Lenovo Legion 5 Pro review

11 min readJun 10, 2022

This modern portable gaming laptop guarantees high-quality performance and a fair price

by best.kevin.games

Lenovo Legion 5 Pro review — Final opinion: this is a decent gaming tool with a colorful 16-inch monitor. It also has a convenient keyboard and a proper overall performance. And the reason for that is a surprising combo of Nvidia and AMD forces.

Gaming Laptop Lenovo Legion 5 Pro DEALS

Advantages:

Impressive full-scale keyboard
Vivid 16-inch screen
Capacity for both work tasks and games
Long-standing battery
Full range of ports

Disadvantages:

May overheat
Weighty chassis
Only partial LED backlighting

Lenovo Legion 5 Pro Specifications

Wouldn’t it be great if we were all united? The rivalry would turn into friendship, competitors would join their forces. This gaming device is pure evidence that it can be real. We’re all witnesses to this amazing alliance of two powerful competitors on the market. We mean Nvidia and AMD whose union brought great benefit to the entire gaming industry.

Unexpectedly, Nvidia and AMD came up with an interesting collaboration. A GeForce RTX 3070 video card is combined with a Ryzen 7 5800 processor. As a consequence, the model is perfect for launching really demanding games on Ultra settings.

What’s more, this device is not just about high-quality performance. One of the strong points here is an impressive LED-backlit keyboard. In addition to comfortable typing and a colorful 16-inch monitor, you get loads of ports. And that comes with a long-lasting battery.

The icing on the cake is a reasonable price of $1419. Mobile gamers won’t appreciate the device’s thick and soft carcass. For the rest of the people, it might become a favorite item in their daily routine.

Options and configurations

Different sellers offer different prices. The device from our review costs $1419 (Amazon). It is based on an 8 GB RTX 3070 GPU with 16 GB of RAM by Nvidia. Also, it has an AMD Ryzen 7 5800H processor and a solid-state drive with 512G. Another configuration with 48 GB RAM and an RTX 3070 GPU will cost you $1,869 (Amazon).

The third option is a model with 24GB RAM and an RTX 3070 card will cost you $1,539 (Amazon).

If you need some other model, read our list of the best budget laptops for games.

Lenovo Legion 5 Pro Gaming Laptop Design

Lenovo Legion 5 Pro Gaming Laptop — this device is uncomplicated and easy to deal with. All you might need is already there so you can concentrate on the primordial things.

To be honest, it’s not the best-looking laptop of all time. Its beauty can be found in other characteristics, such as productivity. The laptop case is gray-colored. The only prominent thing is the Legion logo on top of the lid. Four LED backlit zones on the gaming keyboard add to the overall look. However, it’s not as impressive as it could be with a fully backlit one. Another logo meets you on the hand rest, one more is on the casing’s back. The power button is illuminated separately in the middle of the deck.

Functional, almost beautiful, this device shows off a thin display that helps emphasize gameplay. Meanwhile, a massive keyboard makes the gaming process more rewarding and satisfying. Among casual conveniences, you’ll find a projection on the front side. It allows you to lift the device with just one finger. Also, there’s a webcam switch to guarantee your confidentiality.

The device has massive rubber bumpers on the bottom side. They provide free air circulation through the vents underneath the gaming laptop. You can see these huge air holes from all sides. It gives the backside a specific look that reminds us of a DeLorean.

This model feels hefty. Partially due to its decent weight. The whole carcass increases the level of stiffness. In addition, double hinges make it pretty rigid. Its solid weight is 2.44 kg with 355.6 x 264.2 x 27.9 mm. This is lighter than the 2.49 kg of the Acer Predator Helios 300. At the same time, there are even lighter models. For example, the Razer Blade 15 Base Edition with its 2.08 kg.

Ports selection

Here you’ll be able to use a broad range of peripheral equipment. It can be another external storage, Internet connection, or a camera.

A USB-A 3.2 input for wired devices is located on the right side. On the left, you’ll find a USB-C 3.2 power and data transmission port. A headphone jack is also there.

The rear panel contains the widest selection of ports. One more USB-C 3.2 power input and three USB-A 3.2 ports are all there. Also, there’s an RJ-45 Ethernet adapter input, HDMI 2.1, and Lenovo’s unique power connector.

We’d like to make an important note:

This model has an AMD processor. This means Thunderbolt 4 is not supported at high speed. The laptop is not able to connect to a net of 4K monitors without it. Then, the question comes up: what should you do to get more ports? Our advice is to get a USB-C hub. Another option is to consider buying a docking station.

Monitor

Surprisingly, 16 inches turned into the new 15 inches concerning the diagonal mass popularity. Slim display standards and consumer preferences on the market have significantly changed. Nowadays screens with 16 inches adapt to the format of 15.6-inch models. It provides a really big and appealing panel for playing favorite games or enjoying movies. Speaking of our laptop, it will allow gamers to shoot across long distances way easier.

Now let’s go a little bit deeper into the specifications. This device provides an opportunity to use a 16-inch IPS monitor with a 2560×1600 resolution. In addition, there comes a 16:10 aspect ratio and a 165 Hz scan rate. It sounds promising and the impression from practical use is satisfying as well.

Watching a movie will certainly be a pleasing experience. The image depiction is highly satisfactory. The matte screen properly hides the glare while providing a bright and natural color gamut. You can discern every single thread of the character’s clothes, every droplet of a waterfall. The hues look a bit muted due to the matte covering of the display. However, all the colors look vivid and realistic.

Let’s take Middle-Earth as an example of testing the monitor. The elf’s dressing seems really made of beautiful gems and high-quality material. Metallic elements of the armor glitter on the sun in the most mesmerizing manner. The turquoise blue outfit with the olive green parts looks truly amazing. Commonly, we are not big fans of blood in computer games. But this time was different. The bright ruby red puddles that the enemy left on the battlefield looked just perfect.

We used a colorimeter to get accurate data. Based on our results, the monitor covers 82% of the whole DCI-P3 color gamut. Its competitor, the Predator Helios 300 has 72%, ROG Strix G15 covers 77%. The average number for this category is 67%. There’s only the Blade 15 Base’s screen with better characteristics in color coverage — 87%.
472 nits is the brightest for our laptop. It is much better than the results of other devices in the category. The average number for such items is 287 nits which speak for itself.

Touchpad and keyboard

This keyboard is easy to confuse with a ThinkPad one, once you close your eyes. It provides a similar nice tactile feeling when pressing the keys. Lenovo gave the keyboard a name, TrueStrike. It promises us a deep stroke and random presses prevention. The increased key aperture inside the baseplate allows additional cushioning and supreme actuation.

Those are not all the features you may find in the given keyboard. There’s more, however, some might call them incomplete. First of all, we can see the extra LED backlighting in 4 zones. We should note that with each key having individual backlighting, it would look more spectacular. Secondly, there’s a full-sized keypad with numbers on the right part of the deck. It’s a convenient feature when you need to type digits in a quick manner.

Nevertheless, the keys are not sizable enough, so you’ll end up using just one finger. This option comes instead of covering the 4, 5, and 6 keys with three fingers.

As for the touchpad, it has a high level of responsiveness and convenient size. An even surface allows your fingers to glide across the monitor with no effort. The gentle texture gives a quick response under your fingertips. It is still simple to perform gestures in Windows 10. Zooming in and out can be done by a two-finger swipe. A swiping move with three fingers lets a user immediately switch between opened applications.

Sound system

Both sides of the device’s deck contain speakers. This dual construction provides stable sound with a lack of presence. It’s easy to notice the vocals being muffled when listening to a song. That’s a significant drawback of the downward-facing sound system. It was a bad idea to give it such a direction. The speakers certainly provide enough sound to fill a big hall. Plus, even at max volume, there was no sound distortion. Moreover, the device’s proper bass response had us tapping involuntarily to the playing beat.

Behind capturing the sounds correctly in Middle-Earth, the speakers decently performed replaying Tolkien’s universe products. We witnessed a rustling swish when a blade plunged into an opponent’s body. As we aimed at an orc, we heard the bowstring sharp tension. The speakers accurately reflected minor noises. On top of that, increasing the volume up to 80% beats loud fans.

Lenovo Legion 5 Pro — Graphics, VR, gaming process

The device has a graphics card GeForce RTX 3070 and GDDR6 memory with 8GB. You can easily play modern games, keeping frame rates high. It is valid even on Ultra settings. Actually, we had a solid 80 frames in Middle-Earth. Even during massive battles with dozens of orcs, the mark stayed above 70 fps.

Legion performs similarly to the Razer Blade 15. It gave 64 fps (1080p) as we played Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. ROG Strix G15 showed worse results of 49 fps. Meanwhile, the Predator Helios 300 managed to play it at 68 frames per second. The average performance is 51 fps for this category.

Lenovo Legion 5 Pro laptop showed 80 fps at 1080p resolution in Shadow of the Tomb Raider. In comparison, Predator Helios performed at 86 fps. His rival, ROG Strix G15 did at 88 fps. However, the result is better than the 78 fps provided by Blade 15. It’s also higher than the average value in the category (62 fps).

We ran GTA V at 1080p resolution (very high). It showed 84 fps on our device. The Predator Helios took it at 103 fps, Blade 15 achieved 96 fps. Finally, ROG Strix G15’s result is 98 frames per second. It’s all better than the average category’s 72 fps.

The Lenovo Legion 5 Pro model in our review allowed us to run Red Dead Redemption 2 at 66 fps. Meanwhile, the Predator Helios shows 69 fps, ROG Strix runs at 70 fps. The slowest one is the Blade 15 operating at 64 fps. But still, it’s faster than the average performance in the category (50 fps).

Finally, our Lenovo product took first place while running Borderlands 3 (80 fps). In descending order: ROG Strix G15 shows 79 fps, Helios 300 goes with 77 fps. The last one is Blade 15 operating at 67 fps. The average in the category is 57 fps.

Performance

Lenovo Legion 5 Pro is based on an AMD Ryzen 7 5800H plus 16GB of RAM. Its new chips of the AMD 5000 series demonstrate truly outstanding capacity.

We honestly tried to reach the limit of this model’s performance, but all in vain. Every mission we provided was accomplished with no difficulties at all. We opened 30 tabs in the browser, 4 of which were 1080p-resolution videos. In addition, there were 2 streams broadcasting on Twitch. The laptop was still capable of loading new websites immediately. Finally, we launched the Euro 2020 match broadcast. However, Legion still didn’t show any lag or slowdown during the process.

Just like the majority of AMD-powered devices, our model follows the trend. It shows astounding results in a synthetic test. It gained 7342 scores in a Geekbench 5.4 test. The Predator’s outcome was slightly worse — 6257. Blade 15 had 5564, and only ROG Strix managed to outperform the rest with 7746. The average score is 5263.

Afterward, we ran a video encoding test. We used the Handbrake application to squeeze a 4K video into 1080p. It took us 7 minutes and 5 seconds. Our competitors with Intel processors did it a bit longer. 9 min 17 sec for Helios 300, 10 min 57 sec for Blade 15. ROG Strix was the best in the competition once again and showed 6 min 56 sec.

You might think that our Lenovo product always comes second in such competitions. However, things completely changed after running a memory test. It copied 25 GB of files within 32 sec with 832.7 MB/s. The Predator follows with 544 MB/s, Rog Strix G15 shows 340.7 MB/s. The slowest one was Blade 15, which made it at 602 MB/s.

Battery

Obviously, Legion 5 doesn’t beat the world record concerning battery life performances. Nevertheless, it provides 6 hours and 17 minutes of autonomous work. This is certainly enough to satisfy the needs of the majority of laptop users. If you plan to use the device for a longer time, please, take the charger. Or else, consider buying another model.

Similar products in the category show the following results. Razer Blade 15 is able to work without charging for 4 hours 34 minutes. Predator’s independence from electricity lasts 4 hours 39 minutes. ROG Strix takes the first place with 10 hours and 13 minutes of battery life. Meanwhile, the average score in the category is 6 hours 29 minutes.