For the past few months as I’ve been in my new studio you may have noticed this laptop in the background.
It is my Lenovo Legion 7. With a 10th gen core i7, an RTX 2070 super with Max Q, 32 gigs of ram, 2 1TB NVMe drives in raid 0, and a 240hz 1920×1080 15.6” display with 500nits of peak brightness with g-sync, it trades blows with my desktop system when it comes to performance, and even edges it out in a number of metrics.
I bought this system a few months ago for an amazing deal off the lenovo outlet page, If you’re not familiar, Lenovo has a page where they sell refurbished, new over stock, and new old stock systems. If you find something there you want, you have to act fast, because they often only have one in stock! But you also have to be careful, not everything on there is a good deal and it’s worth shopping around, for example as of writing this I got this, like new, x280 off ebay for $320, where one with lower specs sells for $800 on the outlet.
So I acted fast and picked this up for about $1500. That may seem like a lot, but to put it into perspective the cheapest desktop RTX 2070 super runs about $1300 on newegg right now. I wanted an upgrade in graphics cards from my AMD RX 5600 XT when it comes to editing 4k video, and I didn’t want yet another desktop, I have my main one I featured previously in another video, which mostly lives as a repository of my youtube career at this point. I’m out here in my small office, and I just didn’t have the room for a big desktop and I wanted to be able to move around a bit in my space.
First and foremost this thing is… not small. Here it is in comparison to a X280 and a t450. At nearly 5lbs, It’s heavy, it’s made of stamped aluminum, and it has some serious hardware built in. This absolutely falls under the “desktop replacement” category, Using this in a lap is no small feat. It also can put out a fair amount of heat, so a cool lap you will not keep.
With a bit laptop comes big expandability,
1. Headphone / microphone combo jack (3.5mm)
2. USB-C 3.2 Gen 1 (data transfer / DP 1.4 only)
3. USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 / Thunderbolt 3
4. USB 3.2 Gen 1 (Always On)
5. HDMI 2.0
6. USB 3.2 Gen 2
7. Gigabit Ethernet (RJ-45)
8. USB 3.2 Gen 2
Wifi Gen 6 802.11ax 2×2, with bluetooth 5.0
The screen on this is…. Just beautiful. It really is. Even better than the monitor I have for my desktop, which, while it is big, and a higher resolution, doesn’t have the high refresh rate and the g-sync capability, it is easily the best overall screen I’ve personally had on a laptop.
Speakers are very good on this system… for a laptop of course. They don’t compare to stand alone speakers of course, but for what they are, they pass the test. They are clear, even at loud volumes, and have very decent base response… again for a laptop. They don’t make me go running to stand alone speakers or headphones, which says a lot.
Now we come to some of my less favorite things about it, and we’ll discuss my main gripe. It’s a 15.6” screen, and as such computer manufactures feel like they have to smash a numpad in here. And while that’s a nice feature… what it really means is a seldom used feature affects absolutely the most critical part of the laptop, the rest of the keyboard! It’s off center, as is the touchpad. So instead of facing the laptop straight on, you kinda set it off to one side, or at a bit of an angle. It’s sooo frustrating. It’s not bad if you’re gaming because you can center your hands more around the system, or you use a controller. But if you’re like me and spend a lot of your day typing… it gets frustrating quick. Also because the touchpad is off center, where I’m used to resting my hands, I often click on the right side of the touch pad, registering a right click when I mean to left click… I know for most people, this would be something easy to get used to, but since I swap between so many computers, most being 14” or under for my reviews, I just haven’t gotten used to it.
Then we come to the keyboard itself, it’s Lenovo’s standard keyboard that they use for the majority of their non “thinkpad” lines, and it’s… Fine. It’s not bad, but its not a thinkpad keyboard. And maybe this comes down to use case, the key switches are very fast and light. So actuation is fast and reliable. But I don’t game nearly as much as I type, and Thinkpads are still the superior keyboard for typing.
Again the touchpad falls under the “fine” category, it doesn’t distract from the user experience, which is a lot more than I can say for many other laptop *cough* Dell *cough*, but i do find myself reaching for my bluetooth mouse far more than I do other systems. I think that’s because I tend to use this at a table/desk, and the touchpad being off center is just annoying enough, I reach for the mouse.
The RGB is.. The RGB. I’m not a big RGB person. If you select a mode from the keyboard/lenovo defaults it will not save that setting at the next boot, it does support the icue software, and that does save your settings when you reboot, but only after the software loads.
One thing I love that comes with the keyboard backlighting is the labels for the plugs in the back light up. The keyboard light does have to be on for them to be on too, but it sure makes plugging things in easier. I just wish they were a bit brighter.
One of my favorite things is when you hit the FN key it actually lights up your options, another really handy option, and something I hope they carry to other systems down the road.
The system has a quick button to change power modes from cool and quite, to normal, and then a power mode. The cool and quiet reduces clock speeds, and keeps temps low, and is perfect mode for productivity, since any performance reduction doesn’t seem to have much in the way of an effect on usability, Normal puts everything back to stock speeds, but keeps fan speed and noises pretty quiet, where as the power mode gives you a red LED, and gives no fucks to the fan noise, and lets temps and clocks max out. The performance difference between cool and normal is pretty significant, but the difference between normal and power is not nearly as big as you would expect. I personally only put it in that mode if I’m gaming with a headset, so the fan noise doesn’t bother me. Performance mode is only available when plugged in, the other two are available when plugged in or on battery.
One thing about all these modes… battery performance is not great in any of them. Personally I get about 3 hours max on “cool and quiet” mode, less on normal. I tend to run with full screen brightness, And I’m sure I could squeak out more time by adjusting more settings, but I’m used to getting a bit more time out of my system. It’s another reason I consider it to be a desktop replacement. Also, the 230 watt power supply is an absolute beast. It weighs more than some of the laptops I’ve reviewed! It’s not something you are going to want to carry around with the laptop without stashing it in a backpack!
In short, this Desktop replacement system is just that, a great system to replace a mid tier gaming desktop with, whether you’re stuck in your tiny shed turned home office, a dorm, or need one system to do it all, and it has to also be portable, Man I really cannot recommend this enough. Obviously mine is a generation older, but the current models use nearly identical chassis with similar input setups. But between the performance, the looks, the sound, it really hits all the checkmarks for me, and my only real complaints are because my youtube channel has spoiled me and allows me to test so many laptops,I wish I could take my favorite features from all of them and smash them together. Mostly This is MY Legion 7 I paid my own money for, and it will be mine for a long time for sure.