Just a few years ago, the term desktop replacement meant a laptop that was bulky, heavy, and most of the time, ugly to look at. In order to pack that much power inside a device such as a laptop, you had to make a lot of sacrifices in terms of aesthetics. Enter 2022, where the Legion 7 with a Ryzen 9 5900HX and an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 proves that desktop replacement laptops need not be huge. In this day and age, they are slim, sexy, and more powerful than ever before.
Design and Construction
Speaking of slim and sexy, the design of the Legion 7 is very similar to other Legion laptops out there like the Legion 5i we previously reviewed. The difference is, this chassis has more parts made out of metal. The entire lid of the laptop is cool aluminum that definitely feels very durable. Again, the design is perfect for both office and play. At first glance, nobody would mistake this as a gaming laptop, the understated design gives a feel of professionalism and sophistication.
The laptop is slim enough for the specs that it packs inside. It only weighs around 2.5kg, not too heavy and not too light either. It’s sleek form factor can easily fit inside most laptop bags. The only con I can point out, which is a con for most Legion laptops, is that the laptop is a fingerprint magnet. The entire lid can get smudged easily by your fingers, thankfully the palm rest area doesn’t show marks too easily.
Okay, I lied a bit about not looking gamer-y at all. If you’re the type that wants to show the world that you have a powerful gaming laptop then all you have to do is crank up the RGB, and crank up the RGB you can in this laptop, with lights all over the device. It starts with your typical RGB customizable keyboard, then to both sides where the fans are, plus an entire RGB strip at the chin of the laptop. These go very bright and are customizable in so many ways. So if you’re the type that believes that RGB can increase your skill or FPS, then go ahead and crank it up!
On the left side of the laptop, you get a USB Type-C port and your headphone/microphone jack plus an exhaust fan.
On the right side, you get another USB Type-C port, a manual camera shutter, and another exhaust fan.
At the back of the laptop you get 3 USB Type-A ports, Ethernet jack, USB Type-C Port, an HDMI port, and your power connector.
Underneath the laptop is the area for the speakers, and a bit of an exhaust area as well.
Opening the lid of the laptop we have the 720p webcam, and the gorgeous 16-inch screen in a very useful 16:10 aspect ratio.
In the keyboard area, centrally located on top is the power button. The keys are flat and very responsive, I had no problem with the layout of the keys. The keyboard has a decent travel of 1.5mm. The only con I could give this was that the keys were a bit cramped due to Lenovo forcing the laptop to have a very small numpad area at the right side.
The trackpad of the Lenovo Legion 7 was very easy to use. This has got to be one of the rare Windows laptops that I didn’t have an issue with when it comes to the trackpad. The size was generous and I never had an issue with using it. It supports multi-touch so gestures work very well with the laptop.
The build quality of the Lenovo Legion 7 is very good, I appreciate the mix of aluminum and high-quality plastic that makes the device feel very solid to use.
Display and Multimedia
The Lenovo Legion 7 has a very good display. It gets bright enough even with direct sunlight in the area going as high as 500 nits, and it has very good contrast as well for an IPS display. It comes with a 16-inch display with a 2560 x 1600 resolution. Yes, that’s a QHD display on a laptop. It’s also very fast with a refresh rate of 165hz that makes everything buttery smooth.
The highlight feature for me with this laptop has to be the aspect ratio. If you’re the type that needs more work done, the 16:10 aspect ratio shows you more parts of a website and is a great aspect ratio for productivity.
The screen of the Lenovo Legion 7 is very fast and vivid. Playing a game like Far Cry 6, which has a lot of lush, green areas, the colors really popped out. Explosions in the game were spectacular to see on this screen. The brightness was never a factor for me, especially in a game like Call of Duty: Warzone, I clearly can see where enemies are even in the dark. For competitive games like Valorant, the fast 165Hz refresh rate and low response time of the laptop really can give you a competitive advantage over other players.
When it comes to multimedia, watching TV shows such as The Book of Boba Fett was a treat. The details on every single character in the show popped out on screen. Dark scenes in any TV show were never too dark to understand. The only con would be the bigger black bars on the screen when showing 16:9 content as the aspect ratio of the Legion 7 really will naturally give you black bars on the top and bottom of your screen. Overall though, the screen of the Legion 7 will not disappoint you, especially at QHD resolution, you have more than enough screen real estate on the screen and pixel peepers will not have a problem with the display.
The Legion 7 has two bottom-firing speakers like other Legion laptops, but the difference with this model is that there are also speaker grills at the keyboard area of the laptop right beside the power button. This allows you to prop the laptop wherever and still hear clear music, instead of a muffled mess, especially when using one on a bed. If you’re looking for something for music, the Legion 7 will do just fine. The sound, while clear, lacks bass and can sound very hollow at times. I suggest using headphones, or earphones when using the laptop for serious gaming. It’s perfectly fine for video calls, meetings, or YouTube, but to get yourself immersed in anything else, a dedicated device would definitely be better.
OS, Apps, and Features
One of the things you can access here is its support and warranty, specifically the Legion Ultimate Support (LUS). LUS offers Level 2- Advanced technical support, meaning the technicians are familiar with popular gaming titles, trends, and communities. They have 24/7 availability through phone, chat, and email, can provide next business day onsite support and fast repair, and support for hardware, software, and accessories. Such a feature can provide users with peace of mind in case something goes wrong with their machine.
Performance and Benchmarks
Powering the Legion 7 is an AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX processor with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 dedicated GPU. It also has 32GB of RAM, a 2TB NVMe SSD, and Windows 11 on board. What does this all mean? A lot of power, definitely able to match or surpass a lot of desktops out there. From my testing in games, the combination delivers gaming performance comparable to an NVIDIA RTX 3060 Ti desktop GPU.
Cranking up the settings in all the games I tried with the laptop, this means Ultra at QHD, I still got pretty decent frame rates at all the games that I played. In Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla, I got an average of 60fps at 1440p with Ultra settings on, which is very impressive for a graphically demanding game such as this one. On Warzone, I averaged around 140fps on High settings with DLSS off. I could squeeze in a lot more performance if I turned DLSS on and sacrifice a bit of graphical fidelity. When it came to Cyberpunk 2077, I averaged around 60fps with everything on Ultra which really impressed me, as the game is known to bog down a lot of systems.
Here are some of the benchmark results we got:
• PCMark 10 Extended – 10,717
• 3D Mark – 11,235 (Time Spy), 5,670 (Time Spy Extreme), 25,142 (Fire Strike), 14,245 (Fire • Strike Extreme), 7,745 (Fire Strike Ultra)
• Geekbench 5 – 1,475 (Single-Core), 8,296 (Multi-Core)
• Cinebench R20 – 5,095 (CPU-Multi), 565 (CPU-Single)
• Cinebench R23 – 13,041 (CPU-Multi), 1,448 (CPU-Single)
• CrystalDiskMark 8 (2GB) – 3,593.51 MB/s (Read), 3,067.21 MB/s (Write)
One thing to note though is that the laptop gets pretty hot when I use it for gaming. Hot enough to be very uncomfortable when using it on my lap. The keys thankfully though never get too hot to touch, but again, good ventilation is a must with this device.
Connectivity
It also has all your basic connectivity features covered. In addition to the physical ports mentioned earlier, it has WiFi 6 for better and faster wireless internet and Bluetooth 5.1. We have an 80Wh capacity for the battery and come with a huge and fast 300W charger.
Conclusion
The Lenovo Legion 7 is a great replacement for a desktop if you plan to work on the go. Especially if you’re a professional that needs this much power when you are traveling, it is a great device with minimal compromises. It’s definitely not the cheapest laptop around, but what you get is something that really checks a lot of boxes for most people. A great screen for both gaming and productivity, a really powerful CPU and GPU combo that just shreds through everything you throw at it, and in a package that screams sophistication.
If you said I could find a laptop like this years ago I never would have believed you, but alas, here we are in 2022, with a laptop like the Lenovo Legion 7. Never would I have thought that a laptop this small could be so good.
The Lenovo Legion 7 is priced at PHP 139,995 and is available in Storm Grey.
For more information about Lenovo’s Legion line, visit https://legion.lenovo.com/
Lenovo Legion 7 16ACH6 specs:
16-inch QHD (2560 X 1600) IPS display, 165Hz, 500 nits, 100% sRGB
AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 16GB GDDR6 GPU 165W TDP
32GB DDR5 RAM
2TB PCIe NVMe SSD
WiFi 6
Bluetooth 5.2
1x USB Type-A (Sleep and Charge)
3x USB Type-A (5Gbps)
1x USB Type-C (Thunderbolt 4, Displayport)
1x HDMI 2.1
1x RJ-45
1x headphone/microphone combo
Dual-Speakers
720p webcam
80Wh battery
300W power adapter
Windows 11
