Lenovo Legion Y520 Desktop 2tb Ssd 32gb Ram Review
The gaming laptop has been somewhat of a revelation in the South African market. While global sales have slowed, although non slumped, sales have connected to show growth in the local marketplace. One of the major driving factors has been the increased level of competitiveness of the gaming laptop when compared against the more than traditional desktop, too as the reduction of weight, making it a lot more portable.
Despite the fluctuation of the Rand confronting global currencies, pricing of the gaming laptop has continued to show positive indicators to the fans. Back in March, Lenovo brought 2 new gaming laptops into the market to compete in two dissimilar categories. I was pleasantly surprised by the Lenovo Legion Y520, a budget gaming laptop. It's amazing to meet what information technology is able to accomplish and evangelize on a tight budget, while still being able to compete in gaming operation.
The Lenovo Legion Y-range has been around for some time now, even inside the Southward African market, slowly building upwardly a dedicated group of fans and followers to form a gaming community in which the visitor aims to better empathise the features gamers require and value most. The Y520 unit is an indicator of just that, while lacking in certain areas, more than makes upwardly for it where it matters virtually.
Build and Design
- Summary:
- Plastic Kevlar Design
- Expert Mix of Ports
- Portable and Lightweight
When you first uncover the Y520 after unboxing the unit, you aren't struck by whatsoever spectacular design, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. For most manufacturers, there'due south almost an expectation to emphasise that the unit of measurement in employ is a gaming device, often times with an over-the-top and elaborate blueprint and only adds to the weight and clunkiness of the device. That isn't the case in this instance.
The Y520 is subtler in its approach, offering up some flair in the course of a plastic Kevlar design on the lid. The black lid with its woven design, along with a few angled, raised lines on the lid provides sufficient distinction of its gaming prowess – subtly ambitious. However, as with most other gaming units, there is some accent placed on the swivel, with the speakers on the outer office, which run all around from peak to bottom with fairly large openings, and the fans in the middle consummate the same grill appearance, albeit not equally pronounced.
The low-profile design choice continues to the interior of the device once the hat is opened, with a smooth finish around the screen and keyboard. Unlike the outside of the lid with its blueprint and angled approach, at that place aren't very many markings to note otherwise. In that location are four diagonal lines to make note of a slightly sunken keyboard. The angle isn't all that pronounced, and merely appears that fashion with the intentional athwart lines.
In terms of the specifications, the unit measures 380x267x26mm and weighs two.524KG. It isn't the smallest and lightest laptop around, merely considering that this is a gaming unit, those specs are more reasonable. You lot won't have too much problem fitting the unit into well-nigh 15.half-dozen″ deport cases or bags, making your gaming as portable as y'all need it to exist. When information technology comes to connectivity the Y520 includes an Ethernet port, USB two.0 port, and headphone jack, all on the left-hand side, which also includes the Kensington lock and power input. The right-hand side houses a USB Type-C port, and SD-carte reader, two USB 3.0 ports, and a full-size HDMI port. By today'south standards, this meets the criteria for well-nigh users.
For most gamers, however, the ports may non exist sufficient when considering the number of peripherals you may require to connect. Information technology could practice with a Display Port or a second HDMI port for multiple monitors. It's also worth noting that the SD-card reader only caters for half of the actual storage device, which means information technology doesn't travel well, and, thus, has to be removed when on the go.
Every bit for the build itself, the unit of measurement feels very solid, despite its predominantly plastic finishes. The plastic shouldn't be a deterrent for those interested, firstly due to the device's budget status, and that the build quality remains expert irrespective of that fact. There aren't any noticeable creeks and squeaks to mention, with the unit being quite compact, and no room at all for any play on the lid or any other role.
Sound, Keyboard and Touchpad
- Summary:
- Standard Cerise Backlit Keys
- Wildly Sensitive Touchpad
I've never been a fan of nearly laptop speakers, with merely a handful that has striking the mark, or been higher up boilerplate. The Y520's dual speakers, fitted to the ends of the hinge, won't do much to convince anyone. There'southward a lot amiss about the quality, from the loudness to the lack of clarity, the speakers just don't fully deliver on expectations. The unit does support Dolby environment sound and comes with the Dolby Audio apps, from which you're able to cull a few profiles to brand some small changes, but still non quite sufficient to modify my mind.
In terms of the keyboard, there are a few notable mentions. For starters, the backlit keys lite upward in cherry with ii effulgence levels. I would've enjoyed seeing the options of a colour spectrum. In addition to this, the keys are not-programmable, which means that you won't be able to customise the keys to your preferred gaming setup. Both of these exclusions may be every bit a event of the reduced build cost, and then it's not a complete surprise. The keys themselves are nicely spaced and won't accept much getting used to when typing or playing games. The only result I had with the bodily keys was the fact that I wasn't able to hands spot some of the function keys such as "numlock" or "prntscrn".
Every bit for the touchpad, some other one of my pet peeves when information technology comes to laptop reviews, its default setting was extremely sensitive. This wasn't helped by the fact that the touchpad itself was extremely glossy, which was designed to aid sliding, but I found it a bit overboard in the end, even with the settings tuned for more reasonable speeds.
Screen and Brandish
- Summary:
- Not Very Brilliant
- Decent Colour Representation
The Legion Y520 is fitted with a 15.6″ panel, which has a default resolution of 1920x1080px. The IPS anti-glare console delivers a mixed bag of results. The showtime and most notable aspect of the screen is its lack of overall brightness. On maximum effulgence, the screen has decent lighting, only just barely. Annihilation less than that makes information technology harder to view critical detail.
For most laptops, operating on battery power receives an automatic dimming of the screen, which minimises power consumption. On the Y520, nonetheless, this isn't ideal, as you're required to run at maximum effulgence irrespective of manner of functioning.
In add-on to the darker brightness of the onscreen reproduction, the actual calorie-free output is too a bit down, which is no surprise. The unit measures around 220 nits, which also falls below an industry standard around the 270-300 nits mark. That'south some 20%+ down on calorie-free reproduction.
When information technology comes to viewing videos or playing games, the results differ slightly in terms of viewable item. Darkly lit movies tend to suffer every bit a result of the brightness upshot, as turning the screen to maximum effulgence affects the contrast and saturation merely a tad. For virtually games, still, these types of settings can be adjusted more intricately, which allows users to become the nearly out of the game's overall aesthetics.
In terms of the sRGB colour gamut scores, the Y520 makes a poor showing with a 68% score. Because that the average screen is expected to feature in the range of 90-100%, with the better screens effectually the 120% mark, there isn't a lot to write dwelling almost hither. That said the colour representation, however, for some part, is accurate despite the darker appearance. The screen has a Delta-East score of 0.2. This surpasses the average score of around 2, for which 0 would be ideal.
Performance and Battery
- Summary:
- Multiple Builds Available
- Great SSD Read/Write Speeds
- Great GPU Operation
- Average Battery Life
What'southward crawly nigh the Legion Y520 is that there are numerous builds for your requirements, which allows you to cull your RAM and storage medium. The base model features an Intel Core i5-7300HQ CPU, 8GB RAM, 1TB HDD and a Nvidia GTX 1050 Ti graphics carte with 4GB of VRAM.
For those who are more serious about their gaming specs, the RAM is available up to 32GB, also every bit options to include an SSD from 128GB up to 1TB and an additional 2TB HDD. The unit we received included 16GB of RAM also every bit a 128GB SSD and 2TB HDD combo, along with a seventh-generation Intel Core i7 CPU.
The basic benchmark tests were performed on Geekbench 4, which had a score of 13,012. The industry standard for the budget gaming laptops in similar toll ranges is beneath the 12,000 mark, which makes the Y520'south score quite impressive. These results, nevertheless, may not mean much to many. Further testing, which included opening multiple tabs (more than twenty) across iii difference browser instances, while even so watching a motion-picture show and running a few other applications in the background didn't produce any lag or jitter, which was a very welcome effect. What'south more than, the Y520 continued to run relatively cool during these tests, for which I need note an increase in the fan speed that was audible, merely not severe past whatsoever means. The unit was more safety to employ on my lap fifty-fifty while gaming on higher settings and really pushing the CPU performances during stress testing.
The increased workload likewise formed part of the battery tests, which were also very adept because the reasonable temperatures generated by the unit of measurement. The unit is fitted with a 3-cell, 45Wh Li-Polymer bombardment with a manufacturing plant specification of four hours. Under normal working load, the unit averaged effectually the four-hour mark and dropped to effectually 3 hours and 10 minutes under heavier loads, which included the stress testing and/or gaming. A iv-hour battery life is a decent haul but isn't going to be topping any charts when you consider that the higher-terminate gaming units breeze through 7 hours nether normal workloads.
When it comes to the SSD testing, the results proved very positive thanks to the 128GB M.ii integrated SSD. This resulted in sequential read and write speeds of 2600MB/s and 1300MB/southward, respectively. Using the AS SSD benchmark tool, the unit also produces R/Westward speeds of 48 and 135Mb/s for 4K, and 915MB/s and 525MB/s for 4K-64 tests. This was a very impressive feat, which allowed for bootup times of just over 3 seconds. This is good enough to rival that of any of the leading gaming laptops on the market today.
The Nvidia GTX 1050 Ti GPU fitted to the Y520 is the heart ground between the 1050 and 1060 GPUs, and can hands produce gaming resolutions of 1080p at medium settings, making for a solid gaming functioning. For many gamers, the GTX 1060 is the best option between cost and performance, but the GTX 1050 Ti seems to have thrown its chapeau into the ring on that one.
At times, I managed to plough up the graphics settings in-game for better results, which included games similar Fortnite and Injustice, which don't crave such huge overheads. For games like GTA V and the likes, the medium settings will do just fine, with an increment in settings simply reduces the frame rates to unwanted levels. If you're looking for a GTX 1060, the Y520's big brother, the Y720, includes the card – which we'll exist reviewing in the not as well afar futurity.
Software
- Summary:
- Lenovo Nerve Sense Only Useful Software
The unit I received for review had been factory reset due to exchanging of hands between the different reviewers. As such, I wasn't able to directly test the software on the Y520. I was, notwithstanding, able to test the Lenovo software suite on a different Lenovo device, which has the same default setup for their Legion gaming range.
The software package includes the Lenovo Companion, Lenovo Settings and Lenovo Nerve Sense. The Companion software provides your basic update functionality, including system and driver updates, back up and some diagnostic tools. Information technology isn't the nearly detailed or sophisticated build, but information technology gets the job done. The Settings package provides a cardinal hub for battery management, input devices, likewise every bit sound, webcam and display settings. This, again, isn't the nearly platonic, but it too gets the job done, despite existence on the sluggish side. For more technical users, the software isn't a large requirement, equally these settings tin can be changed and updated via Windows if yous know how to. For nearly gamers, I would doubtable that this would be easy to maintain, making the software disposable.
The Nervus Sense software is where more important features are toggled on the Y520, which allows you to tweak some of the gaming settings for your use. These settings include control of the cooling system, network prioritisation especially while gaming, too as for which apps should be considered as such. Yous're also able to toggle whether to automatically turn off the Windows key and touchpad when running a game and enabling the Dolby sound enhancement features for those same detected games.
Autonomously from the automated arroyo of the Nerve Sense software, i could hands do without the standard Lenovo setup for gaming units. The other inclusions are just iterations that start on bootup.
Determination
The Lenovo Legion Y520 Gaming Laptop may not exist the best all-around performer or have the all-time looks, build or features, simply what it does information technology does well. The unit focuses primarily on gaming, and will more than make up for its lack in other departments.
For the beginner or enthusiast gamer, the Y520 is a very solid, and very capable unit, whether as an upgrade to an older machine or as a first time buy. It won't be the ideal lucifer for the more avid to pro gamers but does offer quite a lot in terms of its portability when you're away from your desktop PC build.
Source: https://www.fortressofsolitude.co.za/lenovo-legion-y520/
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