When I was assigned the Lenovo Legion Y740 last year, it was undeniably one of the best for 2019. A year later, Lenovo has released the Legion 7i, the successor of the Y740. And it is everything that you hope it would be.
DESIGN: 4.5/5
The Lenovo Legion 7i takes some of the design cues from its predecessor, the Lenovo Legion Y740. It has a nice metallic finish like the previous model and now features RGB lighting throughout its body.
Opening the laptop you’ll be greeted by its revamped keyboard, and 15.6-inch FHD+ display with a 240Hz refresh rate. The keyboard is a welcome change, now featuring a dedicated numpad, instead of the macro keys.
Ports-wise, the Lenovo Legion has a myriad of ports including Thunderbolt 3 USB Type-C, an ethernet port which I greatly appreciated.
HARDWARE: 4.5/5
The Lenovo Legion 7i is powered by an Intel Core i7-10750H which is a 6-core 12-thread processor, paired with a powerful Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 Super Max-Q. This combo makes the Lenovo Legion 7i a beast, chewing through triple-A games on ultra-high settings.
Aside from the processor and graphics combo, our unit had 1TB of NVMe SSD storage, 16GB (2x 8GB) of DDR-4 RAM, which can be user-expanded if you want to in the future.
One of the welcome changes from the Lenovo Legion 7i is the keyboard layout. The Legion 7i removes the macro keys from the Legion Y740 which moved almost the whole keyboard to the right. The dedicated numpad is also a welcome experience for someone like me who needs to punch numbers from time to time. The Legion 7i’s keyboard uses the same TrueStrike keyboard from last year which is great to type on.
USER EXPERIENCE: 4/5
If I can sum up my experience with Legion 7i in a word, it’s heaven.
Gaming and standard media consumption is just taken to a new level with the Legion 7i. Made for hardcore gamers, the Legion 7i does tear through some of the heavy load games that I tested on it.
Games such as Assassins Creed Odyssey ran a solid 57fps at ultra-high, while Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Breakpoint ran at 60fps with the highest settings. Thanks to the RTX 2070 Super, the laptop was also able to run games with ray tracing. I tried out Control with the settings maxed out and ray tracing on, and it ran at around 44 to 60fps.
Where the Legion 7i shines is for esports titles where they can fully use the 240Hz refresh rate. Dota 2 ran about 104 to 120fps. Valorant reached about 224fps during skirmishes, while Fall Guys reached 235fps. All these games were at highest setting.
I also tried streaming with the Legion 7i, which had pretty decent results, about to 60p videos without really breaking a sweat.
One of the only negatives I found was the laptop’s cooling. After a long gaming session, the laptop does get hot if you don’t set its cooling to Performance. The heat isn’t that minor either. I found that it was a bit uncomfortable to type on it after I played some heavy titles such as Control and Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Breakpoint.
The redeeming factor in Lenovo’s thermal plan was the fan noise, or rather the lack of it. In quiet mode you could barely hear the fans, in performance mode the fans are a bit audible but with music playing on the Dolby Atmos speakers, you could barely hear it.
Battery-wise, the Legion 7i is a battery chugger, from my experience the laptop did run for about 2 to 3 hours in light use on battery, but barely 2 hours when you want to game on it, which is the same as most gaming laptops in the market. The included charger does fill her up fast, needing just an hour for a full 100 percent.
VALUE: 4/5
The Lenovo Legion 7i retails for PHP 134,995, which is a bit on the expensive side. But comparing its specs and price to that of its competitor, you’d be surprised that it is on the cheaper side. Overall, I’d definitely say that this laptop is a great buy especially this coming holiday season.
Specifications:
- Display: 15.6” FHD (1920×1080) WVA 500nits Anti-glare, 240Hz, 100% sRGB, HDR400, Dolby Vision
- Processor: Intel Core i7-10750H (6C / 12T, 2.6 / 5.0GHz, 12MB)
- Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 Super Max-Q 8GB GDDR6
- Storage: 1TB NVMe SSD
- RAM: 16GB SO-DIMM DDR4-2933
- Connectivity: Wi-Fi: 11ax, 2×2, Bluetooth 5.0, Gigabit Ethernet
- Ports: 1 x Thunderbolt 3 Type-C (Thunderbolt, DP, USB 3.1, HDMI) / 2 x USB 3.1 Gen 2 / 1 x USB 3.1 Gen 1 / 1 x HDMI 2,0 / 1 x RJ45 Ethernet / 1 x USB 3.1 Type C / 1 x Headphone Jack
- Weight: 2.25kg
- Dimension: 360mm x 259mm x 19.9mm
What’s Hot:
- Portable
- Great Keyboard
- Lots of Ports
- RGB for days
- 240Hz refresh rate
What’s Not:
- Does get a bit hot.
Bottomline:
The Lenovo Legion 7i is one hell of a laptop.
Also published in Gadgets Magazine November Issue.
Reviewed by Gabriel Pe