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Lenovo Legion 7i Review

Written By Louie Diangson
Published • September 7th, 2020
Gadget ReviewsLaptop
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Lenovo Philippines recently released in the market its latest gaming laptop, the Legion 7i. It sports a similar look as the Legion Y740 from last year, but packs newer hardware and a simpler naming scheme, dropping the Y in the name. Is this the gaming laptop for you? Find out in our review.

Table of Contents

Design and Construction

One of the first things I noticed about the Legion 7i is how sleek and clean it looks. While other gaming laptops employ plenty of cuts, angles, and a prominent branding on the lid, the Legion 7i is more subtle, placing the Lenovo and Legion badges on the corners, providing you with a clean plane of aluminum in gunmetal finish paint job. I don’t think it would even look out of place in an office setup, except for that hinge placement.

Look at it from a different angle, and you’ll know that this is not an ordinary laptop. On the left, it has a slim exhaust, along with the Thunderbolt 3 port, USB 3.1 Type-C, and 3.5mm headphone/mic combo jack.

On the right are the USB 3.1 Type-A, OneKey Recovery Button, and another exhaust.

The backside is where it gets busy. There’s the HDMI 2.0 port, two USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-A, Ethernet (RJ-45), AC Power, Kensington Lock, and two exhaust on the left and right. This is nice for cable management as you don’t have lots of cables sticking from the sides.

Flip it over, and you will see the intake grill, the rubber feet which are high enough give the Legion 7i ample space for good airflow, and speakers.

At the top of the lid is a slight bump to make the lid easier to lift, as well as to give more space for the webcam. The webcam has a built-in shutter to protect your privacy which is a thoughtful design.

Once opened, you will be greeted by the 15.6-inch Full HD 100% sRGB display with a 240Hz refresh rate. It’s an immersive screen thanks to its slim bezels and color-rich screen.

Below it is the power button with additional vents on the sides, the Legion TrueStrike backlit RGB keyboard with Numpad, large arrow keys, and trackpad. The keys have 1.3mm travel with soft-landing switches, so it’s nice to type on and really quiet.

The keyboard has the same color as the rest of the body. It’s also premium and doesn’t feel plasticky. The trackpad is a bit small but solid and smooth. That’s not what we feel about the power button, though. When you press it, you’ll feel the plastic under it flex before you hit the switch.

The flex is not even uniform as it is stiffer on the upper part. And when you finally hit the switch, it produces this cheap-sounding click. This is something you wouldn’t expect from a premium gaming laptop.

Earlier, we’ve been describing the Legion 7i as a discreet and subtle-looking laptop since it doesn’t have the aggressive angles, large badge, and colored keycaps that you usually find in gaming laptops. It doesn’t scream ‘gaming!’, that is until you turn it on.

Once you power this machine, you will be given a cool RGB treatment, which you can find on the keyboard under the chassis, and on the lid in the Legion logo. The rear vents get RGB lights as well, and it looks like you’re looking at the tail lights of a sports car, which is really cool.

Carrying this laptop around is not much of a big deal. At 2.1kg, it’s hefty, but you can still lug it around. It’s not an ultrabook, after all. Still, it’s relatively thin for a gaming laptop and should easily slide in and out of a backpack’s laptop compartment.

Display and Multimedia

The Legion 7i packs a 15.6-inch IPS screen with Full HD resolution. The screen has this matte finish which helps minimize unwanted glare and some fingerprints. While it doesn’t boast a lot in terms of resolution, it has a 240Hz refresh rate which results in really smooth animations and transitions.

It is bright and has a nice contrast and accurate colors. The hinge also allows the screen to be angled up to 180-degrees so you can adjust it to suit your viewing needs.

It also has the X-Rite Color Assistant installed so you can choose color profiles. Aside from its default setting, it supports sRGB and Rec. 709, as well. So, if you’re doing photo editing and color grading, the Legion 7i’s screen is up to the task.

The Dolby-powered speakers are located at the bottom on the left and right-hand sides. The quality is great. It’s loud, crisp, and has some bass in it. It’s good enough for gaming, watching videos, or video meetings. You can also use the Dolby Atmos Speaker System so you can choose profiles depending on your task and preference.

Software Features

The Legion 7i runs on Windows 10 Home and comes with Lenovo’s software to improve the gaming experience and performance. There’s the X-Rite Color Assistant so you can pick color profiles that are best suited for your task.

Lenovo Vantage, which is your primary dashboard for the Legion 7i’s hardware info and a shortcut to the machine’s System Tools. From here you can view system vitals, adjust thermal profiles, optimize apps, and get critical system updates.

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Legion Edge allows you to toggle Thermal Modes, activate Network Boost, Auto Close apps, Hybrid mode (to allow the system to switch between integrated and discrete graphics cards dynamically), Over Drive, and Touchpad Lock. There’s also Quick Settings to activate Rapid Charge, WiFi Security, and Dolby Audio.

For the keyboard, there’s Corsair’s iCUE software, to adjust the RGB effects. Other software pre-installed includes a trial of Microsoft 365 and McAfee Livesafe.

Performance and Benchmarks

Powering the Legion 7i we have on hand is a 10th-gen Intel Core i7-10750H CPU, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER w/ Max-Q design 8GB GDDR6 GPU, 16GB of RAM, and 1TB SSD. This is a beefy configuration for a laptop with this slim design. As expected, it breezed through all productivity tasks we threw at it which includes heavy Chrome browsing and photo editing.

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Check out the benchmark scores below:

• PCMark 10 Extended – 6,583
• Geekbench 5 – 1,224 (Single-Core), 6,353 (Multi-Core)
• Cinebench R20 – 2,947 (CPU), 456 (CPU – Single-Core)
• 3DMark – 7,6598 (TimeSpy)
• CrystalDiskMark 7 – up to 3,164.21 MB/s (Seq. Read), up to 3,056.29 MB/s (Seq. Write)

When it comes to gaming, we benchmarked it using the following games, and here are the results:

For the Shadow of the Tomb Raider, we got an average FPS of 97 on the Highest graphic settings. On High, we got 104 FPS. On Medium we got 107 FPS.

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For Middle-earth: Shadow of War, we got 99 FPS on Ultra, 105 FPS on Very High, and 121 FPS on High.

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For Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Wildlands, we got 56.72 FPS on Ultra, 84.49 FPS on Very High, and 93.61 FPS on High.

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The Legion 7i is quiet when running productivity tasks. You’ll only hear the fans when you’re benchmarking and playing games. Although it can be easily drowned by cranking up the volume or when you’re using headphones. You can also change the Thermal Mode Setting using Lenovo’s Q Control 3.0. Just press Fn + Q to go from Performance mode (high CPU voltage, high fan speeds), Quiet mode (lower CPU voltage, lower fan speed, better battery), and Balance mode (day to day automatic management).

When it comes to thermals, it is handled by Lenovo’s Legion ColdFront 2.0 that uses Vapor Chamber technology to dissipate heat. Cool air is pulled from the bottom and expelled by the vents at the sides and back. Most of the heat is concentrated on the back. You’ll notice some warming on the right side of the keyboard and palm rest. Nothing serious but enough to make your palm sweaty. The left side, however, remains relatively cool.

Battery Life

The Legion 7i packs an 80Wh battery. In Better battery mode and mostly used for productivity tasks, we can get 5 to 6 hours of battery life. Our video loop test which involves playing a 1080p video at Better performance mode at 50% brightness and volume got us 6 hours and 40 minutes of playback, which is not bad. Gaming on this laptop unplugged is not recommended as it will drain the battery in under an hour. Charging, on the other hand, with the help of the Rapid Charge Pro feature, will get you 50% in just 30 minutes, which is impressive.

Conclusion

The Lenovo Legion 7i ticks all the boxes on our list. It has a premium build, a portable and professional-looking design that won’t look out of place in an office environment, a fantastic 240Hz display, a privacy shutter on the webcam, an attractive RGB setup, good battery life, cool software features, and great performance and thermals. We didn’t like the power button though and the small trackpad, but we’re nitpicking as these are things we can sweep under the rug given its pros. At PHP 134,995, it’s pricey, but a competitive price considering what it has to offer. So, if you’re a gamer or a creator, and on a hunt for a laptop that packs the power mentioned above, then the Legion 7i should be at the top of your list.

Lenovo Legion 7i specs:
15.6-inch FHD (1920 x 1080) IPS, 240Hz display
10th Gen Intel Core i7-10750H CPU
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER w/ Max-Q design 8GB GDDR6 GPU
16GB DDR4 RAM
1TB NVMe PCIe SSD
WiFi 6
Bluetooth 5.0
2x 2W Dolby Atmos Speaker System for Gaming with Chamber
720P HD webcam
USB 3.1 Gen 1
2x USB 3.1 Gen 2
HDMI 2.0
RJ45 Ethernet
Thunderbolt 3 Type-C (Thunderbolt, DisplayPort, USB 3.1, HDMI)
USB-C (DisplayPort 1.4, USB 3.1 Gen 1)
Headphone/mic combo
Kensington lock
Power-in
Windows 10 Home
Corsair iCUE RGB support
80Wh, 4 Cells battery
360 x 255 x 20mm
2.1kg