Lenovo Legion Y740 Review: Mobile, PC-class gaming refined

(Ongoing Review as of 7/15)

The Legion Y-740 is one of Lenovo’s latest gaming laptops, equipped with the one NVIDIA’s Geforce RTX 2080 dedicated Graphics Cards. It’s a Gaming Rig in the body of an Ultrabook, with enough ports to be a Workstation Tower replacement. Does it gave the goods to be your next do-it-all laptop? I have taken the Lenovo Legion Y-740 through paces as a creative workhorse and game console replacement for the last few months and I would like to share my experiences with the sleek, mobile gaming rig.

Build Quality/Specs

Made of thin,sleek anodized aluminium, the Legion Y740 has the footprint of an Ultrabook, with workstation internals. Pretty much anything short of server-side operation is within reach of this beast.

Processor	9th Generation Intel® Core™ i7-9750H Processor (2.60GHz, up to 4.50GHz with Turbo Boost, 6 Cores, 12MB Cache)
Graphics	NVIDIA® GeForce® RTX™ 2080 with Max-Q with 8GB RAM
Display	15.6″ FHD (1920 x 1080) IPS, Anti-glare, NVIDIA® G-SYNC, 144 Hz, 500 nits, Dolby Vision HDR400
Memory	16 GB DDR4 2666 MHz
Battery	Up to 5 hours57 Wh3 cells
Storage	256GB PCIe NVMe SSD + 1 TB 7200 RPMDual Drive Configuration (HDD + SSD)
Camera	720p HD camera with microphone
Audio	Dolby Atmos® Speaker System with Soundbar and integrated subwoofer with Smart AMP technology for gaming
Dimensions	14.2” x 10.5” x 0.88” / 361.42 x 267 x 22.45 (mm)
Weight	Starting at 4.85 lbs (2.2 kg)
Color	Iron Grey
Connectivity	Killer™ Wireless 802.11 AC (2 x 2) + Bluetooth® 4.1RJ45 Ethernet
Ports / Slots	USB 3.1 Gen 2**2 x USB 3.1 Gen 1**Mini DisplayPort ™ 1.4HDMI™ 2.0RJ45 EthernetKensington® Wedge Lock slot1 x USB 3.1 Gen 2** Type-C / Intel Thunderbolt 3 (DisplayPort, Data transfer)3.5mm microphone/headphone comboNOVO hole
Keyboard	Backlit with Corsair® iCUE RGB lighting

The 15.6 inch,Full-HD IPS display isnt a 4K touchscreen with a 10-point digitizer, but then if it was it would be a glossy, sun-glaring mess and a battery hog. The Legion Y740 already has enough on it’s hands keeping battery drain from the dedicated GeForce RTX graphics card and the gamers deLight show provided by the Corsair iCUE RGB lighting to a minimum.

The display’s anti-glare film does wonders deflecting light due to it being a matte screen.The Keyboard is signature Lenovo, meaning it’s as good as laptop keyboards come – only lacking the Thinkpad’s signature red cursor snub – which would have perfected its utilitarian usage.

Benchmarks

With all of the advances in the processing power of today’s smartphones and tablets many people question the necessity of desktops and laptops. The iPad Pro for example,while being faster than most laptops today- but this aint one of them. There are alot of powerful gaming laptops on the market today, and the Lenovo Legion 740 is right up there with the best of them.

Gaming

For those who have had a sip of PC Gamer’s Tea, know firsthand that the graphic capabilities of current generation consoles aren’t quite up to snuff compared to their PC counterparts. The question you’re probably asking yourself if your reading this article is if the Legion Y740 is one of those machines that will make your Xbox and PlayStation playpals give you the envy eye. I uploaded a video of PUBG Mobile running on the Bluestacks game emulator, along with a few screenshots of Gears of War 4 to give a glipse of the Legion Y740 Laptops capabilites below:

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The Legion Y740 is fully prepared for Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality should you decide to invest in VR equipment in the future. The dedicated graphics card and 16GB RAM serves the system well, marking off all required checkboxes for the Windows Mixed Reality experience on Windows 10.

The all Aluminum chasis is booted up for gameplay, with an otherworld vent chamber engulfing the back half of the bottom of the laptop to ensure the inner circuitry stays cool,calm and collected.

Conclusion

Everytime I begin to step away from this laptop I take the first few steps backwards, glancing at it’s vibrant screen and backlit keyboard admirably- there’s something about this laptop that leaves me in awe – it’s that impressive. I dont think there has been this much innovation on a particular laptop model since the Yoga brand, and just like the Legion, it’s also made by Lenovo. And when you remember that they also make the ThinkPad, it becomes pretty obvious why Lenovo has been the #1 PC manufacturer for at least the last 5 years. Here’s to the notion they keep the run going for just as long, surely if the masses catch on to the Legion gaming laptop series.

*Source – Statista