Lenovo Legion Y740-17: the full Review

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Lenovo – much like HP – arrived late in the gaming laptop segment. Historically, its subsidiary Medion was responsible for producing machines to run ehealth games, but for several years now, Lenovo has taken up the torch. So were born the Legion, desktop PCs, but also nomads who want to come face to face with Alienware from Dell, ROG from Asus and all the string of Acer Predator or even of Omen HP.

The 17.3 inch model we tested is from the latest Legion collection. It is not commercially available as such, but versions with different characteristics, displaying a higher or lower price are available. Thus, all our remarks concerning the ergonomics, the quality of the screen, the comfort of use and even to a certain extent, the efficiency of the ventilation can completely be adapted to all nationals of the range.However, we will not dwell on performance. No need to make you dream (or nightmare) in vain. Be aware however that if by chance, the Y740-17lRHg (81UJ001CFR) should one day point the tip of its keyboard on the shelves, it would, according to Lenovo, be sold around 3600 euros.

Lenovo had promised to pour from now on “the simple, but effective” on the whole of its PC. We didn't think it would also apply to gamers from the Legion family. It is however the case: no crazy lines, nor case full of lights galore (there are some, but nothing ostentatious). No doubt we are getting a little older, but it sometimes feels good not to have a Christmas tree in front of your eyes and fingers.

On the case of this powerful 17.3 inch juggernaut, anthracite gray is in the spotlight. A color that is also found on the keyboard. The only slightly shiny element is the screen hinge. The back of the screen retains the color, but is made of a metal alloy and is struck with the name of his family.

In hand, the alloy (probably based on magnesium and ABS) that makes up the keyboard part gives the structure a good robustness. There emerges a feeling of confidence, it is appreciable for a machine which can cost several thousand euros.

A quick tour of the owner tells us that the connection is little present on the sides and much more at the rear. This is very good, especially for a PC which is intended to replace a desktop machine. We will not take our hands in the cables and those which are not intended to be smart health connected / disconnected are isolated.

Thus, on the sides, only a USB 3.0 socket is present on the right. A USB Type-C socket, accompanied by audio connectors, is on the left.

Everything else is on the back (HDMI and miniDP ehealth outputs, network, 2 x USB 3.0), including the power connector. In the latter case, it is a proprietary outlet to which we come to connect the large block of 960 grams.

Since we are on the scale and at the height, let us specify that the Legion 17.3 inches weighs 3 kilos, that its thickness is 3.2 cm at the highest and that it resumes for the rest of the classic measurements (41.3 x 30.4 cm).Not really nomadic, the animal, but we suspected it. By the way, let's talk about the battery life measured right away: almost 3 hours in our two Review scenarios (ehealth streaming and versatile use, screen with reduced brightness and Wi-Fi activated). This leaves the possibility of watching a movie or surfing on the sofa, while the adapter has remained in the office. To play, however, it is compulsory connection otherwise your game will only be very short.

Keyboard: an exotic but practical layout

The Legion's keyboard isn't the one we expected to find on a gaming machine. Its touch and the morphology of the keys are very close to what we find on the brand's Ideapads, laptops for the general public and less "oriented" ehealth games.

But rest assured, it is indeed a gaming keyboard. Silent, the keys light up a thousand lights and all the colors are to be adjusted using the house software. Like those on the side LED strips.

The layout of the keys is not quite the same as on a conventional machine. This is evidenced by the position of the directional arrows: they are located just below the numeric keypad and not next to it. Other buttons have also moved to avoid ending up in the players' hitting field. There are even dedicated to purely ehealth game uses, one of them allows, for example, to launch a stream.

Once taken in hand, the keyboard shows good efficiency. However, since the Legion Y740 is not destined to travel a lot, an external keyboard may well replace it, in the more or less short term.

High speed Full HD screen

The 17.3 inch screen of the Y740 does not quite meet today's aesthetic standards. But what are these big plastic edges doing around the slab? We were no longer really used to having such large ones before our eyes. At the time of so-called “borderless” slabs, this bias is astonishing.

To be forgiven, Lenovo had the good idea to avoid equipping its monster with a 4K panel, despite the presence of a powerful Nvidia graphics card (see below). The 17.3 inch present is matte, offers a definition of Full HD image and its refresh rate increases to 144 Hz. The amateurs of shooting games will appreciate the reactivity of the display and the others, will surely manage to perceive the difference in their favorite titles between this screen and their old monitoring.

Even fans of fair images can find their account with the Y740. Color precision (deltaE) was measured at 2.63 (the closer to 0 the better). A value which positions it rather in the good pupils compared to its competitors tested in the drafting lately. Note however that the color temperature is more around 6700K against the regulatory 6500K, with reds which tend to be slightly distorted. However, we have already seen much worse on laptops sold at neighboring prices or even higher, so we forgive him.

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What is less forgiving, however, are our brightness and contrast measurements. The first is 279 cd / m2 maximum average, with a peak at 322 cd / m2 In the center. Not terrible. The contrast goes up a bit, and exceeds 1170: 1. The overall homogeneity of the slab is 0.037 which indicates a fairly good consistency. Overall, we give the score of 3.5 / 5 to this screen, saved by its refresh rate.

Firepower at the rendezvous

With the configuration received at the time of writing, the Y740 is, as we say in the world of cars, the over-equipped model. It is widely suitable for games but also for ehealth editing, photo editing or any digital creative work.

Between the Intel Core i7-9750H processor, 32 GB of memory (useful only for ehealth editing), 1 TB storage on SSD and 1 TB of hard drive and the GeForce RTX 2080 Max-Q graphics card from Nvidia, Lenovo did not skimp on the means to impress us.

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It is therefore not too surprising that the Legion is comfortable in all scenarios. The score obtained under PC Mark 10 ranks it in the top five machines received in recent months at the editorial office.

For the most addicted to scores and other numerical values, know that in the 3D Mark Review the Legion Y740 marks 116930 (Graphics Cloud Gate), 92461 (Night Raid Graphics) or 7995 (Time Spy) points. In the aging, but still as effective Heaven Benchmark, in Custom mode (with the Tesselation pushed almost to the bottom), this mastodon generates more than 84.3 fps. All this bodes well for application testing in games.

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Of which act. The Legion Y740 manages to display almost 95 frames per second in The Division (first name) and more than 125 fps in Rise of the Tomb Raider in DX12 with all the graphic details pushed to the maximum. In older games, we have recorded up to 371 frames per second output by the 2080 Max-Q.

Clearly, if you are a big fan of frags in CS: GO or the last Call of ' indeed Apex or Fortnite, you don't have to worry. The power of the configuration associated with the speed of the display will allow you to finish in the top of the table … provided that the skill follow. But, in this matter, the Legion can do nothing for you.For solo pleasures, full of beautiful textures and complex polygons, the Legion is doing a pretty good job and is up to the standards of current AAA and those of the next two years. At least.

Heats fairly well controlled, but noise

Let's face it, the Legion was completely consistent in its performance during our tests. We analyzed the behavior of its processor and the graphics card with a progressive increase in load then, much more abrupt. Both set off their Turbo modes well and manage to hold them long enough when the load is incremental.

In brutal stress, the 3D chip stalls at its nominal frequency and does not move, as if stuck. The Intel processor manages to hold the bar above 2.6 GHz on each of its hearts for more than 6 minutes. Then, then a slight effect of throttling appears. We go from 2.6 to 2.47 GHz fairly regularly for more than 4 minutes. But the chip never drops below this speed, we salute the service.

The mercury inside the Legion Y740 can quickly climb, but it doesn't feel much on the case. The palm rests remain at a good temperature (28 to 29 ° C) as for the maximum value recorded under the laptop, it is 47.7 ° C (and 32.5 ° C on average). The two fans and the heat pipe network do their work more than correctly.However, they do not do so in complete silence since we noted peaks at 45.3 dB (taken 50 cm from the machine). Under your gaming headset, you will not hear them … which will surely not be the case for those around you. Think about it when the urge to do night sessions takes you.

Scalability: Lenovo ticks almost all boxes

Accessing the innards of the Legion Y740 is fairly easy as long as you have the right screwdriver. Of course, changing the CPU or GPU is impossible, but cleaning their fans and radiators is done in two stages, three movements. As we said, our configuration was on steroids, but it will not be the same for all those on the market. If you need to increase the memory capacity, it is possible, the locations are accessible.

The same goes for the hard drive and the SSD. The cradle of the first is easily disassembled and the second is only held in place by a simple screw.

Attention if you buy a configuration in which there is already an SSD and a hard disk, you will not be able to add anything. At best, you can replace the existing one. If Lenovo had been able to find a little space for a second SSD slot, it would have been perfect!

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