially the same i think we're
seeing the different memory in action
here both of these results are with both
laptops tested with their stock memory
the victus came with x8 sticks while my
legion came with x16 stacks if i re-test
the legion with x8 memory it ends up
getting 82 fps so a nice speed boost but
yeah just stock out of the box they're
basically the same due to the memory
differences control on the other hand is
fairly gpu heavy and i don't generally
find memory differences to matter as
much in this game this is likely why the
legion was now around 14 faster in terms
of average fps when compared to the
victus putting it just a couple of fps
behind the lower wattage 3070 and the hp
omen 15 one spot above it as the legion
has the full powered 3060. i have also
tested the legion 5 with faster x8
memory in this video over here so check
that one out next if you want to see
what sort of a performance boost a
memory upgrade will give it likewise
though it is also possible to boost
gaming performance on the victus by
connecting an external screen and
bypassing the integrated graphics and
you can check those results in my victus
game test video which is linked in the
description below the legion 5 shown
here by the red bars was always ahead of
the victor 16 shown by the purple bars
in all of the 3d mark tests again makes
sense due to the high wattage 3060. now
let's check out some content creator
workloads adobe premiere was tested with
the puget systems benchmark and both
laptops are highlighted in red there's
no real difference here technically the
victus was three points ahead but this
is easily margin of error stuff in this
task and i suspect this is the memory
difference at play again the difference
was a little larger in adobe photoshop
the vectus was scoring around six
percent higher this test is generally
fairly process or intensive so yeah i'd
expect the legion to do better if it
also had x8 memory like the vectus the
differences in davinci resolve were also
fairly small but the victus was still
scoring about five percent higher due to
the better memory that it shipped with
spec view perf tests out various
professional 3d workloads and the higher
powered 360 in the legion 5 shown by the
red bars was generally ahead but that
wasn't always the case it depends on the
specific workload both of my laptops
came with 512 gig nvme m.2 ssds in
general the one in the legion was a
little faster though it depends on the
specific task both were performing well
in any case the victus also has an sd
card slot which the 15-inch legion does
not have but the largest 17-inch model
does though linux support was tested
with an ubuntu 21 live cd both worked
fine though the realtek wi-fi wasn't
recognized on either out of the box as
it probably needs additional drivers
i'll give the edge to the legion though
because you can still use the function
plus q shortcut to change performance
modes as they're baked into firmware the
vectus requires software support alright
let's discuss pricing and availability
next this will of course change over
time as both of these companies are
known to run regular sales so refer to
current prices with the links down in
the description at the time of recording
the victus with ryzen 7 5800h rtx 3060
graphics and 16 gigs of memory with the
screen upgrade is about 1360 us dollars
the legion is more than 400 more
expensive at least in the configuration
i've tested right now it used to be less
money but i guess supply issues continue
to get worse you could of course get a
better price depending on the
customizations you make with the links
in the description all things considered
personally i think the legion 5 is the
better gaming laptop which i guess isn't
too surprising as it does cost quite a
bit more money there's definitely a
place for the cheaper more
budget-friendly victus so let's recap
both the good and the bad to find out if
you should pay more money for the legion
i'd say the build quality of both is
pretty similar as they're both plastic
but i'd say the legion has an edge
simply due to it having less noticeable
screen wobble the victus is a little
larger due to its slightly bigger
16-inch screen but despite this the
legion was lighter though once you
include the power bricks and cables the
legion ends up weighing more personally
i liked typing more on the victus the
clicky keys just felt nicer but i
preferred the touchpad on the legion
despite its smaller size the power
button changing color to show you the
performance mode you're in is a nice
extra on the legion but i thought the
speakers were better on the vectors the
i o was better on the legion as you get
more usb ports faster usb speeds and
type c charging though the victus has an
sd card slot but the largest 17-inch
legion also has that too if you're after
it both had the same wi-fi sex card
inside the victus was a little faster
but it's also harder to get to should
you want to upgrade it to a better intel
card the battery lasts longer on the
victus outside of gaming despite it
having a smaller one-hour rating the
victus also has an edge when running on
battery power as it performs better on
cinebench there on wall power though the
legion was ahead as it has both higher
cpu and gpu power limits and this is
generally why the legion ended up being
warmer at least on the internals as far
as the exterior goes where you'll
actually be touching neither was hot to
the touch at all the legion was
generally louder when it came to fan
noise low just sitting here right now
with both laptops idling and doing
completely nothing i can't hear the
victus but the fan on the legion has
been going the whole time and is audible
to me even in the lowest performance
mode the victus has better fan control
though i suppose the legion isn't hard
to beat as it doesn't have any fan
control unless you go to third party
software the software is better on the
legion bit the victus was generally
performing better in creator workloads
due to the faster x8 memory the legion
would of course win with a memory
upgrade but that's a further additional
cost and it already costs more likewise
in games generally the legion was ahead
but due to the memory difference the
victus could still do well despite the
legion having a mock switch my legion
happened to have a better screen but if
you were going for the victus i'd
definitely recommend paying that 40
extra to get the 1080p screen upgrade
this one's just too dim and sometimes
the whites look a bit yellow not to
mention the response time is just way
lower compared to the legion so yeah all
things considered i think the legion
does better than the victus but despite
that the victors does still do quite
well and in some tests it does come out
the winner it's just that in most of the
things i care about the legion is ahead
at the end of the day though if you're
just after the best value gaming
performance the victus is clearly the
winner in many of the games tested it
wasn't actually that far behind the
legion especially considering right now
the legion is like 400 more honestly
it's kind of starting to approach
rip-off territory for a 30-60 gaming
laptop given i've seen them on sale for
1400 if both laptops are essentially the
same price though i'd probably just go
for the legion unless you really care
about something that the victus offered
like maybe the better keyboard or better
speakers anyway let me know which of
these two gaming laptops you would
prefer down in those comments below if
you need any further information on
either of these two laptops then refer
to the full review videos over here as i
go into even more depth in those make
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