lenovo legion 5 is one of the best ryzen
gaming laptops i've tested and you guys
requested it so much that i had to
import it from the us with my own money
so let's find out what all the hype is
about in this review this video is
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the legion 5. it's got basically
everything you'd want in a mid-range
gaming laptop including 8-core ryzen
processor nvidia gtx 1660 ti graphics
and 144 hertz screen all for around a
thousand us dollars you can check
updated prices linked in the description
it's got a plastic build with black
finish the interior is a sort of soft
rubberized material though it seems a
bit nicer compared to the older y540 in
any case the build quality was decent
with no sharp corners or edges lenovo
lists the starting weight as 2.5 kilos
though mine was under 2.3 or about 5
pounds then with the 230 watt power
brick and cables we're looking at over
3.1 kilos or almost 7 pounds total the
size is pretty average for a 15 inch
gaming laptop at this price point so not
thin by any means but not big it's got a
15.6 inch 1080p 144hz display with a
60hz to 144hz freesync range lenovo
gives us the option of disabling optimus
aka hybrid mode after a reboot through
the vantage software which will give a
performance boost in games at the
expense of battery life the vantage
software also lets us enable overdrive
mode which affects screen response time
with overdrive off we're looking at an
average grade agree response time of 7.4
milliseconds then with overdrive enabled
this lowers to 4.66 milliseconds with a
little overshoot and undershoot i've got
a link in the description if you need an
explanation on these numbers when we
look at how it compares against other
laptops tested well it's the fastest
144hz laptop panel that i've ever tested
an excellent result i've tested the
screen with the spyder 5 and got 99 of
srgb 70 of ntsc 75 of adobe rgb and 75
of dcrp3 so decent results for a gaming
laptop my panel was 370 nits at 100
brightness with a 750 to 1 contrast
ratio so decent brightness but a bit
lower on the contrast backlight bleed
wasn't too bad in my unit i never
noticed the small imperfections when
viewing darker content but this will
vary between panels there's a 720p
camera above the display in the middle
with a physically sliding privacy
shutter no windows hello support this is
what the camera and microphone look and
sound like on the lenovo legion 5. so
yeah the camera is pretty blurry and not
great here's what it sounds like to type
on the keyboard
my keyboard just has a single zone of
white backlighting which illuminates all
keys and secondary key functions but
there's also a four zone rgb option too
the keys have two levels of brightness
or can be turned off with the function
and space keys i thought typing on it
was great it's got 1.5 millimeters of
key travel and it just feels nice and
clicky here's how it sounds to give you
an idea of what to expect
[Music]
i like that the arrow keys aren't small
and instead are pushed down a little to
make space the power button is separate
from the keyboard and it lights up to
reflect the performance mode in use
which makes it easy to quickly visually
see which mode you're in the precision
touchpad is smooth clicks down anywhere
and it worked fine fingerprints and dirt
show up but aren't super obvious it
could be a little hard to clean due to
the textured finish the weight
distribution felt good allowing for one
finger opening and the screen goes the
full 180 degrees back there's a little
keyboard flex due to the plastic finish
but only when pushing hard it was quite
sturdy there's some flex to the lid but
it's not as much as say the omen 15. on
the left we've got an air exhaust vent
usb 3.2 gen1 type a port and 3.5
millimeter audio combo jack the right
has another usb 3.2 gen1 type a port and
there's an air exhaust vent on this side
too the largest 17 inch version also has
an sd card slot here the back has more
air exhausts towards the corners then
from left to right there's a gigabit
ethernet port usb 3.2 type c port with
displayport output no thunderbolt though
two more usb 3.2 gen1 type a ports for
four in total hdmi 2.0 output power
input and kensington lock there's some
subtle icons above the rear ports so you
can see where to plug in a cable without
looking behind the machine both the hdmi
and type c ports connect directly to the
nvidia graphics rather than the igpu so
vr should be possible but type c can't
be used to charge the machine underneath
has a big air vent towards the back but
there's a dust filter covering all but
the sections directly above the fans so
far better than say the tough a15
getting inside involves removing 11
phillips head screws and the four down
the front are shorter than the rest once
inside we've got the battery right down
the front a 2.5 inch drive bay two
memory slots in the middle and wi-fi six
card and ssd on the right the 2.5 inch
drive space was quite interesting it
comes with a little mount that has the
cable and four screws required for
mounting a drive which is great to see
as others from lenovo in the past like
the l340 require you to buy this
separately there's also a second m.2
slot but it can only be used if you
aren't using a 2.5 inch drive and remove
the stock mount the ram ssd and wi-fi
are all covered by metal heat shields as
well the two 2 watt speakers are on the
left and right sides towards the front
they sounded decent not amazing but
above average with some bass though they
weren't too loud at max volume and the
latency mod results looked good my
legion 5 is powered by a 60 watt hour
battery but you can also get it with a
larger 80 watt hour option without the
2.5 inch drive bay it's great to have
choices i've tested it with keyboard
lighting off background apps disabled
and screen at 50 brightness the results
were decent for a gaming laptop lasting
for almost 6 and a half hours in the
youtube playback test that's with hybrid
mode enabled though if we disable it
we're looking at under 4 hours in the
same test as the nvidia graphics uses
more power than the igpu let's check out
thermals next the lenovo vantage
software lets you pick between 3
performance modes which from lowest to
highest are quiet balanced and
performance but there's no user fan
controls the highest performance mode
also lets you optionally check to enable
gpu overclocking the ui only lets you
adjust the core clock but it boosts the
memory by the amount noted here ryzen
controller software wasn't used as i
didn't find it to make a performance
difference the idle temperatures were
good with a 21 degree celsius room
stress tests were done with the ada64
cpu stress test with stress cpu only
checked and the heaven gpu benchmark run
at the same time while gaming was tested
with watchdogs too even worst case in
these long-term loads we're not
averaging above 90 degrees celsius on
the processor and the gpu wasn't even
getting to 70. great results there and a
cooling pad could be used to lower temps
a bit more these are the clock speeds
for the same tests again excellent
results even in the lowest quiet mode
we're still seeing great performance and
above 4.1 gigahertz over all eight cores
in these tests was possible the gpu
clock speeds increase in performance
mode due to the overclock supplied by
the vantage software the gtx 1660 ti had
no problems maintaining its 80 watt
power limit and the processor didn't
pass 35 watts long term which is fine as
we just saw 4.1 gigahertz over all eight
cores is a great result in these tests
especially for the temperatures that
were seen the processor can of course
burst higher than this in shorter
workloads as needed here's how cpu-only
performance looks in cinebench with the
gpu now idle so not really a noteworthy
difference to single core performance
but multi-core performance was affected
when we compare it against other laptops
it's a three-way tire with the xmg core
17 aka electronics rp17 and 3700x in the
clever though the single core score was
a little behind but either way still
excellent results compared to more
expensive intel options when idling the
keyboard was around the low 30 degrees
celsius point which is pretty normal
with the stress test running in the
lowest quiet mode it's in the mid 40s
and the center balanced in performance
mode were quite similar so just warm in
the middle wasd was a bit cooler and the
wrist rest was quite cool let's have a
listen to fair noise
the fans were still audible when idling
in the lowest quiet mode then with a
stress test going it's only a little
louder stepping up from quiet to
balanced mode then a bit more still and
similar to many other gaming laptops in
the highest performance mode now let's
check out how well the legion 5 performs
in games and see how it compares with
other laptops i've tested battlefield 5
in campaign mode at ultra settings and
the legion 5 is highlighted in red in
this test the average frame rate is one
of the better results out of all 1660ti
laptops i've tested basically the same
as the vapor 15 aka mag15 and just one
fps behind the helios 300. the one
percent lowers from the legion were also
the highest out of the ryzen based
laptops with 80 watt 1660 ti like the
tough a15 or omen 15. these are the
results from far cry 5 with ultra
settings in the built-in benchmark this
time the legion 5 is the second best
result out of the 1660ti laptops and
again the highest out of those tested
with the ryzen processor it's not too
far behind the helios 300 and
realistically it's not going to be a
noticeable difference above the other
1660ti laptops anyway shadow of the tomb
raider was also tested with the game's
benchmark tool with the highest setting
preset this is a great result for a gtx
1660 ti laptop it's at least 3 fps ahead
of the next best 1660 ti result and
interestingly it was scoring the same as
the high wattage rtx 2060 in the
electronics rp15 so yeah the legion 5 is
doing quite well for the hardware it's
got i've also tested the legion 5 in 20
games at all setting levels check the
card in the top right or link in the
description if you want more benchmarks
now for the benchmarking tools i've
tested heaven valley and superposition
from unigine as well as fire strike and
time spy from 3dmark just pause the
video if you want a detailed look at
these results i've used adobe premiere
to export one of my laptop review videos
at 4k this is the fastest export time
i've ever recorded for a ryzen based
gaming laptop just a little ahead of the
rp15 with same cpu but higher tier gpu
i've also tested premiere but with the
puget system's benchmark which also
accounts for things like live playback
rather than just export times in these
tests a higher score is better the
legion 5 is still up there though the
rp15 was a little better now the results
were similar in adobe photoshop this
tends to be more of a cpu focused test
and it's the second fastest 4800h result
i've got only beaten by the rp15 with
better graphics davinci resolve is more
gpu heavy but despite that this is the
highest score i've ever had from any
1660ti laptop and it's beating some of
the higher wattage options like the 2060
and the rp15 and even the 2070 in the
dell g7 i've also tested spec view perf
which tests out various professional 3d
workloads i've used crystal disk mark to
test the 512 gig nvme m.2 ssd the read
speeds were great but the writes were
much lower comparatively for updated
prices check the links in the
description as prices will change over
time at the time of recording in the us
it's available for one thousand dollars
and that's how much i got mine for and
all things considered i think that's a
great price for what's on offer but
let's properly summarize by covering
both the good and bad aspects to help
you decide if the legion 5 is worth it
honestly there's not too much to hate
the camera is crap but that's not too
surprising it would have been nice to
have some user fan control and the ssd
write speed is lower compared to some
other nvme options but otherwise no
other problems come to mind which is
saying something the screen has the best
response time tested out of all ryzen
gaming laptops i've looked at the
brightness is above average color gamut
is decent and it's got a nice precinct
range the contrast ratio is a bit low
but i can forgive that as lenovo are
giving us the option to disable optimus
and enable overdrive as we saw in games
it's doing very well for a 1660ti laptop
and outside of games the cpu performance
is right up there with some of the best
ryzen results i've recorded and this is
all without running hot under heavy
long-term workloads the upgrade options
inside are great as you've got a fair
bit of choice you can take the larger
battery instead of 2.5 inch drive if you
prefer and get a second m.2 slot if you
don't need the 2.5 inch drive user
choice is always best in my opinion
rather than being forced one way or the
other the keyboard was great and there's
the rgb option for those that want
higher fps the touchpad was fine
speaker's better than average build
quality was fair for a plastic machine
there's a good selection of i o and
battery life was decent for the size but
expect more with the larger battery
option basically for a thousand us
dollars i think this is a great gaming
laptop it's going to be very interesting
when i compare it with others that have
reviewed highly like hp's omen 15. let
me know what others you want to see
compared down in the comments and if
you're new to the channel you'll
definitely want to get subscribed for
those future videos