Joined in 2023 
82 
63 About this deal
The Legion 5 Pro shows off solid results in these tests, breezing past the 4,000-point line in PCMark 10 that indicates excellent productivity for everyday apps like Word and Excel and slightly trailing its Intel-based sibling in our CPU benchmarks. It's more than powerful enough for daily duties and moderate content creation or multimedia editing. Graphics and Gaming Tests USB-A 3.1 gen 1, 1x USB-C 3.2 gen2 with Data, power and DP, 1x USB-C 3.2 gen1, SD card reader, HDMI 2.1, LAN, headphone/mic As usual, Lenovo delivers a great keyboard: the buttons deliver a great balance between the snappiness required for gaming and the softness needed for longer typing sessions. The buttons are fast and consistent, too. The layout is solid: there’s a numberpad, and the full-size cursor keys are separated from the rest of the unit. The synthetic tests above are helpful for measuring general 3D aptitude, but it's hard to beat full retail video games for judging gaming performance. Far Cry 5 and Rise of the Tomb Raider are both modern, high-fidelity titles with built-in benchmarks that illustrate how a system handles real-world video games at various settings. We run them at the games' moderate and maximum graphics quality presets (Normal and Ultra for Far Cry 5, Medium and Very High for Rise of the Tomb Raider) at 1080p resolution. Far Cry 5 is DirectX 11-based, while we flip Rise of the Tomb Raider to DX12. The eight-core AMD processor is brilliant. Its PCMark 10 result of 7038 is more than 600 points ahead of the Asus, which used the same chip to lesser affect. Lenovo’s laptop scored 1404 and 7197 in the Geekbench tests, with both results also outpacing Asus. This chip is even further ahead of the Intel Core i7-11800H used in the MSI.
The Legion TrueStrike keyboard enables you to strike with extreme precision and satisfying keystrokes—now featuring 33% less percussion noise so you can work in silence. Featuring soft-landing switches that deliver deeper strokes with equal force on every strike, this keyboard provides the comfort you need to play at your best level. Never miss a shot via Legion Spectrum RGB, and a full-sized number pad and even larger arrow keys. USB-A 3.2 gen2, 1x USB-C 3.2 DP 1.4, 1x USB-C with DP 1.4 and PD support, 1x HDMI 2.1, ethernet, mic/earphone As you would expect of a gaming laptop, the screen isn’t touch-enabled and it has a matte coating. If you want a display with a QHD resolution or support for Nvidia’s G-Sync technology, then you’ll need to look at the more expensive Legion 5 Pro or Legion 7 models.
The build quality is also very good. Sure, it’s all plastic, but the chosen materials and design make the unit feel high-quality for the price you are paying for it. I didn’t detect any abnormal creaks in the casing during normal use. Our Lenovo Legion 5 has an AMD Ryzen 5 5600H CPU, an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 (95W) dedicated GPU, 8GB of memory, and 256GB of storage. If you need better multi-thread performance, you can upgrade the CPU to an AMD Ryzen 7 5800H, which has more cores and threads. The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 is the lowest-end GPU option and can provide a 60 fps gaming experience at 1080p, though you'll have to play at low settings in most games. The RTX 3050 and 3050Ti are very similar and will get you around or slightly above 60 fps with medium or high settings, with the 3050Ti being only marginally better. The RTX 3060 is faster than the RTX 3050, providing a 35 to 40% performance boost over the RTX 3050. The AMD Radeon RX 6600M is roughly the equivalent of an RTX 3060; the performance will vary depending on each game's optimization. The RTX 3070 is the highest-end GPU available and the best option to pair with the QHD 165Hz display.
The colours are middling, too. The panel does display a decent 91.7% of the sRGB colour gamut and its Delta E of 2.39 is reasonable, but the temperature of 7809K is cool. Combine this with the low contrast figure and you’ve got a display that looks pallid. The Legion 5 Pro won or tied for first place in all three multimedia tests, thanks in large part to its AMD CPU. The Ryzen 7 and 9 5000 series chips have proven to be a bit faster than equivalent Intel Core i7 and Core i9 processors for media creation and editing. The Core i9-based Alienware m17 R4 tied the Lenovo in both Handbrake and Photoshop, but the Legion 5 Pro had a clear advantage in Cinebench, in fact posting the second-highest score we've seen in a gaming laptop. If you can't afford both a gaming rig and a workstation, the Legion 5 Pro is an able machine for content creation as well as playing games. Graphics Tests
Similar products
The maximum volume is a little below average for my taste. I could only get it to reach 70dB, but only after tweaking Nahimic. In performance mode, the fans really start to overwhelm the speakers at full volume. The fans are also exactly the same. They are pretty large in size and identical to the other Legion laptops. The only disappointment I have is the right fan on the GPU side could have been larger, but Lenovo chose not to. Could be for sourcing concerns for consistency, but I hate to see such a large empty space in a laptop. Seems like a wasted opportunity. W (~5 h 56 min of use)– 1080p Youtube fullscreen in Chrome, Better Battery Mode, screen at 70%, Wi-Fi ON, screen set to 144Hz; On paper, this looks very similar to the Legion 5 I reviewed a few months ago. But in reality, there are some subtle differences that need to be pointed out, especially if you’re on the fence about choosing between the two sizes. The good news is, I didn’t have any problems with this one like I did with the 15” Legion 5. So far, it has been working just fine. My speed test results in 430Mbps at about 30 feet away from my router. This module also has Bluetooth 5.2 which seems to work fine for me.
I didn't try to disassemble any further than shown. There was not any other obvious parts that could be added or replaced. The main difference between this model and the 15” version is the RGB. Not that the 15” model had the best RGB – it was pretty much entry level as far as RGB keyboards go. But this 17” model’s keyboard only has white with two brightness levels. Probably not a deal breaker for most people, but definitely worth noting. Three benchmarks focus on the CPU, using all available cores and threads, to rate a PC's suitability for processor-intensive workloads. Maxon's Cinebench R23 uses that company's Cinema 4D engine to render a complex scene, while Primate Labs' Geekbench 5.4 Pro simulates popular apps ranging from PDF rendering and speech recognition to machine learning. Finally, we use the open-source video transcoder HandBrake 1.4 to convert a 12-minute video clip from 4K to 1080p resolution (lower times are better).The extra performance comes at the cost of a heavier and larger chassis. The large protruding rear is hard to ignore and competitors like theAsus TUF Gaming F15 FX507ZM or Razer Blade 15 Base Model are each noticeably lighter. If you travel a lot, then the higher performance may not be worth the heavier weight. The bulky 300 W AC adapter doesn't make the Lenovo very travel friendly, either. Quiet mode isn’t too shabby either, which is a good reason to opt for the 3070, if keeping noise levels low is your style. Still, it would have been nice if Lenovo included a QHD screen as an option. I think it would have paired better with the RTX 3070 for sure. There are no obvious panels to allow hardware upgrades. To access the replaceable components you have to remove the base of the case. More on that later. No coil whine that I can hear. There is a whine that seems to be from the fans. I only noticed it yesterday so I wonder why. I made two changes in a short time so it could be either the firmware update or me opening up the base shifted something. Maybe it was always there and I didn't notice. Now I've noticed I'm fixated on it. When the laptop is idle I wish it was a quieter, but when the fans are running under load that is normal noise.
The hinges look shiny at first, but as one user pointed out in my Legion 5 15” review, it’s because they are coated in plastic film. You can choose to leave this if you want to preserve them for whatever reason. Removing it is kind of a pain in the butt because it requires opening and closing the lid multiple times to get to it all. Pretty good results and it’s exactly what I was expecting, considering the plethora of Legion laptops I have reviewed in the past couple of months. The second string to the Legion 5’s bow is a highly efficient cooling system. Despite the fans being quieter than most gaming laptops even when running at full speed, they do a very good job of expelling hot air. Place your hand next to either of the side vents just forward of the hinge and you can really feel a strong current of hot air being pushed out. The Lenovo Legion 5 is an impressive gaming laptop on paper, with high-end components throughout, but it’s going to have to work hard when lined up against some strong rivals. One covered the ram, where we have two SODIMMs in the two slots. This is good for performance as you run dual channel, but if you want to go above the included 16GB you'll have to replace both modules. The ram modules are manufactured by Samsung. The metal lid over the ram wasn't screwed into place, but was held in place by friction clips around it. It would not help with cooling and would seem to be provided for shielding.Speed meets endurance when you play with a gaming laptop powered by AMD Ryzen™ processors. Seize the pure performance you need to win, without compromising battery life. It is a fast screen though, and paired with a 3070, it makes most games run over 100fps even at max settings. This also gives you a healthy boost to your fps while playing games, and by healthy, we mean very noticeable. Games just play smoother in a way that other "performance" modes on other systems don't quite achieve. If we introduce a GPU load, things get more complicated. Running Time Spy once, the CPU goes up to 90C, whereas the 3070 only reaches 70C. Here we see the negative effects of using 7nm process once again as even though the absolute CPU power is low, the heat concentration shows up. For reference, the highest peak power observed through the runs was 60W on the CPU, and 120W on the GPU. Noise was obviously louder since the thermal system has to cope with two heat sources now. As the fan speeds increase the whine does also, although it still doesn't become too objectionable. This article down below gathers our early thoughts on these updated Legion 5 lineups, and is a work in progress as we’re filling up the blanks.
Great Deal 
New Comment