Lenovo Legion Y740 review: A gaming laptop with ThinkPad DNA

A Legion juiced up with RTX goodness

I really like what Lenovo is trying to do with its Legion series of laptops. First unveiled in 2017, Legion is Lenovo's attempt to create a dedicated gaming brand that gamers can get behind. While I'm not sure that the initiative has succeeded in terms of brand loyalty and general excitement around Legion, the brand has since produced some of the most mature-looking gaming laptops around, and I mean this in a good way. 

The Legion Y740 I'm reviewing today doesn't look much like a gaming laptop at all. Its stealthy exterior is uninterrupted by any brightly colored accents, and the lines are clean and simple, thankfully void of any flaring vents and references to sports cars or fighter jets.

However, it wasn't always this way, and the first batch of Legion laptops, like the Y520 and Y720, featured more flashy, and to my eyes less tasteful, designs. But with 2018's Legion Y530 and Y730, Lenovo adopted a new and more understated design language, and that's what you get with the Y740 today. 

Here's an overview of its specifications: 

• 15.6-inch 1,920 x 1,080-pixel 144Hz IPS G-Sync display
• Intel Core i7-8750H processor (2.2GHz, 9MB L3 cache)
• 32GB DDR4-2666 RAM
• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 Max-Q
• 512GB PCIe M.2 SSD + 2TB SATA HDD
• 361.42 x 267 x 22.45mm
• 2.2kg

The above will cost you S$3,600, which is actually pretty reasonable, especially considering that it has 32GB of memory. In comparison, the Razer Blade 15 costs S$3,999 when configured similarly.

Does the lower price mean there are trade-offs in other areas? We take a closer look at the laptop and how it performs over the next few pages.

Is this a gaming notebook?

The Lenovo Legion Y740 is a gaming laptop that looks like it could be a giant ThinkPad. The slate gray aluminum lid is plain and mostly unadorned. The only design element here is the Legion branding stamped on the side, but there's also an illuminated Legion logo hidden in the letter 'O' should you want an added bit of flair (the vents at the side light up as well, which is pretty cool). 

However, while I appreciate the simple design, the laptop can also feel a bit dated at times. The lid and sides are fine, but open it up, and the keyboard and trackpad give the impression that they're from a laptop that came out several years ago. There's nothing wrong with them per se, but the Windows Precision trackpad feels small and cramped and the fonts look like they could have used a more modern alternative. What's more, Lenovo is still using actual physical buttons on the trackpad, when integrating them with the trackpad would probably have looked better. In comparison, while the Razer Blade 15 has a pretty minimalist look as well, it still feels very modern.

It's the details that matter, and I think Lenovo could also have done away with the angled sides around the keyboard and the round power button at the center. In addition, it'd have been nice if the keyboard wasn't framed by empty space and there was a more efficient utilization of the available room. 

Speaking of the keyboard, the keys on the left feel slightly extraneous. For instance, there are two dedicated macro keys, backlight adjustments, and even a Lenovo Vantage key. That space could have been used to make the keyboard more comfortable or maybe even squeeze in a number pad, and the Vantage software doesn't even do enough to justify having a dedicated key. In fact, most of what you can do with it center around programming the macro keys, prioritizing game packets in your network, and optimizing performance by adding applications to a list so they'll close automatically when your game is running. 

The interface also doesn't feel very intuitive, and I can't see myself launching Vantage that often. One vital feature that's missing, especially on a software that ships with a gaming laptop, is the ability to manually set the fan speeds or even just toggle between different performance modes. Hitting Ctrl+Shift+1 will boost the fan speeds, but the laptop is otherwise lacking more fine-grained fan speed controls.

Having said that, there is a section called Legion Edge in Vantage that lists CPU overclocking, RAM overclocking, and even Thermal Mode selection as features. However, it also comes with the caveat that not all features are available on all devices, and it looks like the Y740 is unfortunately missing them. 

I'm nitpicking here though, and the Legion Y740 is still overall a pretty good laptop. Build quality feels solid, and while there's some flex around the keyboard, you have to push down quite hard to see it and it's not noticeable while typing. There is 1.7mm of key travel distance and the backlighting is reasonably vibrant, but the typing experience is otherwise unremarkable. There are some issues with uneven lighting on the keys with secondary legends, but it's not glaring enough to bother me that much. 

The laptop also ships with Corsair's iCUE software, which offers a range of lighting presets to choose from. There is support for per-key customizations as well, should you want to create something more unique. On top of that, you can adjust the lighting on the logo and side vents independently. 

Elsewhere, the 15.6-inch display is framed by thin bezels on three sides, which helps reduce the overall space footprint of the laptop. I'd expect nothing less from a gaming laptop released in 2019 though, especially one at this price point. That said, the bottom bezel is still rather chunky, and it's where Lenovo has stowed the webcam. This bottom placement of the webcam honestly isn't great as it makes for some seriously unflattering camera angles, but most folks can probably live with it if they don't do video calls that often or live stream their gaming session.

The display itself is a 144Hz IPS panel with support for NVIDIA's G-Sync variable refresh rate technology. This means that games should appear super smooth and fluid with almost no tearing and stuttering, which is definitely good news. The inclusion of G-Sync definitely helps the Legion Y740 score some points against the competition, since there are pricier laptops with no support for that.

However, as with many gaming laptops, the display was a little on the dim side, and I had to run it at maximum brightness to feel comfortable under bright florescent lighting. There was also a cooler tint to the screen, but colors otherwise appeared vibrant enough.

The speakers are a Dolby Atmos-capable system that sit at the bottom on the left and right sides. Generally-speaking, large top-firing units sound better, but these 2-watt speakers are powerful and definitely loud enough with not much distortion. The pre-installed Dolby Atmos app offers a selection of sound profiles, such as Dynamic, Movie, Music, Game, and Voice. You can also create your own EQ profile in the app. I was surprised by how good the speakers sounded, and you can probably ditch the headphones if you're watching a movie. That said, you'll still want to put them on in game where positional accuracy and maximum clarity is more important. 

The laptop is equipped with a decent selection of ports and connectors, distributed across the sides and back. In total, it features one Thunderbolt 3, one USB 3.1 (Gen 2) Type-A, two USB 3.1 (Gen 1) Type-A, one Mini DisplayPort 1.4, and one HDMI 2.0 port. In addition, there is a Gigabit Ethernet jack located at the back, alongside the display outputs and two USB ports. The inclusion of the Thunderbolt 3 port is pretty great, as for some reason it still isn't yet a standard feature on many gaming laptops. 

Because of the slightly forward location of the display hinge, there's also room at the back for helpful illuminated labels of individual ports. There are some issues with uneven lighting here and they're not all equally bright, but they do save you the trouble of having to crane your neck to identify them correctly.

Performance-wise, the Legion Y740 is pretty great. As you'll see on the next page, it's fast and competitive, mostly holding its own against other similarly configured laptops. However, it's the cooling performance that's pretty impressive. I'm not talking about CPU or GPU temperatures, which you can also see in the results section, but rather how cool the palm rests remain throughout.

Lenovo says that it improved the cooling system for this generation of laptops, and it shows. The laptop pulls in air through large openings at the bottom and dumps hot air out generous vents at the sides and back. It calls this system Coldfront, and it also comprises a dual-channel thermal management design, with dedicated cooling for both the CPU and GPU. Lenovo tells me there's a water-resistant film on the keyboard as well, which helps to reduce surface heat.

Test setup and performance

Here's a full list of the notebooks we're looking at:

• Lenovo Legion Y740
• ASUS ROG Zephyrus S GX531GW
• Razer Blade (2019)
• ASUS ROG Zephyrus S GX531GX
• Razer Blade (2018)

I've included a mix of GeForce RTX 2070 and 2080 Max-Q notebooks for a look at how the Legion Y740 stacks up against the immediate competition. In addition, the Razer Blade (2018) is thrown in as well to provide a measure of how much faster the Legion Y740 is than last generation's GeForce GTX 1070 Max-Q.

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I ran the notebooks through the following benchmarks:

• PCMark 10
• PCMark 8
• 3DMark
• Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
• Tom Clancy's The Division

How does it do in daily computing tasks?

The Lenovo Legion Y740 scored quite well overall in PCMark 10 Extended, beating even some of the notebooks equipped with the more powerful GeForce RTX 2080 Max-Q. However, PCMark 10 Extended is comprised of many separate benchmarks, and while the Legion Y740 naturally fell behind the GeForce RTX 2080 Max-Q laptops, it had an especially strong showing in the Digital Content Creation workloads, which helped it inch ahead. 

In terms of storage performance however, the Western Digital PC SN720 512GB PCIe M.2 SSD fell behind in terms of storage bandwidth, even though it was very competitive in terms of overall scores. 

How fast is it in games?

The GeForce RTX 2070 Max-Q in the Legion Y740 features an 885MHz base clock and 1,185MHz boost clock. This is lower than the 985MHz base clock on the same GPU in the ASUS ROG Zephyrus S GX531GW, which may account for the slightly lower scores in some of the 3DMark tests and gaming benchmarks. 

However, the difference is not that significant, and there was generally just a 3 to 5 per cent gap between the two laptops. Compared to the GeForce GTX 1070 Max-Q from the last generation, the GeForce RTX 2070 Max-Q in the Legion Y740 still represents a decent step up, and it is around 20 per cent faster.

How good is the battery life?

Updated 6 May 2019: Lenovo has since told us that the review unit was still a prototype, so it's possible that the battery life on retail units may be better.

Unfortunately, battery life is where the Legion Y740 really falls on its face. It lasted a mere 71 minutes, whereas the ASUS ROG Zephyrus S GX531GW, which has the same GPU and only a marginally larger 60Wh battery, lasted more than three times as long. This was even after enabling NVIDIA's Optimus technology in the NVIDIA Control Panel.

The Legion Y740 had the highest power consumption of the lot, outstripping even the laptops equipped with a more powerful GeForce RTX 2080 Max-Q. It goes to show that not all Max-Q laptops are as power efficient, and that getting a Max-Q laptop doesn't automatically guarantee you better battery life.

However, this is particularly disappointing because the Legion Y740 is thicker than most of the competition at 22.45mm thick. It'd have been nice if Lenovo managed to cram a larger battery in there, to make up for the laptop's poor power efficiency.

The subpar battery life also dragged the Legion Y740 down in the portability index, which is intended to be a measure of how portable a laptop is, after taking into account factors like weight, dimensions, and battery life. The Legion Y740 will not do well away from a power socket, and you should definitely have your power adapter handy at all times.

Speaking of the power brick, it's absurdly large and clunky, even though it's just a standard 230W unit that just about everyone is using. It occupies around a quarter of the laptop's surface area, and it only makes the laptop even less portable. 

Does it run hot?

Given that the Legion Y740 is thicker than many Max-Q gaming laptops on the market, it seems reasonable to expect that cooling should be slightly better. Fortunately, it generally is, and the laptop recorded the lowest peak temperature on the GPU after running a stress test comprising 40 loops of 3DMark Fire Strike Extreme. In addition, it also posted among the lowest surface temperatures, and I found that it remained relatively cool to touch throughout my testing. 

Of course, most of the testing was done in an air-conditioned room, so you should expect the laptop to feel warmer if you're gaming without the AC on. 

This laptop means business

The Lenovo Legion Y740 is best described as competent. It's not the most powerful laptop around, but it definitely is fast enough for most purposes. It also runs cool, and while the design can look a bit dated, it's simple and tasteful enough that it won't offend. Furthermore, it is fit for use in an office so you don't have to be embarrassed about taking it out. Concerned about the flashy lighting? That can be easily toggled off.

There's a growing number of gaming laptops that are adopting a more subtle look, such as the Razer Blade 15 and Gigabyte Aero 15Y v9. The Legion Y740 is not without competition, but I think it is still managing to hold its own, largely thanks to its price. 

At S$3,600, the Legion Y740 offers fairly good bang for your buck. It comes with 32GB of RAM and support for G-Sync, two things that many laptops don't offer at this price point. There's also a Thunderbolt 3 port on board, yet another useful inclusion. Together with the Dolby Atmos speakers, all these things come together to make a pretty decent package.

Is there a better alternative? Yes, but you'd have to pay more in order to secure things like a slimmer and more refined design and better battery life. If these things aren't super high on your list of priorities, I think you'll be pretty happy with the Legion Y740. Otherwise, it probably makes sense to pay a little more for a laptop with better build quality and larger battery.

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