Gaming laptops have become synonymous with thick bodies, loud fans, and rainbow lights. Lenovo’s latest gaming laptop is here to change that.
The unit we reviewed housed an Intel Core i7-8750H, with an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 GPU. It featured dual storage, one bay fitted with a Samsung 256GB NVMe SSD and the other with a 1TB HDD.
The latest addition to the Legion lineup has become far more professional-looking, compared to the previous generation Y520. This trend is becoming more prevalent in the gaming laptop market and appeals to those who want to use a single device for work and play. Instead of sporting flashy colours, Lenovo has opted for an all-black computer body and a monochromatic, white light scheme.
The laptop features an all-metal body with sharp edges and comes in at just under 24mm thick. Lenovo opted to make the Y530’s screen lid a little shorter than the bottom half of the laptop, which allowed for more goodies to be packed in the unit while still keeping it thin. The lid of the laptop features Legion branding that’s subtly engraved in the metal and aligned to the side. It also features a white light in the O of Legion that glows when the computer is in use.
The extra bit of the laptop body facilitates better cooling. Lenovo has upgraded its Legion fan system from the previous generation. For passive cooling, a type of cooling that relies on the body’s build instead of the fans, it handles regular office use without starting up the fans. A gaming laptop with good passive cooling is rare to find and Lenovo has shown that it can be achieved with a good build.
The internal fans start when gaming, as one would expect. They are about as loud as other gaming laptops, but this won’t be a problem for gamers who use headsets.
Click here to read about the screen quality, and how it performs in-game.
The matte-textured anti-glare screen is a little disappointing for a device from Lenovo. While it’s full HD, 4K resolution is quickly becoming the gaming standard and is sorely missed from an otherwise great laptop. The colours are also a little washed out because of the low contrast ratio.
We tested Shadow of the Tomb Raider at 1080p, with the built-in GTX 1060 using DirectX 12, setting the game to its highest preset graphics. The game’s built-in frame counter was used. The game peaked at 50 fps with an average frame rate of 43 fps with 10 minutes of gameplay. Gaming will be better with less graphically intensive settings.
Other graphically intensive games ran fairly well, with Doom reaching around 75fps, running the game on the “Ultra” graphics setting.
The processor is an 8th Generator Intel Core i7 CPU (8750-H), which provides snappy performance. We noted a start-up time from shutdown to desktop in 12 seconds. The dual-bay configuration is a huge plus for those wanting fast performance from the SSD and large storage space from a hard drive. Optionally, one could put two SSD drives into the case and utilise them in RAID for slightly better performance.
The keyboard was good for everyday typing and great for gaming on the go. It’s rare to find a good balance between work and play in keyboards. The Num pad asserts its presence in work tasks, and also in extra gaming functionality.
The trackpad is standard, and would not be of great concern to the average gamer who would probably use a mouse.
Click here to read about the battery life and the laptop’s pricing.
The 52.5 Wh battery is on the small side for laptops in this range. Combined with power-intensive hard drive usage, this resulted in around three hours of typical office use with Word and Excel. Battery life would likely improve with higher spec’d models that comprise solid-state storage instead of hard drive disks.
The most redeeming factor of them all is the laptop’s price. The base model comes in at R16,000 from Evetech, making it one of the most affordable gaming laptops on the market. The model we used retails for R19,500, again incredible for a high-quality gaming laptop.
Overall, the Legion Y530 is aimed at the budget conscious gamer that wants portable performance and solid build quality.