The successor of the Legion Y540, the Lenovo Legion 5i, has finally arrived with a mid-ranged price of PHP 78,995 consisting of the latest Intel Core i7-10750H and GeForce RTX 2060 graphics card.
The Lenovo Legion 5i has specification s starting from an Intel Core i5-10300H and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650.
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The most anticipated gaming notebook releases of 2020 are the Legion 7i and Legion 5i which has a thinner form factor and still packed with an Intel 10th gen H-series processor and Nvidia RTX Max-Q graphics card for gamers while still offering an IPS 100% sRGB 500nits display for the content creators on some of their configurations. With all these pieced together, you get vivid and accurate colours along with good viewing angles.
Unboxing and First Impressions
Out of the box, the Legion 5i comes with 230W Slim Tip power adapter, the usual safety and warranty guide, and an M300 RGB Gaming mouse.
It comes with an elegant colour that Lenovo named “Phantom Black.” The minimalist design allows the iridescent logo of Legion on the upper-left corner of the lid, and on the opposite end, lays the Lenovo logo superimposed on a small, rectangular metal insert.
Upon opening the lid, you are greeted with a 15.6-inch display with slimmer bezels compared to the Legion Y540. A welcoming change of design that they have made is moving the webcam from the lower centre of the bezel up to the top-centre.
Nestled directly under the display is the power button which is also a colour-coded indicator to signify the current power settings the laptop is on – Performance Mode (Red), Quiet Mode (Blue), and Balanced Mode (White). For ease of access, Lenovo has given users the shortcut of pressing the Fn + Q Keys to oscillate between the stated modes.
Lenovo also placed a sturdy cylindrical hinge that allows the Legion 5i to lay-flat at 180-degrees. The rear of the chassis goes beyond the lid featuring an abundance of connectivity options and the dual vents for exhaust.
Ports and Connectivity
Lenovo was able to strategically place the majority of their ports at the rear end of the Legion 5i ensuring decent cable management during work or play.
At the rear end you will find and RJ-45, USB Type-C port, two USB Type-A ports, an HDMI 2.0 port, a power jack, and finally a Kensington security slot. The USB Type-C port is not a Thunderbolt 3 port but supports data transfer and display out.
On both sides of the Legion 5i, there is a USB Type-A port, while on the left side, there is a 3.5mm headset jack
Display and Audio
The variant we received supports a 120HZ refresh rate with colours that would be enough to get you by when playing games or watching Netflix. It does boast a premium Dolby Atmos speaker that would make the users’ audio experience immersive. With default settings, the audio emanates from the bottom-firing speakers. Being able to dig through the applications, you’d find the Dolby Atmos app and change the settings according to preference and audio liking. The speakers peaked at 96.1dba at 100% volume.
Keyboard and Touchpad
The keyboard is an island-style, white-backlit keyboard and Lenovo has added a numpad. The RGB lighting can be toggled using the Fn + spacebar keys. The keyboard layout has been adjusted with a large, full-sized arrow key positioned separately from the others.
Performance
SSD Benchmark
Lenovo utilizes the Western Digital SN730 512GB NVMe SSD for the Legion 5i’s storage with rated Read speeds up to 3,400 MB/s and 2,700MB/s for Write speeds including an endurance of 300TBW. We did a Crystal Disk Mark Real World Performance and Peak performance benchmark and it shows that on the Real World performance, the Legion 5i’s write speeds have not lived up to their 3,400 MB/s rated speeds but at their peak, it shows consistency.
Gaming Performance
For Gaming, we use CapFrameX Capture and Analysis Tool to easily be able to make out frametimes.
Horizon Zero Dawn
Horizon Zero Dawn was recently ported to PC from PS4 with PlayStation Mobile, Inc. as the publisher. The performance benchmarks have a very minimal difference on the three modes provided by Lenovo.
Rise of the Tomb Raider
Developed by Crystal Dynamics and published by Square Enix, the Tomb Raider series reboot was ported to PC by Dutch studio Nixxes. The results of the benchmarks are the same throughout not showing a less than 1% performance difference on all modes provided.
Final Fantasy XV
Developed and published by Square Enix, Final Fantasy XV was initially available on Playstation 4 and Xbox One and was ported to PC 2 years after its release using an updated version of the multi-platform Luminous Studio engine. Here we see a huge drop in performance under the Quiet mode and might have had an effect due to the heavy graphics of the game.
3D Mark
3DMark is the most used gamer’s benchmark for the ability to share and compare results online. For this, we utilize Time Spy for DX12 and Fire Strike DX11 benchmark.
Synthetic Benchmarks
Blender
Blender uses an opensource 3D creation suits supporting the whole 3D pipeline process for modelling, rigging, animation, simulation, rendering, and even motion tracking.
In this synthetic benchmark, Blender does not really show any difference based on the rendering times of the different modes.
Cinebench R20
Maxon’s Cinebench benchmark is one of the most iconic benchmarks applications used by reviewers and enthusiasts. Here we see a bigger difference when it comes to rendering showing a higher result on the performance mode.
GeekBench 3
Geek Bench gives us a rather higher difference between the Balanced and Performance mode versus the Quiet mode but shows minimal differences on the single-core performances.
Corona 1.3
Here we check the different render times on the Corona v1.3 showing a really great difference again on Performance and Balanced versus the Quiet mode.
Software and Warranty
The Lenovo Vantage app gives crucial information on the system performance showing updates on the CPU, GPU, memory and storage. Here you are also able to toggle fan settings, check system updates, and get insight on warranty status. RGB can also be toggled with different settings.
Conclusion
The Lenovo Legion 5i is a minimalist laptop that is a great choice for those who want to do business in the morning and enjoy PC gaming at night.
Legion 5i definitely gave us great values in terms of performance on both rendering and gaming. With the games we ran, entry-level gaming for those who want to play Dota 2, Valorant, CS:GO and low pc requirement games would definitely be smooth.
The Legion 5i is a great successor to the previous generations for their mid-range offering. It is understandable that these do not pack a more colour accurate display but can still go head-to-head with most laptops at this price range.