Lenovo Legion 5 review (AMD Ryzen 7 4800H, GTX 1650Ti gaming laptop)

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Specs Sheet
Design and exterior
Keyboard and trackpad
Screen
Hardware and performance
Noise, heat and speakers
Battery life
Price and availability
Final thoughts
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By Andrei Girbea, last updated on September 2, 2022

Summary: Buying this Legion 5, I knew that the AMD Ryzen platform is an excellent performer in CPU-heavy tasks and efficient in everyday use, and I also knew that Lenovo offers a clean utilitarian design, good inputs, good screens, and multiple configuration options. I wasn't, however, expecting this to run as cooly and quietly as it does, and at the same time, I also didn't expect for the rubbery interior to dent and chip that easily. However, my major nits with this right now are the lack of a higher tier GPU option, as well as the expensive pricing for the GTX 1650Ti versions similar to the one I've got here. Down the road, though, once these are addressed, the Legion 5 is going to be one of the best-value mid-tier gaming notebooks of its generation.

Our score: 4.25 / 5
Price when reviewed: from $879

Updated configurations & prices »

THE GOOD

well built, practical design and clean dark-gray looks
types well, even with the rather mushy feedback
300-nits 100% sRGB panel options, including 144 Hz
excellent performance is CPU-heavy loads
highly configurable and easy to upgrade
excellent thermal design - cool temperatures and very quiet fans on this configurations
long battery life
better speakers that I expected

THE BAD

the rubbery coating seems to chip and dent easily
no card-reader or USB-C charging
only tops at a 1650Ti GPU for now, so limited for gaming and GPU-tasks
expensive once specced up, at least for now

Table of Contents

Video review- Lenovo Legion 5
Specs as reviewed – Lenovo Legion 5
Design and build
Keyboard and trackpad
Screen
Hardware and performance
Noise, Heat, Connectivity, speakers, and others
Battery life
Price and availability- Lenovo Legion 5
Final thoughts- Lenovo Legion 5 review

This is one of the most anticipated affordable gaming laptops of the moment, the AMD Ryzen 4000 version of the Lenovo Legion 5.

I’ve bought this locally about two weeks ago and have been using it since, and you’ll find my thoughts and impressions down below, with the strong-points and the quirks that will help you decide whether this is the right buy for you or not.

Spoiler alert: In many ways, this is even better than I was expected based on all the hype and my past experience with Legion products, but it’s not without issues.

My configuration is the Ryzen 7 4800H processor with 16 GB of dual-channel DDR4 3200 MHz RAM, 512 GB of SSD storage, and the Nvidia GTX 1650Ti graphics chip. Unfortunately, that’s the most powerful GPU option available for this laptop right now, and also its major bottleneck when it comes to GPU heavy loads and games.

My unit also gets a 60 Hz 300-nits panel with 100% sRGB coverage, the RGB keyboard, and the 80 Wh battery, and all these for a total of a little under 1000 EUR over here. That’s a good deal and what convinced me to go with it in the first place, however, the Legion 5 goes for significantly more in other regions, at least for now.

Video review- Lenovo Legion 5

Specs as reviewed – Lenovo Legion 5

	Lenovo Legion 5 15ARH05
Screen	15.6-inch, 1920 x 1080 px IPS 60 Hz, 16:9, non-touch, matte, BOE NV156FHM-N6A panel
Processor	AMD Ryzen 7 4800H, 8C/16T
Video	Radeon Vega + Nvidia GTX 1650Ti 4 GB GDDR6 (50W, GeForce 446.14) – switchable mode
Memory	16 GB DDR4 3200 MHz (2x DIMMs)
Storage	1x 512 GB SSD (SK Hynix HFM512GDHTNI-87A0B) – 2x M.2 NVMe 80 mm slots on this variant
Connectivity	Wireless 6 (Intel AX200), Bluetooth 5.0, Gigabit LAN (Realtek RTL8168/8111)
Ports	3x USB-A 3.1 gen 1, 1x USB-C with Data and DP, HDMI 2.0, LAN, headphone/mic, Kensington Lock
Battery	80 Wh, 170 W power adapter, no USB-C charging
Size	363 mm or 14.29” (w) x 260 mm or 10.23” (d) x 26.1 mm or 1.03” (h)
Weight	2.29 kg (5.05 lb), .55 kg (1.21 lbs) power brick, EU version
Extras	optional 4-zone RGB backlit keyboard with NumPad, 2x 2W stereo speakers, HD webcam

Lenovo offer this laptop in a couple of other configurations, with various amounts of RAM and storage, Ryzen 5 4600H or 7 4800H processors, GTX 1650 or 1650Ti graphics, and several screen variants. We’ll touch on all these options in the article.

Higher tier GTX 1660Ti and RTX 2060 models are also announced for sometimes later this year, and those are a much better match for the competent AMD processors in this lineup. They are also already available for the Intel-based Legion 5i model.

Update: In the meantime, Lenovo updated this laptop, and our review of the 2021 Lenovo Legion 5 15 with 3050Ti graphics is available here, our review of the Legion 5 with mid-tier RTX 3060 graphics is available here, while our review of the Legion 5 17-inch RTX 3070 model is available here.

Update2: Our review of the moost recent 2022 Legion 5 (gen 7) is also available here.

Design and build

The Legion 5 is entirely built out of plastic, and it hasn’t changed much in terms of design language from the previous Legion Y540 generation.

Aesthetically, this is a dark gray laptop without any gaming accents or RGB lights. Lenovo went a bit heavy on the stickers and branding though, with LEGION branded on the lid and under the screen, LENOVO plaques on the lid and on the arm-rest, as well as audio by Harman writing under the keyboard, at the left. As for the multitude of stickers, you can easily peel those off.

The build quality is pretty solid, with a well-made screen and limited flex in the main-deck. A smooth kind of plastic is used for the lid, a rougher kind for the bottom, and a rubbery coated one for the interior, but they blend well together and actually do a good job at fending off smudges and finger oil.

However, I’m afraid the rubbery coating might chip way too easily. I’ve only had my unit for about 10 days, and I’m already seeing some small scuffs and dents on the front lip, despite the fact that I’ve pampered it during this time. I do have my watch on all the time, and looks like the soft coating is not strong enough to handle the buckle, which is not something that I’d want to be concerned with on my daily driver, and a potential deal-breaker for me.

My other complaint so far is the fact that Lenovo still implement an always-on light in the power button, rather annoying when using the laptop at night, since it is placed just under the screen, in the middle of the chassis. This also doubles as a status LED, lighting up in different colors based on the active power profile.

That aside, the Legion 5 is a full-size laptop, so it’s a bit thicker than the ultraportables I’m normally spending my time with, but still fairly light at just a little over 5 pounds. Not bad for a 15-inch laptop with an 80 Wh battery inside. This configuration comes with a compact 170Wh power brick that adds about 1.2 extra lbs to the backpack.

As far as practicality goes, this Legion 5 raises the bar high for other manufacturers. First off, Lenovo put some large and very grippy rubber feet on the bottom that do an excellent job at keeping this anchored on the desk. They’ve also implemented what look like sturdy hinges that keep the screen in place without any wobbling, while at the same time allowing to easily pick it up and adjust it with a single hand. The hinge design is similar to their Y530 and Y540 models from previous years, and I haven’t heard complaints about them breaking.

The screen can also go back flat to 180 degrees, which very few other laptops offer in this class. The bezels are plastic and about averagely sized for a 2020 product, and compared to the 2019 Legions, this update gets a webcam at the top, with a physical privacy cover. The image quality isn’t much, and that’s no surprise.

They also haven’t skimped on the thermal solution, with large and wide-open intakes on the bottom, and proper exhausts on the back and the sides, accompanied by a complex internal thermal module. And that despite the fact that this only gets a 50W GTX 1650Ti GPU. As far as I can tell, Lenovo use the same thermal design on all the Legion 5 models, unlike other OEMs that cut on the number of heatpipes on the lower variants.

Finally, the IO is mostly placed on the back edge, out fo the way, with only the status LEDs, the headphone jack, and two USB-A slots on the sides. There’s no card-reader or USB-C charging support, but otherwise, this offers pretty much everything you’ll want on a laptop, and that rear-placement makes for one of the most clutter-free setups in the niche when connecting peripherals. Well done.

Keyboard and trackpad

The keyboard has been redesigned from the 2019 Legions, and it’s one of the better layouts in this segment, with a full-size main deck of keys, a smaller NumPad section, and ma favorite aspect, large and well-spaced directional keys. This, this is what I’d want on any gaming laptop!

That aside, the implementation uses the slightly concave keycaps characteristic to Lenovo laptops, but they feel a bit cheap and not as nice to the touch as on their higher-tier models. The feedback isn’t amazing either, rather on the mushier side, and that took a toll on my overall accuracy. At the same time, this is a quick and fairly quiet typer.

As far as the illumination goes, Lenovo offers either a white-backlit keyboard option, or a 4-zone RGB variant as a $30 extra upgrade. Mine is the RGB model, with bright and uniform lighting, but a lot of the light creeps from under the keycaps with this design.

The clickpad is a mid-sized plastic surface, fairly smooth, and just fine with daily use. It’s once more a step up from the previous Legion generation, but don’t expect it to perform or feel the same as a premium glass clickpad.

As for biometrics, there aren’t any on this notebook.

Screen

There are currently three-panel options available for the Legion 5 series:

FHD IPS with 250-nits, 120 Hz refresh;
FHD IPS with 300-nits, 60 Hz refresh, 100% sRGB coverage, for +$50;
FHD IPS with 300-nits, 144 Hz refresh, 100% sRGB coverage, for +$100.

If given the option, definitely go with the latter, the 144 Hz variant. I’d also stay away from the former, it’s dimmer and fro what I found out, a 60% sRGB panel with more washed colors. I wasn’t given any choice, so my unit gets the 60 Hz option with the 300-nits and 100% sRGB coverage.

This might not suffice if you’re looking to play fast-paced games, with a 60 Hz refresh and what look like middling response times. I don’t have the right tool to measure the response times, so you’ll have to look into other reviews for more details on this matter, but ghosting is noticeable on this panel. I should also add that there’s no Freesync support in the Radeon settings.

But while not ideal for fast games, this is otherwise a fine choice for a mid-tier laptop. Here’s what we got in our tests, with a X-Rite i1 Display Pro sensor:

Panel HardwareID: BOE BOE090D (BOE CQ NV156FHM-N6A);
Coverage: 95.7% sRGB, 69.7% AdobeRGB, 73.1% DCI P3;
Measured gamma: 2.51;
Max brightness in the middle of the screen: 332.62 cd/m2 on power;
Min brightness in the middle of the screen: 9.61 cd/m2 on power;
Contrast at max brightness: 1064:1;
White point: 7600 K;
Black on max brightness: 0.31 cd/m2;
PWM: No.
Response: -.

Our unit came poorly calibrated out of the box, with a skewed White Point and Gamma. Once calibrated, it still ended up at around 320-nits of max brightness, with average variations towards the margins, but a slightly dimmer area in the lower-left corner. Color uniformity also ended up better than I expected, with minimal DeltaE variations, which combined with the 70% AdobeRGB coverage, makes for a versatile panel for everyday use and some occasional professional work.

I’ll look into the other panel options and update this section once I found out more about them.

Hardware and performance

Our Legion 5 is the higher specced variant available as of right now, with a Ryzen 7 4800H processor 16 GB of DDR4 3200 MHz RAM in dual channel, 512 GB of SSD storage and dual graphics: the Nvidia GTX 1650Ti dGPU and the Radeon Vega iGPU within the AMD platform, and the ability to seamlessly commute between them based on load. You can disable the Vega GPU from the Vantage app by disabling Hybrid mode, and that links the internal display straight to the Nvidia GPU, minimizing input lag.

Before we proceed, keep in mind that our review unit is a retail model that I bought from locally, running on the software available as of late-June 2020 (BIOS EUCN19WW from 03.Jun.2020, Lenovo Vantage 3.3.61.0, GeForce Game Ready 446.14 drivers).

Spec-wise, the Ryzen 7 4800H is an 8C/16T processor with a TDP of 45W, but able to run at higher TDP and clocks if supplied with enough power and properly cooled. Lenovo also offers the Ryzen 5 4600H processor option for this series, for $100 less in the configurator, and that’s a better match for the kind of GPU available here, at least for now. And that’s either a GTX 1650 or a 1650Ti, both entry-level grade dedicated graphics chips. GTX 1660Ti and RTX 2060 are announced at “a later date”, but there are no exact details on when and where these will be available.

Our configuration also shipped with 16 GB of DDR4 3200 MHz RAM out of the box, with two sticks in dual-channel, and a mid-level SK Hynix 512 GB SSD, which is fast enough for everyday use. This can be replaced with a faster drive, though, and accessing the components is a fairly simple task, you just need to take out the bottom panel.

This configuration gets the larger 80Wh battery, so it doesn’t offer a HDD cage, just two M.2 SSD slots, two memory slots and the WiFi module. Most of these are hidden behind these aluminum shrouds on the right side.

As far as software goes, everything can be controlled through the Lenovo Vantage app, which offers access to the power profiles, keyboard customization options, system updates, battery settings, etc. I find this unified implementation one of the better system control apps in the business.

There are three performance/thermal profiles to choose from, and you can switch between them by pressing Fn+Q:

Quiet – limits the CPU at 25W and keeps the fans noise at very low levels;
Balance – limits the CPU at 45W and middling fan-noise;
Performance – full power CPU running at 69+W and full-blat fans.

None of these modes directly affect the GPU in any way, and the performance mode doesn’t apply any GPU overclocking either, something most other OEMs provide on the higher-performance profile. No worries, though, we’ll touch on that in a bit.

First, though, you should know that this Legion 5 handles everyday activities smoothly, while running quietly and cooly. The fans are always active, but spin slowly and you’ll only hear their very slight humming in a completely silent environment.

OK, on to more demanding loads, and we start by testing the CPU’s performance in taxing chores by running the Cinebench R15 benchmark for 15+ times in a loop, with 2-3 seconds delay between each run.

On Performance, the Ryzen 7 4800H unleashes its potential in this chassis, constantly running at its maximum 4.1 GHz frequency and a TDP of 69+ W, with the fans only ramping up to about 40-42 dB at head-level. That’s impressive, but there’s a catch: the system allows the CPU to run at high temperatures in the 90-92 degrees during this test, while other Ryzen 7 4800H implementation that we’ve tested limited the power and thermals at lower levels.

Switching over to the Balance profile operates those exact limitations, causing the CPU to drop to around 45W of power in more demanding loads. This only happens after about 10+ Cinebench R15 runs, yet much quickly with the more demanding Cinebench R20 test. Balance is also the highest performance profile available when using the laptop unplugged, and in this case, the CPU is limited at 25+W.

Further dropping to Quiet also sets the same aggressive TDP limit of 25W regardless of whether the laptop is plugged into the wall or it runs on battery, with the expected drop in scores and performance. Even so, though, the 25+W Ryzen 7 4800H returns scores of 1500+ points in Cinebench R15, pretty much smoking the Intel competition at much higher power. Details below.

Speaking of the competition, I’ve added a few other Ryzen 7 and Intel i7 and i9 configurations next to this Legion 5 in the following chart. The Legion 5 tops our Cinebench loop test at the moment, and also runs significantly quieter than any of the other rivals in this test. In fact, you can hardly hear the fans in this laptop in a full-blast 100% CPU load, while with most others you’ll need headphones to cover up the fan noise. Impressive!

We then went ahead and further verified our findings with the longer Cinebench R20 loop test and the gruesome Prime 95, on the Performance profile.

With Prime, the Ryzen 7 CPU alternates between 50W and 70W. It does end up running hot at 70 and temperatures in the 93-96 degrees, with fans still at around 42 dB at head-level. I do prefer this running at lower power and temperatures, which is what happens for the first 5-6 minutes of the Prime95 test.

We also ran our combined CPU+GPU stress tests on this notebook, on the same Performance profile.

3DMark stress runs the same test for 20 times in a loop and looks for performance variation and degradation over time, and this unit passed it without a problem. Luxmark 3.1 fully loads both the CPU and GPU at the same time, but it’s not properly supported by the Ryzen platform. That’s why the log only shows the CPU running at 16W and temperatures in the mid-60s, while the GPU is capped at 50W and full-frequency. In real-life combined loads the CPU is going to run faster and hotter, and impact the GPU’s performance and thermals.

With that in mind, here are some benchmark results. We ran the entire suite of tests and benchmarks on the standard Performance profile, and here’s what we got.

3DMark 13 – Fire Strike: 9532 (Graphics – 10221, Physics – 23050, Combined – 3997);
3DMark 13 – Time Spy: 4138 (Graphics – 3758, CPU – 9720);
AIDA64 Memory test: —Write: Read: 43016 MB/s, Read: 45588 MB/s, Latency: 55.8 ns;
Uniengine Superposition – 1080p Extreme: 1974;
Uniengine Superposition – 1080p Medium: 7226;
Handbrake 1.3.1 (4K to 1080p encode): 48.04 average fps;
PassMark: Rating: 5621 (CPU mark: 20286, 3D Graphics Mark: 7655, Disk mark: 10690);
PCMark 10: 5795 (Essentials – 9605, Productivity – 7353, Digital Content Creation – 7429);
GeekBench 4.4.2 64-bit: Single-Core: 5312, Multi-core: 31411;
GeekBench 5.0.1 64-bit: Single-Core: 1205, Multi-core: 8099;
CineBench R15 (best run): CPU 2005 cb, CPU Single Core 189 cb;
CineBench R20 (best run): CPU 4650 cb, CPU Single Core 482 cb;
x264 HD Benchmark 4.0 32-bit: Pass 1 – 223.53 fps, Pass 2 – 112.43 fps;
x265 HD Benchmark 64-bit: 30.89 s.

As expected, these are some excellent CPU scores, but the combined results are dragged down by the entry-level Nvidia dGPU.

I reran some of these tests on the Quiet profile as well, a reference if you’re looking to run demanding loads while keeping the fan noise at a minimum.

3DMark 13 – Fire Strike: 9274 (Graphics – 9938, Physics – 21626, Combined – 3934);
3DMark 13 – Time Spy: 4036 (Graphics – 3685, CPU – 8789);
Handbrake 1.3.1 (4K to 1080p encode): 41.29 average fps;
PCMark 10: 5733 (Essentials – 9490, Productivity – 8044, Digital Content Creation – 6698);
GeekBench 5.0.1 64-bit: Single-Core: 1200, Multi-core: 7734;
CineBench R15 (best run): CPU 1737 cb, CPU Single Core 189 cb;
CineBench R20 (best run): CPU 3496 cb, CPU Single Core 478 cb;
x265 HD Benchmark 64-bit: 37.23 s.

This profile limits the CPU at 25W in longer loads such as Handbrake or X265 bench, but returns solid performance in shorter tests, such as 3DMark and Geekbench. Furthermore, while this keeps the fan noise at around 35 to 39 dB, that’s not a lot quieter than the standard Performance profile, in which case the fans ramp up to a maximum of 43 dB.

Then we went to what we’ll call the Performance Tweaked profile, with the CPU on Performance and the GPU overclocked with MSI Afterburner at + 120 MHz Core, +200 MHz Memory. Here’s what we got in this case.

3DMark 13 – Fire Strike: 9697 (Graphics – 10402, Physics – 22526, Combined – 4105);
3DMark 13 – Time Spy: 4218 (Graphics – 3848, CPU – 9284);
Uniengine Superposition – 1080p Extreme: 2046;
Uniengine Superposition – 1080p Medium: 7513.

We’re looking at a roughly 2-5% increase in GPU scores. Not much, but every bit helps with this sort of an unbalanced configuration, and you could pursue further tweaking.

Finally, we also ran some Workstation related loads, on the Performance and Quiet profiles:

Blender 2.82 – BMW Car scene- CPU Compute: 2m 58s (Performance), 3m 59s (Quiet);
Blender 2.82 – BMW Car scene- GPU Compute: 2m 20 (CUDA – Performance);
Blender 2.82 – Classroom scene – CPU Compute: 8m 51s (Performance), 12m 2s (Quiet);
Blender 2.82 – Classroom scene – GPU Compute: 8m 12s (CUDA – Performance);
Luxmark 3.1 – Luxball HDR – OpenCL CPUs + GPUs score: CPU not properly recognized;
SPECviewerf 13 – 3DSMax: 87.29 (Performance);
SPECviewerf 13 – Catia: 65.68 (Performance);
SPECviewerf 13 – Creo: 94.29 (Performance);
SPECviewerf 13 – Energy: 8.11 (Performance);
SPECviewerf 13 – Maya: 144.08 (Performance);
SPECviewerf 13 – Medical: 29.32 (Performance);
SPECviewerf 13 – Showcase: 52.31 (Performance);
SPECviewerf 13 – SW: 66.52 (Performance).

Once more, this scores excellently in the CPU heavy tasks and poorly in the combined subsections of Specviewperf.

Here’s how it fares overall against other notebooks in this category.

As far as gaming goes on this laptop, you shouldn’t expect much, this is where the GTX 1650Ti once more shows its limits. We ran a couple of DX11, DX12, and Vulkan titles on the default Performance and the Performance Tweaked modes, at maximum graphics settings. Here’s what we got:

R7-4800H + GTX 1650Ti	Performance	Performance Tweaked	Quiet
Battlefield V (DX 12, Ultra Preset, Ray-Tracing OFF)	57 fps (28 fps – 1% low)	59 fps (29 fps – 1% low)	–
Far Cry 5 (DX 11, Ultra Preset, SMAA)	59 fps (52 fps – 1% low)	62 fps (56 fps – 1% low)	59 fps (48 fps – 1% low)
Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor (DX 11, Ultra Preset)	78 fps (58 fps – 1% low)	81 fps (59 fps – 1% low)	78 fps (56 fps – 1% low)
Red Dead Redemption 2 (DX 12, Ultra Optimized, TAA)	41 fps (34 fps – 1% low)	42 fps (29 fps – 1% low)	39 fps (31 fps – 1% low)
Rise of Tomb Raider (DX 12, Very High Preset, FXAA)	63 fps (29 fps – 1% low)	66 fps (31 fps – 1% low)	63 fps (26 fps – 1% low)
Shadow of Tomb Raider (DX 12, Highest Preset, TAA)	47 fps (36 fps – 1% low)	50 fps (38 fps – 1% low)	47 fps (36 fps – 1% low)
Strange Brigade (Vulkan, Ultra Preset)	70 fps (55 fps – 1% low)	74 fps (58 fps – 1% low)	70 fps (55 fps – 1% low)
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (DX 11, Ultra Preset, Hairworks On 4)	48 fps (32 fps – 1% low)	51 fps (35 fps – 1% low)	46 fps (31 fps – 1% low)

Battlefield V, The Witcher 3 – recorded with Fraps/in-game FPS counter in campaign mode;
Far Cry 5, Middle Earth, Strange Brigade, Red Dead Redemption, Tomb Raider games – recorded with the included Benchmark utilities;
Red Dead Optimized profile based on these settings.

In all fairness, while most of these titles run well even on Ultra settings, you’ll most likely want to trim those down to High or Medium on the latest AAA titles for constant 60+ fps counts.

The HWinfo logs below show the CPU and GPU speeds and temperatures in Farcry 5, Red Dead Redemptions 2, and Witcher 3 on the stock Performance profile.

It comes to no surprise that this configuration returns excellent thermals. We’re looking at around 70-80 degrees on the CPU and 57-62 degrees on the GPU between the tested titles. However, I’ve noticed that the CPU fluctuates between Turbo and Stock speeds, and while that hasn’t translated in noticeable stuttering, I think it does have an overall negative impact on the 1% lows. That’s weird behavior and not something I’ve encountered on other Ryzen laptops tested in the past.

Overclocking the GPU allows it to run at slightly higher clocks, with fps gains in the 2-5% between the tested titles. Not much, but it’s a welcome extra at this level.

Dropping over to the Balance mode doesn’t have any noticeable impact over the gaming experience. However, Quiet mode limits the CPU at 25W and caps the fans at about 39 dB, and that results in a slight increase of internal GPU temperatures, with a minor impact over the average gaming results. I did notice a further drop in 1% lows in this mode, though, and some very rare stuttering, but for the most part, the Legion 5 performs well even on Quiet.

Running games on battery is also somewhat possible here, but the experience tends to get choppy time and again, due to a variation in both the CPU and GPU frequencies. Older and simpler titles should run fine, but recent AAA won’t perform well.

Overall, the Legion 5 ends up a mixed bag. The AMD Ryzen implementation is impressive, performing excellently across the board and keeping the fan noise low, but the laptop suffers in games and combined loads that would greatly benefit from a higher-tier GPU, and I’m looking forward to at least a GTX 1660Ti 80W implementation of this chassis. For now, that’s only available on the Intel-based Legion 5i, yet that’s a completely different story.

Noise, Heat, Connectivity, speakers, and others

There’s a complex thermal module on this Legion 5, with two fans, four radiators, three heatpipes, and ample thermal plates on top of the CPU, GPU and VRMs. This is further complemented by proper intakes and exhausts, so Lenovo didn’t skimp on the thermal design here, not even on this lower GPU configuration.

We already concluded on the excellent interior temperatures of this Legion 5 model, combined with quiet fans. They only ramp up to about 43 dB while playing games on the Performance mode, and under 40 dB on the Quiet mode.

Performance Mode – 42-43 dB with games, 40-42 dB with Cinebench loop test;
Quiet Mode – 38-39 dB with games, 32-35 dB with Cinebench loop test, 30-33 dB with Daily use.

The two fans remain constantly active with daily use, but they spin quietly, yet you’ll hear them in a silent room. I haven’t’ noticed any electronics noises or coil winning on our sample, though.

At the same time, the plastic chassis only reaches temperatures in low 30s with daily use, or mid-40s in the hottest parts in the middle of the keyboard, and high-40s on the back, on top of the heatpipes, while running games. The WASD and arrows keys rest cooler, in the high 30s and low 40s, so longer gaming sessions are perfectly comfortable on this laptop.

However, things will change with the higher GPU options, which would either run hotter, noisier or both, so make sure to look into detailed reviews if interested in those options.

*Daily Use – streaming Netflix in EDGE for 30 minutes, Silent Profile, fans at 30-33 dB
*Gaming – Performance mode – playing Far Cry 5 for 30 minutes, fans at 42-43 dB
*Gaming – Quiet mode– playing Far Cry 5 for 30 minutes, fans at 38-39 dB

For connectivity, there’s an Intel AX200 2×2 Wireless 6 implementation inside this laptop, with Bluetooth 5.0, as well as Gigabit Lan through a Realtek module. We’ve mostly used our sample on wireless, and it performed flawlessly both near the router and at 30+ feet away, with obstacles in between.

Audio is handled by a set of speakers firing through cuts on the lateral sides of the underbelly. They sounded distorted out-of-the-box, but once the laptop finished up updating the software, the audio ended up cleaner. These are still small laptop-class speakers, but overall they sound somewhat nicer than the average implementations in $1000 gaming laptops. On top of that, not having to deal with loud fans definitely helps their cause in games.

Finally, there’s a 720p webcam on this laptop, placed at the top of the screen, and flanked by microphones. It’s there for when you’ll really need it, but the image quality is washed out and muddy.

Battery life

Lenovo offers the Legion 5 with either a 60 or an 80 Wh battery, and we have the latter version here. Combined with an efficient hardware implementation, this notebook lasts for a long while on a charge.

Here’s what we got on our review unit, with the screen’s brightness set at around 120 nits (~60 brightness).

12 W (~7+ h of use) – text editing in Google Drive, Quiet Mode, screen at 60%, Wi-Fi ON;
7.5 W (~10 h of use) – 1080p fullscreen video on Youtube in Edge, Quiet Mode, screen at 60%, Wi-Fi ON;
7 W (~11 h of use) – Netflix fullscreen in Edge, Quiet Mode, screen at 60%, Wi-Fi ON;
15 W (~5-6 h of use) – browsing in Edge, Balance Mode, screen at 60%, Wi-Fi ON.

The laptop comes with a compact and fairly light 170W charger that plugs-in via their proprietary rectangular plug. A full charge takes about 2 hours if you enable Quick charging from the Vantage app, or 2+ hours otherwise. USB-C charging is not supported.

Price and availability- Lenovo Legion 5

We’re looking at a starting price of under $900 for the base-level Lenovo Legion 5 at this point, but there are at least a few extras you’ll want here: one of the 300-nits screens, and preferably the 144 Hz option if you’re playing games, dual-channel memory and at least 512 GB of storage, although that’s something you can add yourselves later on (without impacting warranty in most regions).

Our review configuration ends up at around $1350 at the time of this post, and that’s expensive for what it is, but you’ll most likely find it for less later on. In fact, the competition offers GTX 1660Ti configurations for under $1000 these days (details in here), with RTX 2060 models going for around $1200 to $1300 (more details).

As I mentioned in the beginning, I paid less than 1000 EUR for my configuration over here. That was an early-launch deal on a pre-configured unit, but you should expect to get yours for under 1000 USD/EUR as well later in the year.

Follow this link for updated prices and configurations in your region.

Final thoughts- Lenovo Legion 5 review

This Legion 5 notebook is in some ways better than I was expecting.

Sure, I knew the AMD Ryzen platform is an excellent performer in CPU heavy tasks and efficient in everyday use, and I also knew that Lenovo offer a clean utilitarian design, good inputs, good screens, and overall a multitude of configuration options.

However, I wasn’t expecting this to run as cooly and quietly as it does with demanding loads and games. I haven’t reviewed all the Ryzen notebooks out there, but I don’t think any can match it at these ends, which makes the Legion 5 an excellent work/school notebook for those of you who plan to run demanding loads that would benefit from this Ryzen platform.

At the same time, this only tops at a GTX 1650Ti GPU, at least for now, which greatly limits its gaming performance and overall potential with GPU-heavy loads. Furthermore, although I got my unit for a good price, this seems to be fairly expensive in most regions for a GTX 1650Ti notebook, and I feel that it needs to drop in price to compensate for the limited GPU option. Furthermore, I hope Lenovo can come to their senses and offer at least a 1660Ti dGPU choice in most regions. Right now, 1660Ti and 2060 configurations are announced for later in the year, but those might not be available worldwide and we don’t know when we’ll be able to actually buy them. They are already available on the Intel-based Legion 5i variant of this laptop, though.

I’ll also add that I’m disappointed by the rubbery interior coating on this laptop, it doesn’t seem durable and I don’t think it will age well, which is something you should be aware of. Maybe that’s just an issue with these first-batch models, but this is a retail product, and having that front lip dent that easily is unacceptable to me. In fact, it might be just enough reason to send this back.

In conclusion, while excellent on many levels, I feel you should hold off on this Legion 5 for now, unless you’re primarily getting it for its CPU prowess and Lenovo offers it for a good deal in your region (which should be at around 1000 USD/EUR for a configuration such as mine). Otherwise, ~$1000 can already get you 1660Ti notebooks with both AMD and Intel hardware, such as Asus TUF Gaming A15 or the 2019 Acer Predator Helios 300, among others. And while not without their flaws, the higher-tier GPU makes those better overall laptops.

This wraps up our review of the Lenovo Legion 5, but I’d like to know what you heard about it, so get in touch in the comments section down below.

Update: In the meantime, Lenovo updated this laptop, and our review of the 2021 Lenovo Legion 5 15 is available here, while our review of the Legion 5 17-inch model is available here.

Disclaimer: Our content is reader-supported. If you buy through some of the links on our site, we may earn a commission. Terms.

Review by: Andrei Girbea
Andrei Girbea is a Writer and Editor-in-Chief here at Ultrabookreview.com. I write about mobile technology, laptops and computers in general. I've been doing it for more than 15 years now. I'm a techie with a Bachelor's in Computer Engineering. I mostly write reviews and thorough guides here on the site, with some occasional columns and first-impression articles.

81 Comments

Eivind

June 26, 2020 at 9:56 pm

Good review! This notebook would be awesome with a 2060 or 2070 if it ever becomes an option.

This thermal solution should have been used in Dell G5 SE 5600m, that could have made smartshift shine!

Reply
mind12

June 27, 2020 at 12:10 pm

Thank you for the review. This model is promising.

That rubbery coating issue would be also a deal breaker for me that's why I'm expecting the metal 7i model so much.
However this tearing was unexpected, I read 3-4 great reviews about the make of the Lenovo 5 on reddit, nobody mentioned any tearing and praised the build quaility so much.
Could you please post some close pictures about it?

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- Andrei Girbea
  
  June 27, 2020 at 1:16 pm
  
  Watch the video, it's at the beginning. They're hard to show on camera, there's a bigger dent towards the right side, and a few smaller ones just under the clickpad.
  
  I also wasn't expecting this, so I don't know if my unit was somehow flawed, or it's a wider spread problem. I'd reckon its the latter, though, Lenovo have had similar issues in the past on their THinkPads
  
  Reply
ericz

June 27, 2020 at 6:14 pm

Thanks for good review. I'd like to know what's the maximum of RAM support for Lenovo Legion 5 and 5i. Did you test to put more than 16GB?

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- Andrei Girbea
  
  June 28, 2020 at 10:30 am
  
  I haven't. with two DIMMs, this should take up to 64 GB of memory with compatible sticks.
  
  Reply
  - Jim Sks
    
    June 29, 2020 at 3:24 pm
    
    I think people are asking because Lenovo spec sheets state 16GB as max RAM. As far as I know, nobody has actually tested this with 32GB or more.
  - Daniel
    
    July 6, 2020 at 5:03 pm
    
    Exactlly, I would also be interested. Does it allow more than 16 gigs of RAM?
  - Andrei Girbea
    
    July 6, 2020 at 5:48 pm
    
    I haven't tried it, but I don't see why this would not work with at least 32 GB
- JB
  
  July 10, 2020 at 8:04 am
  
  No problem with 32GB 25600 Ram.
  
  Reply
j.g.

June 28, 2020 at 12:57 am

I have the impression that the overal plastic build quality on this model is somehow inferior to the Y540's one. Those dents are a big dissapointment, and if a wide spread issue or not is something we'll soon enough find on Reddit, I guess.

One of the many things I do still like from the Y540 is the build quality. Do you have the impression, having reviewed both series, that Lenovo went backwards on this matter on this particular tier?

It would be interesting to see if 5, 5i, and 5Pi models do share the same plastic quality or not.

Reply
- Andrei Girbea
  
  June 28, 2020 at 10:37 am
  
  I no longer have the Y540 at hand for a side by side comparison, but as far as I remember, they feel mostly the same. The main deck is solid, and the screen's hinges are perhaps the only part that I could nitpick, as they didn't feel just as smooth as I would have wanted.
  
  The 5Pi has been listed here, initially at 1500+ EUR for the 1660Ti and now at around 1300 EUR. Might consider getting one for a review, but idk yet, it's rather expensive.
  
  Reply
Geoff

June 28, 2020 at 1:05 am

Slightly off topic since you haven't even reviewed the Legion 7i 15.6" yet, but have you heard anything about them releasing a Legion 7i 17.3" variant? Still chasing that 17" gaming laptop with a 3ms response time and less than 10 nits of brightness.

Reply
- Andrei Girbea
  
  June 28, 2020 at 10:38 am
  
  Last time I asked I was told there's no 17-inch 7i series this year, only 17-inch versions of the 5s
  
  Reply
Alexis

June 28, 2020 at 4:19 pm

Hi Andrei,

I was wondering whatever happened to Lenovo Ideapad/Yoga S940? I thought you're planning on reviewing it or was I dreaming? :-)

Reply
- Andrei Girbea
  
  June 28, 2020 at 4:30 pm
  
  No, I never had a sample of that. My access to Lenovo test laptops is a rather limited over here, and having to buy review units isn't something we, as a small independent publication, can sustain. This Legion was one of the few receptions, due to the higher interest.
  
  Reply
  - Alexis
    
    June 28, 2020 at 5:06 pm
    
    Thanks for the prompt reply!
    
    Aah that explains it. Have you though of creating a patreon page, by any chance?
  - Andrei Girbea
    
    June 28, 2020 at 5:19 pm
    
    I've considered it, but don't have any as of yet.
Abhijit

June 29, 2020 at 10:49 am

Any chance we could see LatencyMon numbers?

Reply
- Andrei Girbea
  
  June 29, 2020 at 1:26 pm
  
  they're in the article
  
  Reply
  - Abhijit
    
    June 29, 2020 at 2:44 pm
    
    Can't believe I missed it, I thought I was thorough!
    
    Thanks very much, your video was very helpful in my purchase decision.
Adi

June 29, 2020 at 1:15 pm

Thanks for the review.
It's one of the few AMD laptops with good thermals, but the dGPU is too weak. Lenovo should use 5600M or 5700M with Freesync and DP.
Is it possible to disable the dGPU? Could you test the iGPU?

Reply
- Andrei Girbea
  
  June 29, 2020 at 1:26 pm
  
  You can disable the dGPU, but why would you want that on this sort of a laptop?
  
  Reply
  - Adi
    
    June 29, 2020 at 3:04 pm
    
    More battery life if you don't play games.
    I'm also curious how the iGPU performs compared to dGPU.
  - j.g.
    
    June 29, 2020 at 3:37 pm
    
    Ever heard of Optimus Tech? And no, I don't mean the Transformer ;)
Jason B.

June 30, 2020 at 10:25 pm

Minor typo in the Verdict "300Hz screens" but I'm sure you meant 300 nit!

Reply
- Andrei Girbea
  
  July 1, 2020 at 9:50 am
  
  Thanks, updated
  
  Reply
nitti

July 1, 2020 at 7:15 pm

Hey Andrei, is it true that we no longer need to reboot to activate Nvidia Optimus (or Advanced Optimus I should say)? Anyways it is true that Lenovo products are still priced crazily at the moment, seems to be the case everywhere else in the world. Looks like they've really taken a huge hit by the pandemic.

On another note, yay for 2.3kg! (2.5kg is just nuts, and the diff in 200g is very noticeable)

Reply
- Andrei Girbea
  
  July 1, 2020 at 7:25 pm
  
  Only some of the Intel versions, and mostly of the 7i support Advanced Optimus. These AMD models still require a reboot to switch between hybrid and discrete modes.
  
  Reply
G B

July 2, 2020 at 4:16 pm

Great article and analysis of performance as a function of CPU power. Also liked the addition of the technical applications performance since not a gamer but in technical sciences. However it helps the readers if you add just a bit of context and reference to the technical results. For example, the addition of something like 'The SPECviewperf 13 results place this 8-core Ryzen 4800H laptop above a 10-core Xeon W-2155 @3.3GHz with a Quadro P2000 desktop workstation in CPU centric tasks but below it in graphics heavy tasks due to the Quadro drivers. In addition, this Lenovo Legion platform outperforms a 6-core Xeon E-2176M Quadro P630 mobile platform by 30-100%.' with links to to the SPECviewperf 13 results page https://www.spec.org/gwpg/gpc.data/vp13/summary.html and the results of the same TU106 chip as GTX mobile vs Quadro RTX mobile in SPECviewperf https://www.notebookcheck.net/GeForce-RTX-2060-Laptop-vs-Quadro-RTX-3000-Laptop-vs-Quadro-RTX-3000-Max-Q_9581_9854_9884.247598.0.html I can't seem to easily find a Quadrp equivalent to TU116/TU117

Reply
- Andrei Girbea
  
  July 2, 2020 at 4:45 pm
  
  Hi, thanks for the suggestion, I'll consider it for our next reviews. I'm trying to go into as much details as possible, but we're a very small team here and can't always include all the details and context.
  
  As for your last questions, a Quadro T1000 is the equivalent of a GTX 1650 as far as I remember.
  
  Reply
Wertzius

July 7, 2020 at 10:29 am

Nice review as always! Small mistake: Below the summary at the top you are saying it has a 100% AdobeRGb Display but it is only sRGB as you state correctly below.

Reply
- Andrei Girbea
  
  July 7, 2020 at 10:35 am
  
  Thanks, corrected.
  
  Reply
  - Kai Will
    
    July 7, 2020 at 7:06 pm
    
    Thank alot for this review.I just want to know which one should i buy legion 5 or tuf a15.If i pick a15 i will get 4800h+1650ti but for legion i will get only 4600h+1650.
    I'm worry for thermal issue that a15 always got 85~95°C on heavy test since i want to use this divice 3to5years.Pls give me advice
    which one should i buy for 3to5years.
  - Andrei Girbea
    
    July 7, 2020 at 7:31 pm
    
    i'll have an article comparing the 4800H + 1650 version of the A15 with the 4800H + 1650Ti version of the legion 5, most likely next week.
R

July 10, 2020 at 2:40 am

Hi. I know you said avoid the 120hz screen. But i have a decent deal with the 120hz and i was wondering if you’ve had a chance to try it. Is it really that bad to avoid it? Thanks ;)

Reply
- Andrei Girbea
  
  July 10, 2020 at 5:18 pm
  
  I haven't. Washed out colors are the main reason I'd avoid it
  
  Reply
Ibrahim Meru

August 4, 2020 at 7:19 pm

This is/was a really good review. I need a new laptop for general business work, but also need something decent which will handle my photo processing, and video rendering. Your review talks about gaming, but I am wondering if this will work well for photo and video processing. Your thoughts will be greatly appreciated.

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- Andrei Girbea
  
  August 4, 2020 at 7:48 pm
  
  should work fine with those apps, just make sure to get the 100 sRGB screen
  
  Reply
Evgenii

August 8, 2020 at 7:51 am

Andrei Girbea, thank you for the great review.
This is laptop I'am looking for. Hope Lenovo start selling this laptop with more powerful graphic card soon (and hopefully the article will be updated!).
And I have one question that is pretty important for using this machine as a versatile laptop – did Lenovo narrow the keyboard a lot? Fingers with a blind typing method immediately fell on the desired keys (little fingers did not miss the "delete" keys and did they confuse the key with the number 7, for example, with the key with the number 6?).

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- Andrei Girbea
  
  August 8, 2020 at 10:32 am
  
  the keys are the standard size, but the layout is slightly shifted to the left with the inclusion of the NUmPad section, and that could take some time to get used to
  
  Reply
  - Evgenii
    
    August 8, 2020 at 2:59 pm
    
    Got it!
    Then this is not at all a critical inconvenience.
    
    Thank you, Andrei.
tamal

August 8, 2020 at 12:27 pm

I'm happy to see that unlike Asus (with G14 and G15), Lenovo has not intentionally compromised the cooling solution. Desktop-like performance and Ultrabook-like battery life…finally some real progress for notebooks.
Thanks for the nice reviews.

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Heckler

August 9, 2020 at 10:49 pm

Thanks for your great review.

May I have a question about where did you purchase that Legion model?
I'm in Germany and unable to find any Legion model with AMD cpu and good screen (meaning the model with AMD goes with 120Hz screen, only model with Intel goes with 144Hz screen).

Reply
- Andrei Girbea
  
  August 10, 2020 at 11:54 am
  
  I'm in Romania and got this from emag.ro . I don't think hey deliver to De though
  
  Reply
  - Mitko Nikolov
    
    August 11, 2020 at 5:28 pm
    
    Hi! I have the same model bought from emag.bg. Could you share calibrated display profile? Thanks !
- Heckler
  
  August 11, 2020 at 12:03 am
  
  Wow, thank you, JG, good things come to those who wait.
  
  Reply
  - JG
    
    August 22, 2020 at 4:59 pm
    
    "And here… we… go" ;)
    
    The RY7/RTX2060/144 MHz/80Wh model will be available from the end of next month, first priced for pre-order one week ago in NL:
    
    https://tweakers.net/pricewatch/1591796/lenovo-legion-5-15arh05h-82b1003emh.html
    
    https://www.centralpoint.nl/notebooks-laptops/lenovo/lenovo-legion5-15arh05h-r7-4800h-16gb-art-82b1003emh-num-13192203/?ref=1&utm_source=tweakersnet&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=tweakersclick
    
    (€ 1300 for those specs + 1TB SSD + 16 GB… Not bad at all :)
    
    For those interested, I would still wait a bit for better (and even cheaper) shops getting that model (which will for sure happen) before ordering, since CP isn't really preaised in NL as a retailer.
    
    Also since this model's twin brother is awaiting destination:
    
    https://tweakers.net/laptops/vergelijken/#filter:q1ZKKkrMS_FMKVayijYzM4nVUcovSkktcstMzUlRslIqKMrMKlaCCgbnF5UAxRKLk-EiBanJnkB1uoY6IKXJqb6ZeUpWBjpKxUAJt8ycktQioMHVSiYmFsYguiwxB2iPkqOvi0JQZVVqnoK5UmytjpKxiTGytKGJiaURUKK2FgA
    
    “Trees that are slow to grow bear the best fruit.” ― Moliere
  - Evgenii
    
    August 23, 2020 at 7:12 am
    
    At the end of sempember?! Ohhhhh!
    Is it valid for all countries? (I'am from Russia).
    
    Thank you, JG, for the actual information. Waiting good notebook with spec for so long already. Arghhh!
  - Jg
    
    August 25, 2020 at 4:51 pm
    
    For anyone following, new Legion 5 models on AMD R7/RTX2060 are already being listed for almost all countries on psref (retailers to follow soon).
    
    As an example, the RY7/RTX2060/144MHz/80Wh model mentioned aboved:
    
    Germany: https://psref.lenovo.com/Detail/Legion/Lenovo_Legion_5_15ARH05H?M=82B1009KGE (didn't take that long, Heckler :)
    
    Russia: https://psref.lenovo.com/Detail/Legion/Lenovo_Legion_5_15ARH05H?M=82B1000QRU (there, Evgenii :)
    
    But there are now also several other GTX 1660ti/RTX 2060 configurations to choose from:
    
    https://psref.lenovo.com/Product/Legion/Lenovo_Legion_5_15ARH05H
    
    AND, also 2 new AMD models!
    
    The new Legion 5 AMD/17.3 inch with 1660/2060/144Hz: https://psref.lenovo.com/Product/Legion/Lenovo_Legion_5_17ARH05H
    
    And the unexpected Legion 5P('a'…I guess), 15.6 inch also with AMD 1660/2060/144Hz: https://psref.lenovo.com/Product/Legion/Lenovo_Legion_5P_15ARH05H
    
    So, plenty to choose from… Have fun! ;)
  - Evgenii
    
    September 4, 2020 at 6:41 am
    
    Cool, Jg!
    You help to commit 'to the end' and wait "a little more". =))
    But every day of "waiting" I am walking on the edge more and more, because the dollar is growing against the ruble (more and more). But there is no turning back.)) Faster Lenovo, damn you!
    
    And hope with RTX2060 the temperature and noise will be on level around with the 1650Ti model.
  - Jg
    
    September 13, 2020 at 10:50 am
    
    I cannot compare it to the GTX 1650ti (since I don't own any), but since you're wondering about heat/noises on the RTX 2060 mobile card, here pasted my experience with the Lenovo Y540/RTX 2060, which 'ended' being a great machine (borrowed from a previous thread):
    
    "… please be aware that many RTX mobile cards are unlocked from stock, and their base frecuency-voltage graphics are exactly the same whether they are desktop or mobile versions, RTX 2060, 2070 or 2080 models.
    
    That's why they can become quite noisy and hot from stock settings on high workloads, since they can boost performance way beyond their turbo limits, as if they are delivered overclocked/overvolted from Nvidia itself.
    
    https://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-RTX-2060-Laptop-Graphics-Card.384946.0.html
    
    In theory, the RTX2060 has a 1200 Mhz turbo limit, but on my Y540 it was reaching 2000 Mhz from stock settings, with the subsequent noise, and power throttling. After talking to Lenovo Support and researching the web, I found out that high temps and coil whinning/rattling noises on RTX cards can be also caused by this issue. And since the cooling system feeds both CPU and GPU, this issue can also lower the thermal margins and performance for the CPU.
    
    In theory the Bios should control the voltage delivered to the GPU card within the official margins, but not every brand delivers efficient settings for each model from scratch. That's why the Acer Nitro (aesthetics aside) performs so well out of the box, but it can be knocked out by other models with the same specs (and terrible stock performance) only with the right tweaking.
    
    My experience with Lenovo is that of great concepts/basic hardware which always needs adjustments.
    
    In my case, my Y540 came with a faulty AC Adapter (which was the one causing at first electrical noises) which couldn't output voltage properly. It was swiftly replaced by Lenovo, and while the electrical noises were completely gone, and I had my CPU undervolted, my RTX 2060 kept giving me high temps and noisy performances (audible from 50 cm distance).
    
    After running HWINFO64 and OC Scanner (+185 result) with MSI afterburner, I finally tried several graphic profiles and compared the data. Since I cannot post images, here just a general link and video about how to undervolt your GPU:
    
    (my final frecuency/voltage profile, the one I use since then, is very similar to the img posted there on the thread)
    
    Just by raising the frecuency dots +165 till you reach/cross the 725 mV voltage value, and by flatenning the curve from there to the right, you can both undervolt the card and prevent the turbo frecuency from raising higher than 1500 Mhz.
    
    And by that, my temps never go higher than 65 degrees (v-sync on) or 70 degrees (v-sync off), while performance is just 5-10 % lower than the 'unlocked-overvolted-overclocked' stock profile. Also all noises are completely gone, even if I put my head against the keyboard I can barely hear anything from the GPU. Fans will of course kick in while heavy GPU tasking/gaming, but with light workload/gaming not even that, or just for a few moments."
    
    Also, the improved Lenovo thermal design on the new Legion series seems to work quite well (as stated above in the article). So even if it's not possible to undervolt the AMD Ryzen7 CPU, it should work quite nicely combined with a RTX 2060.
    
    While waiting I hope anyone gets one of these new models reviewed and we'll find out.
  - Evgenii
    
    September 24, 2020 at 7:15 pm
    
    Still waiting, Jg.
    Read your info about "abracadabra-staff" with undervolting RTX-2060 and ready to messing with this too.
    
    And dollar is growing against the ruble from 68 to 76 already and that sucker grow averyday quicker and quicker.
    But, it is what it is.
    Hope in couple of weeks I can buy this beast!
  - Evgenii
    
    October 17, 2020 at 6:59 pm
    
    I'm furious. Still no config with 4800H + 16Gb + RTX2060 + 144Gz.
    What's going on Lenovo?! Where is that goodie?!
    You already owe me a good discount, damn it!
    
    Only in one Internet shop there is a 4600H + 8Gb + RTX2060 + 60Gz.
    What a joke!
Laszlo

August 18, 2020 at 2:40 am

Hi,
Thanks for the nice review!:)
I just want to ask if you measured the 0 pwm or is it from another source? I'm thinking about going for the 60hz model and you are the only one who has that unit for review:)

Reply
Donoven Clark

September 14, 2020 at 1:11 am

Typing on the Legion 5 now, the Ryzen 5 with the 1650TI, I must say for the price it's good $836 after tax. It has the same power as my Ryzen 5 2600 desktop I sold but less TDP but of course the gpu is a downside as my desktop had the RX5700. But this is much quieter and I can carry my workstation with me where ever I go which is a big plus. The rubber coating on my seems to be fine, I plan on babying it but I will say the hing has noticeable touch up paint.

Reply
- Evgenii
  
  September 24, 2020 at 7:18 pm
  
  Donoven, are you typing with "blind 10-fingers method"? How good it is? It is comfort to type – are you enjoying it? Do you adapt quick for it's keyboard?
  
  Reply
Ojas

September 24, 2020 at 2:26 am

Can you tell me where you bought the laptop?

Reply
Mahmoud

September 26, 2020 at 7:52 pm

Great review thanks! Actually I was looking for something with these specs and price especially 100% sRGB because I want my laptop for average rendering editing and every now and then gaming so I needed a balance but that GTX 1650 is worrying me plus in my region they don't come with OS I have to pay additional 130$ for Windows 10 home. I'm not a pro gamer and I rather playing major games(like RDR2 for example) on a gaming console and bigger screen TV: so how much should I consider this graphic model downside?
Also do you suggest any alternatives with in this price range with 100 sRGB?

Reply
Jep

October 3, 2020 at 1:21 pm

Hello. Congratulations on managing the website. You are very prepared. thank you. Excuse my english. Will there be a review for legion 5 RTX 2060? a new legion 5p version just came out. This version is identical to the legion 5: it does not have the webcam, it changes the design, it has many metal parts, the parts of the heat dissipation are built with a special material. Right now the legion 5p Rtx 2060 is only found in England (in one site …) Will you even review this? In my part there is only the legion 5 GTX 1660ti version. I am undecided whether to wait for the RTX2060, legion5p RTX2060, asus G14, or to wait for some news within this month … What do you recommend? Thanks again.

Reply
- Andrei Girbea
  
  October 3, 2020 at 5:03 pm
  
  no promise, but I might have a review of the 2060 model at some point
  
  Reply
  - Jep
    
    October 3, 2020 at 8:58 pm
    
    Would be great! it is possible that in the lenovo legion 5p they have improved the aesthetic defects of the legion 5. The ryzen 7 4800 could do better with rtx 2060.
Jan

October 3, 2020 at 6:54 pm

Thank You for very informative review. Its one of reasons why Im now typing on my own Legion 5. It is possible to share calibrated color profile with us? I have Legion 5 with Ryzen 4600 and 1650, but with exactly same display, but colors seems off. Unfortunately, I havent got acces to color calibration sensor, so Im wondering, if I can use others ICC to get colors and white point corrected. Thanks

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Jg

October 27, 2020 at 1:50 pm

The R7/RTX2060/80W model it's out in Europe! 24 hours delivery in The Netherlands :)

https://www.bol.com/nl/p/lenovo-legion-5-82b1003emh-gaming-laptop-15-6-inch/9300000005807198/?Referrer=ADVNLPPcef23c00cdbf92970065bba51d011057677&utm_source=1057677&utm_medium=Affiliates&utm_campaign=CPS&utm_content=pdl

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TurtleMint

November 6, 2020 at 11:52 pm

Thanks for this test. Any way we could have a display accuracy test on the 144 hZ ? The only one I found on YouTube, about contrast it was way lower than the 1064:1 (750:1 wtf!), I wish I could have someone telling me there's a hiccup…

Reply
- Andrei Girbea
  
  November 7, 2020 at 11:43 am
  
  I don't have a sample, so can't test that for now
  
  Reply
Evgenii

November 14, 2020 at 8:35 am

Finally, I've got the 4800H + RTX2060 + 1Tb + 16Gb + 144Gz!
Like Heckler says in a post couple of monthes ago: "Good things come to those who wait."
This beast work like a charm.
And on a maximum graphics option in newer games it really noisy for me. (It's my 1st "gamer's noutbook and this is what I don't realize in fully). So, I choose to do the undervolting stuff, that Jg provided in the comments. In usual work with "heavy programs" it cool and fast.
Thanks once again for the great review, Jg!

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Tanwir

November 16, 2020 at 12:35 pm

Hey man, great review! :)

Really helpful !

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badwolf

December 15, 2020 at 8:09 pm

Got Legion 5 , Ryzen 5 3600H and rtx 2060 115w version, 16gb ram, 144hz display, 4 zone rgb keyboard, 1 TB ( acutally its very good compared to 500 GB ) version, two months and rubber finish is 100% condition.. I love it totally, make sure to turn off 144hz screen when battery life is a concern you can get up to double

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Evgenii

December 18, 2020 at 3:57 pm

Badwolf, what do you mean "to turn off 144hz screen"? Switch to 60hz? If this – there is no option to do this! Only 144hz…

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wito

December 20, 2020 at 9:35 am

Hi. Just for a note. I noticed there are some cases during daily use, when fans dont spin at all and laptop remains completely silent, although its not often.

Reply
Bambang

January 2, 2021 at 11:42 am

What is your configuration for battery life, your battery performance is amazing..i read many review only got 3-4 hours for normal activity (not gaming)

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- Andy Turfer
  
  October 26, 2021 at 10:40 pm
  
  Very late reply, but I have this model and I'm getting around 8 hours of "normal" use on Linux. To achieve this, I turn off the Nvidia GPU completely and just run of the integrated AMD Radeon.
  
  Reply
Patren 4gou

April 5, 2021 at 4:14 pm

And here I thought my Legion 5 was unlucky… I accidentally flung my glasses and its metal frame fell on to the lip of my Legion 5, leaving this nasty dent…

I was like, screw this. Brought out my grinding file that I use for Gunpla building and, it now looks good as new… I really wish Premium Care wouldn't mind me doing so lol

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Mihai Gavrilescu

May 25, 2021 at 5:34 pm

Thank you for your review! Very helpful!

I want to buy the Lenovo Legion 5 15ARH05 (82B500QSRM) model and while looking to the Model's Configurations (https://psref.lenovo.com/Detail/Legion/Lenovo_Legion_5_15ARH05?M=82B500QSRM and https://psref.lenovo.com/Product/Lenovo_Legion_5_15ARH05?ViewSpec=true) i see the following at the Storage section:

I would to ask you to clarify something for me: why there is no option listed for the initial SSD (M.2) + a 2.5" SSD? There are every other options available (2xM.2 SSD or 1xM.2 SSD + 1×2.5" HDD, but i see no option to populate the 2.5" slot with a 2.5" SSD. I would like to use the 512 Gb M.2 build-in SSD and to buy a 1Tb 2.5" SSD. Can i do that?

Thank you very much.

Reply
- Andrei Girbea
  
  May 25, 2021 at 5:44 pm
  
  Yeah, I don't see why that won't be possible. The only thing I'm not entirely sure is if you buy a configuration that only comes with an SSD, whether Lenovo include the required connector for the 2.5" drive or not. You should try to find more about this, or at least buy from a store that easily allows returns in case they do not
  
  Reply
  - Mihai Gavrilescu
    
    May 25, 2021 at 5:50 pm
    
    They say:
    — edited
    
    So i think the connector may be included.
    
    If i may, i would like to ask you one more thing: it comes with 8Gb RAM and i would like to upgrade it to 16 Gb. For that i will have to buy 1x 8GB SO-DIMM DDR4-3200. Are there any software tools to determine the exaxt manufacture and model of the in-build RAM for me to buy one exactly the same for max speed? So, to put it simple, how can i determine the RAM manufacturer and model?
    
    Once again thank you.
  - Andrei Girbea
    
    May 25, 2021 at 5:57 pm
    
    HWinfo will show the exact brand and code number for the RAM module.
Mihai Gavrilescu

May 25, 2021 at 6:05 pm

Thank you, Andrei! It works like a charm! ;)

Reply
yslee

July 15, 2021 at 2:46 pm

Lucky people who can get 1660 Ti laptops at US$1000; here they're all starting at US$1400. The Legion 5 is one of the few options for a decent gaming laptop at that price point.

Reply
Vigo

August 29, 2021 at 1:02 am

Legion 5 Pro series panels has internal resolution 3840 x 2400 pixels.

1) install latest NVidia driver (not from Lenovo)
2) install driver from this site: drivers.softpedia.com/get/MONITOR/LG/LG-Ultra-HD-4K-Monitor-Driver-1-0.shtml

Enjoy gaming 4k

Reply
- Junaid
  
  January 12, 2022 at 5:12 am
  
  If we are to install secondary m2 ssd like samsung 980 will it require a heatsink or some aluminum cover like the primary one ?
  
  Reply

Lenovo Legion 5 review (AMD Ryzen 7 4800H, GTX 1650Ti gaming laptop)

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