For gamers and content creators: Lenovo Legion 5 Pro Notebook Review

[Redaktion]

With up to 120 W of constant CPU power consumption, the i7-12700H is even challenging the more expensive i9 CPUs. And with 16 GB of RAM, 2 TB of NVME storage and an unleashed RTX 3060, gamers and content-creators have all manner of performance reserves at their disposal. Does the 16-inch QHD display, and over-the-top connectivity deliver that convincing overall package? That's what we aim to clarify here.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/For-gamers-and-content-creators-Lenovo-Legion-5-Pro-Notebook-Review.637076.0.html

[NikoB]

Well, let's analyze the "new" series by bones...

The first thing that immediately catches your eye is again problems with strong noise even with a light load (up to 25-30% load for all cores). CO is disgustingly configured for such dimensions and weight from the factory. Lenovo engineers did not understand what is important for the consumer - the absence of noise when the load on the cores is in the region of 20-30%. Are you afraid that at higher temperatures in surfing and office, the series will not withstand the 2-year warranty in the mass case? Temperatures under high load, judging by the measurements, are simply monstrous (66C!!!) - you can almost fry scrambled eggs on the body this series. However, the laptop is noisy. How so, Lenovo? Or high noise or high temperatures...

The second thing that catches your eye is the not quite honest 165Hz panel (G2G is too large - 14ns instead of 6ns, as it should be on B2W). The contrast is not the worst, but only 1200:1 is low (however, as promised in psref). 1500:1 is much more pleasant (the main thing is not to spoil the series with a vile flickering AMOLED with a low resource vs IPS). It is also immediately clear that the brightness spread is too large (15% is bad), i.e. black and white stability is not very good, Lenovo needs to work with panel suppliers, as Apple does hard.

Well, the key failure is again in AIDA64 Ray Trace 64 - a shameful 5760 parrots, instead of 6977 parrots in a 14 "(!) ultrabook from HP (see the adjacent review - notebookcheck.net/HP-Pavilion-Plus-14-laptop-review-OLED-90 -Hz-and-12th-gen-Core-H.635546.0.html) which even has PL1 only 45W for exactly the same 12700H, instead of 100W for L5Pro and ridiculous DDR4 3200 memory, instead of DDR5 4800 for L5Pro! How so Lenovo?! Lose as much as 18% of the performance of the 12700 with a 55W advantage! The shame with system tuning (BIOS, microcode) is obvious.
It can also be seen well that the memory is configured disgustingly in terms of timings. Too low speeds for a typical DD5 4800! Although they are still higher than DDR4 3200! By the way, for a gaming and creative series, memory with XMP could be set to 5200, or even 5400 and of course it should definitely smash the 12700H with a 45W PL1 in an HP ultrabook from new review in the AIDA64 Ray-Trace64 test!
I don't even discuss DPC Latency, anyway, it depends on a bunch of manufacturers and their responsible writing of code / firmware - but in reality, who is in the woods and who is firewood ... M$ generally scored on everything, making users alpha testers...

The quality of the speakers should be tightened up with a 16-inch case - look how Asus is almost always in the lead here...

Autonomy in the Intel series with such a power naturally fell below the plinth. AMD will do better, but there will be no TB4.0 and eGPU options for AMD... At the same time, I note once again that the greedy people at Lenovo cut the second TB4.0 port, which was in the 2021 series L5Pro... What's wrong? Left 2 and above only for premium series? Ugly...

Well, you need to technically do something with 1kg of PSU. Why then the low weight of the case (and even with such a shameful autonomy for 2022? Do not forget that the battery immediately turns the laptop into a pumpkin by speed) Then install heavier radiators and let the weight be like that of the Dell G5+, which does not include coolers at all up to 75C on the processor and is silent like smartphones and tablets in surfing and office.

Well, in general, I would not call the 2022 series successful. Neither you silent surfing and office, nor you the outstanding performance of hardware. Yes, and the panel is so-so for 2022 (in 2021 it was good, yes). It's time to install 3840x2400@120Hz, as HP install in the Omen series back in 2021 (only 3840x2160@120Hz 16:9). Matrices 4k @ 120Hz already exist. It would be time. It's especially funny that the laptop is allegedly as "gaming series", but it's clearly hard for it to use 2560x1600 above 60fps in games 2020-2022. And the 3840x2400 panel easily allows you to reduce the resolution to 1920x1200 without any loss of sharpness (4 pixel to 1) and play calmly at high fps. Isn't that clear to Lenovo marketers yet? Engineers understand this, but they have long been forced people and do not have the right to vote...

Well, bring the keyboard to mind! Make the Fx buttons full-sized like on desktop keyboards, and by slightly shrinking the frames (or slightly enlarging the case, which is even better for cooling), you can make the numeric keypad the same size as the main one. This will draw even more attention to the series of people who take it for work, and not for games only, as a true all-rounder. Order an exclusive model, and the rest will be forced to follow in your wake.

Well, bring the keyboard to mind! Make the Fx buttons full-sized like on desktop keyboards, and by slightly shrinking the frames (or slightly enlarging the case, which is even better for cooling), you can make the numeric keypad the same size as the main one. This will draw even more attention to the series of people who take it for work, and not for games only, as a true all-rounder. Order an exclusive model, and the rest will be forced to follow in your wake. Lenovo, you haven't lost your "drive" yet, but your competitors don't sleep...

Lenovo, you haven't lost your "drive" yet, but your competitors don't sleep...

[NikoB]

Well, here's a new interesting fact now with TUF 2022 from Asus - now the junior i7-12650H processor, and even with PL1 only 80W, does the older 12700H with 100W PL1 by as much as 32% in the AIDA64 Ray-Trace 64 test - 5760 parrots in L5Pro from this review vs. 7606 (see TUF review - notebookcheck.net/Asus-TUF-Dash-F15-FX517ZR-in-review-Laptop-with-Mobile-RTX-3070-and-acceptable-battery-life.636848.0.html).

Well, how can this be? Maybe the test environment is not always all right? Either the 12700H in the HP Pavilion cuts its counterpart in the L5Pro with a PL1 of only 45W, now even the junior processor is in the same place.

Can testers explain this strange fact? AIDA64 shows results quite consistently, as I know from experience, as it is. So why such wild variations in the Ray-Trace 64 test?

[LL]

I make mine the criticism of NikoB concerning the noise. This so powerful system should be able to play video and light work silently. It seem the coding is not well done and the high latency (Windows Kernel mode driver framework) might show a part of the issue.

@Notebookcheck  There seems to be an information conflict, the datasheet says 115 W TDP ( including 15 W Dynamic Boost) so the total would be 115w , but in text it says 140w?

@Notebookcheck  is it possible to have link to the 4K video you use to make the latency tests?

@Notebookcheck  would be nice to include the Blender Benchmark in GPU/Optix mode to know the RTX3060 capacity in rendering.

[NikoB]

I make mine the criticism of NikoB concerning the noise. This so powerful system should be able to play video and light work silently.

The main problem why the Legion series always has increased noise in a light load is incorrectly set cooler thresholds in the BIOS/Windows drivers. In the Dell G5 series, they are sharply higher. Lenovo has typical thresholds of 55-60C, Dell has 70-75C in the G5...

And I see several reasons (probably) why this is done:
1. The light weight of the laptop compared to the G5, which weighs almost 2.9kg in plastic, which allows you to stuff it with much heavier radiators.
2. Fear of Lenovo to set higher thresholds, tk. unlike Dell, it gives a basic warranty for this series of 2 years, not 1 year, which is apparently fraught with a serious increase in warranty cases, especially from hardcore gamers or those who use the laptop to the maximum in some heavy calculations.

MSI, as far as I know, previously allowed the user to configure the thresholds for turning on coolers in Windows, although they also provide a typical 2-year warranty for their game series.

My Dell G5 does not turn on coolers for hours, it does not even strain when software (not hardware decoding) decodes 2560x1440 to VP9 on youtube, occasionally it turns on at minimum speed and that's it. In the profile - maximum performance. That's what's important. That's when Lenovo brings the noise to the same level, then the series will become the benchmark for noise in surfing and office work, when the processor, if necessary, without any switching of performance profiles, can instantly reach peak performance and power.

With such a shameful autonomy and such a huge weight of the PSU, it doesn't matter how much the laptop itself weighs. Even if 3kg, most will use it all his life from PSU.

In fact, this laptop is purely for home or office, it is not a portable solution with good autonomy. At least in the 2022 line, everything is completely bad with autonomy on Intel.

Why am I pushing the idea of ��eGPU over Thunderbolt so hard? Because sometimes it's easier to take some ultrabook with good autonomy and optimal weight for working on street and frequent carrying, and at home connect it to the most powerful desktop video card with good cooling and reduced noise via Thunderbolt.

And if the new version of Thunderbolt offers at least a pci-e x4 4.0 link (aka x8 3.0) for a distance of 1m, then in principle this is enough to serve the requests of the GTX3090Ti. Given that mobile video chips from Nvidia lose on average 35-40% to desktop versions simply due to lack of power. Thus, the desktop GTX3080Ti will in any case beat the mobile even with the x4 pci-e 3.0 link, where up to 25-30% of performance in games and 3D is lost. And when only the processor is threshing inside the laptop, the noise will certainly be lower than in a set with a mobile discrete chip.

But some people like the idea - I carry everything with me, although the PSU weighs 1kg and the laptop is still almost 2.5. And without a PSU, its performance is just awful, as is mobility.

It turns out some kind of garbage, if you think about the purpose of buying such a "miracle" - for a house in a quiet environment, it is clearly noisy, but for the street it is too heavy with PSU, and without it, autonomy is completely bad. Either the autonomy should be 3 times higher, albeit with a 1.5-2-fold loss of performance, or this is a purely home laptop, but then the minimum noise in typical tasks should be put at the forefront without any switching stupid profiles.

[LL]

@NikoB

I have Legion 5 17(5800H,3060), i can browse and play FHD video without fans running, but CPU do not go to 20%, actually when i play video the GPU is much more active.

To test i just played this youtube video  COSTA RICA IN 4K 60fps HDR (ULTRA HD) - i put the video on 4K full screen but my screen is FHD so there is some calculation for that going on too.

CPU is hovering 11-9%  , GPU starts at +60% and then drops to 45% the rest of the movie.

But i am sure if the CPU which builds much more heat would be at 20% there will be fan noise.



2 cavets: i am in multimonitor setup, and the rear bottom of my laptop is always elevated.

[screwnumpad2022]

This is content creator device. 6Gb vram is already obsolete.

[NikoB]

This is content creator device. 6Gb vram is already obsolete.

Intel version have TB4.0 with eGPU. Buy riser+psu and desktop GTX3090Ti (and you can wait for the 4090Ti).

But the owners of the AMD version, despite the powerful processor and better autonomy, are deprived of this. And what they bought, they bought. Their laptop will quickly become obsolete in terms of the video part, and they will not be able to connect an external video card without problems using one of the M.2 slots through self-made Chinese adapters and damaging the case...