Lenovo Legion Slim 5 14APH8 laptop review: 120 Hz 2.5K OLED sweet spot

[NikoB]

no Thudenderbolt 4 = no buy. Sorry, Lenovo.

These big manufacturers generally don't care about the 1-3% of experienced buyers who know enough about technology to understand the technology and pricing scams. There are supposedly 8 billion people on the planet. Now there are always some millions of fools with money, enough to pay for the production of almost any series of low-quality goods in terms of quality/price, according to expert assessment in accordance with what is stated in their components and what actually exists at this price level and an understanding of the level of wholesale and retail prices for components in the product (as well as the level of guarantees for them as part of the product and separately on the retail market)..

In general, corporations increasingly do not care about the adequacy of solutions from the point of view of experienced buyers and, especially, experts. They focus on the majority - the technically illiterate masses, and with the accelerating degradation of education in most countries, especially "developed" ones relative to the level they previously had vs. the level of progress and science.

[Alex Mason]

no Thudenderbolt 4 = no buy. Sorry, Lenovo.

I'm sure the PCIe lanes are dedicated to the 2 NVMe x4 slots and thus would not be available for USB 4.0.

[jimmy]

So can the legion slim 5 14 be adequately powered by USB C under gaming loads?

[Neenyah]

So can the legion slim 5 14 be adequately powered by USB C under gaming loads?

If you manage to stay under 100W then yes. But the max measured load in this review was at 160.9 Watt so that's 60.9 W more than the USBC can provide.

[Mike F]

I bought one because it was on sale at Best Buy for a too good to pass up, $1,049 (US).

It is outright replacing an ROG Zephyrus M16 (i7-12700H, RTX 3060, 16GB, 1920x1200).  It is mostly replacing a MacBook Pro (14", M1 Pro).  When I say Linux, I'm referring to Pop OS 22.04 because it was the only distro that worked properly on the Zephyrus and I don't feel like experimenting.

Mostly it's great.  The keyboard is the best I've ever used on a laptop; but I suppose "best" is largely down to preference.  Trackpad is good, but palm rejection fails sometimes.  Palm rejection basically doesn't work at all on Linux.  Fingerprint reader is fast and accurate on Windows, doesn't work on Linux, I had to disable tap to click.  Camera is bad on Windows, doesn't work at all on Linux.  Battery life is good enough on Windows, I got 7 hours in desktop tasks; bad on Linux, only 3.5-4 hours.  Speakers are trash, I haven't heard speakers this bad since ~2010; they're tinny and not nearly loud enough - it is hard to accept them when I have the MacBook sitting next to it on the desk.  Sleep states work properly on Linux.  It is very nearly as big as the Zephyrus M16 and quite a bit bigger than the MacBook; comfortable in the lap on a sofa, but if you're at one of those mini-desks in a university lecture hall it might be cumbersome.  It weighs noticeably less than the Mac and has a nice place to grab behind the screen, if for some reason you're in the habit of carrying your laptop while using it.

The display is good, not great.  Something about it doesn't feel quite as good as the Mac, but it's a non-issue for me if I haven't looked at the Mac in a few days.  I really wish it were 2.5K instead of 2.8K though.  This slightly higher oddball resolution means that 150% display scaling is too small, but 200% is too big, and a lot of apps don't play well with 175%.

The obvious flaws:
No Gsync.  Not an issue for me personally.  I don't play games often, but when I do I'm connected to an external monitor.  Most of the time it lives in 60 fps on the desktop.
No USB4/Thunderbolt.  I've had 2 laptops with Thunderbolt for a few years and never used it.  I suspect it's a non-issue for most people, but for those who it is, obviously it's a big issue.
Cannot maintain a charge on USB PD when pushed hard.  If you're planning on gaming or doing something else intensive for extended periods, you're going to need the full power brick. 
Connecting an external display crashes both the AMD and Nvidia drivers in Linux.  This makes Linux unusable on this laptop for me.
Only 16GB of RAM.  Not sure what Lenovo and Best Buy were thinking.  You can configure 32GB on Lenovo's website, but then you're waiting a few weeks and likely never getting nearly as good of a deal as I got.  If it weren't so cheap, it would be insulting.  Potentially a big issue for a lot of people.

Ultimately, I'd buy again at the price I paid.  But if you have to pay full price, I'd look at the Asus ZenBook Pro instead. 

[NikoB]

no Thudenderbolt 4 = no buy. Sorry, Lenovo.

I'm sure the PCIe lanes are dedicated to the 2 NVMe x4 slots and thus would not be available for USB 4.0.

This is technical illiteracy. 2xUSB40 are built into the SoC and do not need external PCI-e lines for M.2. Unlike the 45HX series. But in the 45HX series there are 28 5.0 lines and at least 20 of them are simply hanging in the air in all laptops due to the fault of laptop manufacturers.

Take the same idiotic Asus Strix 17 models - at a monstrous price there is not a single USB40, although with the 7845/7945HX, the greedy rednecks from Asus could simply solder external USB40 controllers (each with 2 ports costs less than $40) even in the amount of 4 ports, providing an external link with aggregation to x16 pci-e 3.0 desktop video cards. And there would still be free pci-e 5.0 lines. Even with 4 x M.2 pci-e 4.0 x4 each to support fault-tolerant RAID10 in a laptop on 4xSSD.

AMD makes perfect HiEnd-level SoCs, and redneck laptop manufacturers are engaged in deliberate regression in technology. Without squeezing everything possible out of the SoC's capabilities.

The keyboard is the best I've ever used on a laptop; but I suppose "best" is largely down to preference. 

Absolutely all keyboards with 1.5mm travel are bad for long-term typing. Not to mention games.

Only one sleep mode is correct - S3(STR). But all new laptops do not support it. This is intentional.

Sleep states work properly on Linux. 

I really wish it were 2.5K instead of 2.8K though. 

OLED flickers disgustingly, it's glossy, fades quickly, and has lower actual color resolution than IPS.
Here need 4k IPS with a native contrast of 2000:1 semi-matte. Then the screen will be ideal for vision. For text and graphics. The higher the ppi, the higher the quality of text and graphics rendering. This is easily proven just by looking at the screen of any smartphone.

but 200% is too big

200% for 4k panel - is OK scale.

It's easy to play in fhd mode. Which, unlike idiotic 2.5k panels, is pixel sharp when switching from 4k resolution. Just like 4k/fhd video is perfectly pixel sharp only on 4k and fhd screens, but not on stupid 2.5k.

No USB4/Thunderbolt. 

This is the stupid redneck of Lenovo, which, due to its own greed, did not remove the cheap USB40 ports from the SoC. And Zen4 Phoenix always has 2 built-in ports.
Most laptop manufacturers will choke themselves over pennies. This is pure and stupid marketing of the series and nothing more.
AMD makes perfect SoCs, and greedy laptop manufacturers destroy progress.

Only 16GB of RAM. 

again the stupid greed of laptop manufacturers. Taking into account when these series were made in reality, ddr5 costs pennies for 32GB. This should be the minimum volume today since 2022.

Ultimately, I'd buy again at the price I paid. 

I wouldn't use an laptop with flickering and glossy AMOLED even if it was given to me as a gift. My eyes are more precious to me.

[Paolo24]

Dear Notebookcheck,

Resolution for this device is 2880 x 1800 not 1600.