Lenovo Legion Y740 17 review: Ridiculous power in a laptop that costs less than the competition
Terminal yr, Lenovo unveiled an updated Legion Y730 with a modern, mature look, and while nosotros applauded the design change, the laptop was held back by underwhelming gaming performance in the grade of a NVIDIA GTX 1050 Ti graphics card (GPU). Aye, this big and cute laptop was merely capable of treatment depression-bear upon games or AAA titles with lowered settings. Now, however, with the 17.iii-inch Legion Y740, Lenovo has gone all-in, offering NVIDIA RTX 2060, 2070, and 2080 GPU options.
Lenovo supplied Windows Cardinal with a review unit of a Legion Y740 with an RTX 2080 GPU, Intel Core i7-8750H processor (CPU), and 16 GB of DDR4 RAM, which costs about $ii,320. It'due south not cheap, but I've certainly been having some fun with it for the last couple of weeks. It'southward a powerhouse, and while it checks a lot of boxes for gamers, there are some drawbacks you should know almost.
Ridiculously powerful laptop
Lenovo Legion Y740 17
From $1,840
Bottom line: If you lot're in the market for a 17-inch laptop with NVIDIA RTX graphics, the Legion Y740 tin can deliver it for a toll that'due south less than a lot of the competition.
Pros
- Ridiculous ability in a thin laptop
- RAM, HDD, and SSD tin be upgraded
- Tons of ports
- RGB lighting
- 144 Hz Thou-Sync display
Cons
- Battery life is (understandably) abysmal
- Poor touchpad
- Display tops out at 1080p
Lenovo Legion Y740 17 tech specs
| Category | Spec |
|---|---|
| Os | Windows 10 Home |
| Processor | 8th Gen Intel Core i7-8750H Hexa-cadre Up to iv.10 GHz |
| RAM | sixteen GB DDR4-2666MHz Dual-channel |
| Graphics | NVIDIA RTX 2080 Max-Q 8 GB GDDR6 VRAM |
| Storage | 256 GB Samsung PM981 PCIe SSD one TB Seagate SATA HDD |
| Brandish | 17.3 inches 1,920 x 1,080 (FHD) Thousand-Sync enabled 144 Hz refresh rate |
| Ports | 3 USB-A iii.1 Mini DisplayPort 1.4 HDMI two.0 RJ45 Ethernet Thunderbolt 3 iii.5 mm headset jack |
| Audio | Dual two watt speakers Dolby Atmos Integrated subwoofer |
| Wireless | Killer Wireless Ac 1550i 802.11ac 160 MHz channel support Bluetooth 4.ane 2 x 2 MU-MIMO |
| Camera | Front-facing 720p |
| Keyboard | RGB backlight Corsair iCUE back up |
| Touchpad | Precision |
| Battery | Li-ion 76 Wh 230 West AC adapter |
| Dimensions | 16.2 inches x 12 inches x 0.91 inches (412.half-dozen mm ten 304.9 mm x 23 mm) |
| Weight | From 6.3 pounds (ii.9 kg) |
Lenovo Legion Y740 17 design
There's really no denying that the 17-inch Legion Y740 is a big and heavy laptop. It'due south more than a foot wide and about a foot deep, weighing in at more than six pounds for a baseline configuration. However, thanks to there existence plenty of space for hardware and the fact that it's using a thinner Max-Q NVIDIA RTX 2080, it remains less than an inch thick at its bulkiest indicate. The Y740 has a ledge backside the display hinges that concord vents and ports, keeping the sides mostly clear.
To a higher place each port forth the back ledge is a small low-cal that denotes which port is where, removing the problem of having to flip the laptop effectually when you're trying to plug something in. You get Mini DisplayPort, HDMI, USB-A 3.1 (Gen. 1), USB-A iii.one (Gen. ii), RJ45 Ethernet, a Kensington lock slot, and Lenovo's proprietary charging port in this area, as well every bit a Thunderbolt iii on the left side and another USB-A 3.1 (Gen. 1) on the right side. Information technology's a decent selection of ports, though information technology would exist nice to take a total-size DisplayPort.
On the bottom of the laptop, every bit part of the thicker black rear that holds the ports and side vents, is a spacious grid air intake for the dual-fan cooling organization. Information technology's raised to allow better airflow, but property the laptop on your lap is no doubt going to partially interfere with cooling. It's best used on a desk or apartment surface, which gives the built-in subwoofer on the bottom a chip of actress oomph at the same time.
The instance is primarily aluminum and has a dark grey color, accented past the blackness plastic venting on the back. The Legion name is emblazoned on the left side of the chapeau and has a lit-up Y logo for a bit of flair, simply other than that, it's quite sleek despite its size. In that location's non really any unnecessary bulk here, which is often the case with gaming laptops. The front tapers to a chip of a wedge, making it announced thinner than it is when sitting closed, and each side has a speaker that generally fires downward. Sound is total and gets loud, simply you'll probably want to take hold of a gaming headset if you're getting into anything competitive.
Lenovo Legion Y740 17 display
Lenovo doesn't offer anything higher than 1080p for the 17.3-inch brandish, which is no doubt a sore point for a lot of people. The RTX 2080 Max-Q GPU is highly capable, and even a 1440p selection would exist a welcome sight, if not 4K. The FHD resolution does mean you're going to go some insane framerates for a lot of games, and the display has a 144 Hz refresh rate to accommodate and deliver smoothen visuals. Aplenty port option does mean you tin hands hook upward an external brandish if yous want a higher resolution, but it would exist prissy to take more brandish options direct from the factory. As an added bonus for the NVIDIA GPU, the display features G-Sync compatibility for further smoothing and reduction of tearing.
The bezel is rather thick around all sides, only I think the sheer size of the laptop kind of makes information technology disappear, especially once you outset gaming. Contrast seems spot on and nothing appears done out. Testing color reproduction, I saw 97 percent sRGB and 75 percent AdobeRGB, both excellent results that you'll notice every time you open the lid. I, unfortunately, noticed a fair corporeality of light leak around the edges when displaying a dark screen, which could annoy some people.
In a higher place the display is a 720p front end-facing webcam that's just alright. For whatever streamers out there, we definitely recommend grabbing an external webcam with a college resolution.
Lenovo Legion Y740 17 keyboard and touchpad
One thing I loved about the Legion Y730 was the customizable macro keys along the left side of the laptop, but Lenovo has removed them for the Y740 and instead added a total number pad on the other side. Keys can withal be individually customized for RGB lighting thanks to Corsair's iCUE app, and there are numerous presets to cull from if yous want something flashy without going to also much work.
There'southward ample travel in the keys, and though it'due south not a mechanical keyboard, I didn't heed using it to game. Keys are well spaced and respond without too much pressure, and yous always take the option of attaching an external gaming keyboard for improved performance.
The touchpad is rather modest compared to the residuum of the laptop, and it has physical buttons that further have up space. It's using Precision drivers, and while it tracks well, you'll no incertitude want to promptly plug in an external gaming mouse. The physical buttons don't respond unless you hit them straight in the middle, causing unnecessary frustration when using the laptop for regular tasks.
Lenovo Legion Y740 17 gaming and VR
A disclaimer before getting into performance: The first Legion Y740 17 I received from Lenovo had some bug with cooling. The CPU was hitting 100 degrees Celsius almost immediately under heavy load and, as designed, throttled itself heavily to avert damage. After reaching out, Lenovo promptly sent out a new one to test, and it performed equally information technology should, with cadre temperatures remaining steady at virtually 75 to 80 degrees Celsius and no CPU throttling during an extended stress test. This is an issue you might (rarely) come across when buying a pre-built desktop or laptop — it might have had a crude fourth dimension during shipping as Lenovo tests these units before sending them out — but recall that these come up with a one-year warranty with the choice to extend.
Lenovo's 17-inch Legion Y740 brings ridiculous performance and a 144 Hz Yard-Sync display, wrapped up in a mature aluminum chassis.
A laptop packed with this much operation hardware is bound to get hot, only the (second) Y740 17 handles it without much effect. The fans are noticeably loud but zippo awful — they have a lot of work to do — and remained consistent during an extended stress test. There was no annoying up and down speed variance to listen to while it ran next to me. Battery life while gaming hits below the hour mark, which is pretty terrible but understandable when y'all have this blazon of hardware inside. As for general tasks, you can wait most two hours from a charge. At that place is a quick-charge option bachelor with the beefy 230 W adapter, which will charge upwards to about eighty per centum in an hour.
One thing I noticed while keeping a close heart on temperatures is that when the CPU is running on its own, it pulls near lx watts of power, and with a GPU running alongside, it drops down to well-nigh 45 watts. This gives y'all more than processing power when you just need a CPU, and keeps the laptop from getting into the temperature danger zone when a GPU is working overtime alongside the CPU.
Afterwards the stress tests to ensure cooling is working properly, I ran some synthetic benchmarks to see how well the hardware performs. This is a VR-capable laptop, and if you're in the marketplace for something portable to tote with your VR headset, the Y740 volition make a suitable choice.
3DMark
Fourth dimension Spy (College is better)
| PC | GPU | Score |
|---|---|---|
| Lenovo Legion Y740 17 | RTX 2080 Max-Q | vii,128 |
| Lenovo Legion Y730 | GTX 1050 Ti | 2,568 |
| Lenovo Legion Y7000 | GTX 1060 | 3,975 |
| Dell G7 15 7588 | GTX 1060 | 3,792 |
| Acer Predator Triton 700 | GTX 1080 | five,809 |
| ASUS ROG Zephyrus | GTX 1080 | v,551 |
3DMark
Fire Strike (Higher is improve)
| PC | GPU | Score |
|---|---|---|
| Lenovo Legion Y740 17 | RTX 2080 Max-Q | 16,303 |
| Lenovo Legion Y730 | GTX 1050 Ti | 6,890 |
| Lenovo Legion Y7000 | GTX 1060 | 10,137 |
| Razer Blade 15 | GTX 1070 | xiii,560 |
| Acer Predator Triton 700 | GTX 1080 | xiv,572 |
| HP Omen fifteen | GTX 1060 | 8,722 |
VRMark
Orange Room (Higher is better)
| PC | GPU | Score |
|---|---|---|
| Lenovo Legion Y740 17 | RTX 2080 Max-Q | 8,885 |
| Lenovo Legion Y730 | GTX 1050 Ti | three,742 |
| Acer Predator Triton 700 | GTX 1080 | 8,592 |
The RTX 2080 is capable of handling Rift, Vive, and Windows Mixed Reality without consequence.
To get a meliorate idea of how well the laptop performs when playing actual games, I tested framerates with Metro Exodus, which features back up for ray tracing and deep learning super sampling (DLSS), which is what the RTX GPUs are all about. I besides tested framerates with Tom Clancy's The Division 2, which doesn't feature ray tracing or DLSS but is still unbelievably detailed and ultimately a workout for any gaming PC.
Metro Exodus averaged 125.6 FPS (68 minimum and 187 maximum) on High settings without ray tracing or DLSS enabled. With the latter two options enabled and still running on High settings, I saw an average of 63.2 FPS (52 minimum and 82 maximum). Tom Clancy's The Division ii on the High preset ran at an 89.4 FPS average with 66 minimum and 113 maximum. If you want to play the latest and greatest games on a portable device, information technology's clear that the Legion Y740 17 is up to the chore.
Lenovo Legion Y740 17 general performance
Other than gaming, the hardware in the Legion Y740 17 is capable of handling video and photograph editing, likewise as general productivity tasks. An important feature to note is that the RAM, SSD, and HDD are all user replaceable, and then you tin can keep the laptop relevant longer. I ran some synthetic benchmarks to see how well it compares to other gaming laptops.
CPU
Geekbench 4.0 Benchmarks (Higher is better)
| Device | CPU | Unmarried core | Multi core |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lenovo Legion Y740 17 | i7-8750H | 5,067 | 22,578 |
| Lenovo Legion Y730 | i7-8750H | 4,793 | 19,085 |
| MSI PS63 Modern | i7-8565U | four,909 | 14,466 |
| Lenovo Legion Y7000 | i7-8750H | 5,134 | 22,540 |
| Razer Blade 15 | i7-8750H | 4,872 | 17,910 |
| Acer Predator Triton 700 | i7-7700HQ | four,834 | xv,298 |
PCMark
PCMark Dwelling house Conventional 3.0
| Device | Score |
|---|---|
| Lenovo Legion Y740 17 | five,102 |
| Lenovo Legion Y730 | 3,731 |
| Lenovo Legion Y7000 | four,097 |
| Acer Predator Triton 700 | iv,205 |
| Dell G7 xv 7588 | 3,853 |
SSD
CrystalDiskMark (Higher is ameliorate)
| Device | Read | Write |
|---|---|---|
| Lenovo Legion Y740 17 | iii,356.5 MB/s | 1,388.1 MB/due south |
| Lenovo Legion Y730 | three,244.8 MB/south | 1,335.4 MB/s |
| MSI PS63 Modern | 3,300 MB/s | i,875 MB/s |
| Lenovo Legion Y7000 | 3,493.5 MB/s | 1,653.8 MB/s |
| Razer Blade fifteen | ii,722 MB/s | i,217 MB/s |
| Dell G7 15 7588 | 521.5 MB/s | 303.4 MB/s |
The 256 GB Samsung PM981 PCIe SSD is a existent performer hither, but yous'll run across plodding speeds with the one TB SATA HDD.
Should y'all buy Lenovo's Legion Y740 17?
The 17-inch Legion Y740, despite bug with the original review unit that were non at all apparent in the replacement, is a big, powerful laptop that's competitively priced. The review unit here costs virtually $2,320, which certainly isn't cheap, but it's nonetheless less than you lot'd pay for similar hardware establish in, say, Dell'south Alienware m17 or Acer's Predator Triton 500 . That hardware is capable of delivering high framerates in modern AAA titles, which become especially apparent cheers to a 144 Hz display and G-Sync compatibility. While 1080p might exist fine for some, I wish Lenovo fabricated a 1440p or 4K brandish optional, since the RTX 2080 with Max-Q design is certainly capable of handling itself at those higher resolutions.
The laptop remains absurd nether extended load without throttling, the fans are noticeably loud but remain consistent when the laptop needs cooling, and while it gets hot under the keyboard and on the back panel, it can stay on your lap without too much discomfort. Simply be sure you're wearing pants. The touchpad is forgettable, but you'll likely exist plugging in an external mouse before long.
Battery life isn't at all not bad, clocking in at nigh an hour of playtime before needing a charge, but that'due south expected with the operation the Y740 offers. You lot'll want to keep the Air conditioning adapter close at paw, which together with the laptop's size doesn't exactly lend itself to portability. At well more than than six pounds, you'll likely want to program your excursions then y'all're not toting around on your back for a full day.
Should you buy the Legion Y740 17? If yous're expecting to get the full performance capability of an RTX 2080 GPU, you won't find it here. The Max-Q version merely doesn't offering the same power, and you'd be better off building your ain PC or ownership a pre-built desktop. Simply if you exercise want a laptop that's ane of the most powerful options out there and that'southward priced lower than a lot of the contest, we recommend giving the Y740 a 2d look.
17-inch powerhouse
Lenovo Legion Y740 17
Portable high-terminate gaming
You won't become a killer touchpad, sparse bezel, or any display options above 1080p, but you will go ridiculous functioning at a cost lower than much of the competition. Information technology's all wrapped up in a mature aluminum chassis with programmable RGB keyboard and lighted frazzle vents.
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Source: https://www.windowscentral.com/lenovo-legion-y740-17
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