Review Lenovo Legion 5: Good cheap gaming laptop

Specifications of Lenovo Legion 5

1. CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 4600H
2. GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650Ti
3. RAM: 8GB
4. Memory: 256GB SSD + 1TB HDD
5. Screen: Full HD 15.6", 120Hz refresh rate

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It's a complete spec that includes a mid-range CPU paired with a mid-range GPU. There's enough RAM for gaming, the display is fast, with multiple memory levels to suit everyone's needs.

You get one USB-A port on either side of the chassis, two more on the rear, HDMI, USB-C, Ethernet, a headphone jack, and of course, Lenovo's proprietary A-shaped USB-A power port.

The design of the Lenovo Legion 5 is nothing short of outstanding. The completely black chassis feels solid. The hinge is also very sturdy. Overall, this is a well-built, well-built and well-functioning laptop, but without a design breakthrough.

Great performance

Performance metrics show that the Lenovo Legion 5 is an excellent gaming laptop. The 1650Ti performs well as expected. The 4600H is a great choice here and doesn't hold back the GPU.

As the chart below shows, you'll get 60+ fps in most games if you don't mind reducing the settings to medium, and lighter games like Counter Strike: Global Offensive will easily outpace it. past the 100 fps mark.

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1660Ti is a superior GPU. Better cooling is what allows the Legion 5 to get ahead of the competition in gaming.

The cooling system is good and the laptop never gets hot. You won't even hear the fan running unless you're gaming. In fact, even when playing games, the sound of the cooling fan is not loud enough to drown out other sounds.

Performance in CPU-intensive tasks such as 3D rendering, image editing, and code compilation is very good. In daily use, the system is fast and responsive. However, forcing to use the HDD to play games is a difficult thing. Other loading times are slow and you may even experience lag. If your budget allows, spend more money on the SSD version of Legion.

Good display and easy to use keyboard

Gaming laptops often have the best specs in all hardware categories. Perhaps, one of the important things is the screen. The Lenovo Legion 5 has good display specs.

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There's a 15.6-inch IPS display with 1920 x 1080 resolution, HDR support, 100% sRGB, and 300 nit brightness. These aren't the best display specs for a gaming laptop, but still good enough for most people. The display is sharp, the colors are vivid when playing games. Of course, the 120Hz refresh rate has a major role to play in enhancing gameplay. And besides, everything else, such as scrolling through web pages or moving between Windows desktop profiles, looks super smooth. Brightness is good indoors, and in cases where the ambient light is too high, the anti-glare coating will come in handy.

Just above the screen is a 720p webcam in the top bezel. Video from this webcam is of low quality. You can buy a separate webcam for video calls if quality is the most important factor to you.

Lenovo has also equipped its TrueStrike keyboard on the Legion 5 AMD. The key travel distance is only 1.5mm, helping the keyboard to type well. The keyboard is backlit, but only the white light makes the keys visible, unlike other gaming laptops with RGB lighting. Most Legion laptops have RGB backlit keyboards, so it's not clear why Lenovo would think of choosing a white keyboard for a gaming laptop like this. The trackpad below is large enough to perform Windows 10 gestures and respond quickly.

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Battery is average

If there's one thing that needs improvement on this laptop, it's the battery. Lenovo claims the 80Wh battery on the AMD Legion 5 can provide up to 8 hours of use. In fact, at maximum settings, the duration is only about half. A fully charged battery should last about 4 - 4.5 hours with a continuous WiFi connection, the Chrome browser running with 6 - 10 tabs and about 45 minutes of Call of Duty Warzone. 4 hours of battery life is also what you usually get on a gaming laptop, but Lenovo could do a little better. There is fast charging on this laptop that delivers 170W of power using the included charger.

Should you buy Lenovo Legion 5?

With the Legion 5 AMD, Lenovo is trying to appeal to customers who are not passionate about gaming but still want a little entertainment after a long workday. The Legion 5 is one of the best laptops you can get for a casual yet flawless gaming experience while making the most of its productivity features.

Advantages

1. Impressive performance
2. Good screen
3. Good speakers

Defect

1. Quite heavy
2. Poor battery life

Samuel Daniel

Update 04 June 2021