Lenovo Legion Pro 7 16 laptop review: Full gaming power thanks to RTX 4090

[Redaktion]

The top model of the Legion Pro 7 is designed for maximum performance. Core i9-13900HX and GeForce RTX 4090 promise smooth frame rates on the internal WQXGA display even in demanding games. We put the 16-inch device through our test course.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-Legion-Pro-7-16-laptop-review-Full-gaming-power-thanks-to-RTX-4090.727338.0.html

[NikoB]

And what is "impressive" in this screen, the author?

Lousy sRGB color space, where is AdobeRGB 95%/100% DCI-P3? For such a price, the buyer has the right to expect exactly the same screen as top Asus laptops. It NOT "Pro" screen. This is an extremely cheap screen for amateurs.

The contrast is so-so - again, for this price, the buyer expects 1500:1+. And I would like LG Black IPS c 2000:1. It's 2023.

ppi isn't high enough to completely eliminate problems with murky, non-disableable fonts in Chrome. You need at least 220-230 ppi to radically solve this problem with shadows around characters due to incorrect black and white or color anti-aliasing. And only a 4k@120Hz panel gives that much, which, moreover, would allow playing in the most sharp fhd mode at the pixel level, which a 2.5k panel cannot give. We play fhd, we work in 4k.

The speed of the panel is disgustingly high - again fake "240Hz", but really about 110Hz by real average response time, i.e. 2 times worse.

Actual memory bandwidth could be better optimized for writing and copying. In read only mode, it is close in speed to the theoretical limit of ddr5 5600.

Well, the rest is not much to discuss.

For the price, you can get a desktop with the 7950X+4080, which is guaranteed to be faster, and a high-end laptop to go along with it. I would do just that - a quiet vengeful desktop and laptop to relax with it on the sofa / bed with surf and take it somewhere if necessary. Why suffer with such noise in games, I don't understand, but this model will probably find such eccentrics. The world is big, 8 billion people already, there are enough cranks with money to sell almost anything...

[NikoB]

Let me also remind you about the next downgrade and the shame of Lenovo in the 2023 model:
1. RJ45 has been downgraded from 2.5 Gb/s to the infamous 1 Gb/s of the early 2000s. Although everyone was waiting for 5-10Gb / s, especially in a laptop with the "Pro" prefix.
2. The TB4/USB40 port is only listed on the 4080/4090 model. Which is absurd and stupid - it is the younger models that need to be upgraded via the eGPU. And very quickly, because. ALREADY they can't pull out 60fps in games 2022-2023 at 2.5k resolution in ultra quality (otherwise why play - if the quality is not the maximum, conceived in the studio?)

As a result, we have a catastrophic drop in Lenovo sales already in 2022 by as much as 54% compared to 2021 and a fall to 3rd place from 1st in the ranking of global PC / laptop manufacturers.

I think it's a well-deserved market crash.

"...here we must run as fast as we can, just to stay in place. And if you wish to go anywhere you must run twice as fast as that..." (c)

[Neenyah]

As a result, we have a catastrophic drop in Lenovo sales already in 2022 by as much as 54% compared to 2021 and a fall to 3rd place from 1st in the ranking of global PC / laptop manufacturers.

Niko's alternate reality is slightly different from everyone else's reality (Lenovo included).

FY2022/23 Lenovo Earnings: news.lenovo.com/press-kits/fy2022-23-lenovo-earnings/

Top 6 vendors by number of units shipped, 2022: #1 Lenovo 24.1%, #2 HP 19.4%, #3 Dell 17.5%

(en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_share_of_personal_computer_vendors)

Lenovo secured the top spot in the PC market in Q4 2022, with shipments totaling 15.5 million units, representing a 29% year-on-year decline. It was also the largest shipping vendor for the full-year 2022, posting 68.1 million units as it underwent a 17% decline compared to 2021. HP ranked second, also seeing shipments decline by 29% in Q4 to a total of 13.2 million units. For the full-year 2022, it saw shipments fall by 25% to 55.2 million units. Third-placed Dell suffered the largest decline among the top vendors in Q4, with shipments down by 37% to 10.8 million units.

canalys.com/newsroom/global-pc-market-Q4-2022

[LL]

Unacceptable price, unacceptable latency, unacceptable forcing consumers to not be able to choose a lesser CPU, unacceptable only in 16" size.

Great performance. Most connection ports in the rear.

[DaveeL]

We will see a legion 9, because this model is the y9000p extreme edition. The flagship y9000k is coming soon...
I hope they fix the mistakes

[Jake Kleintank]

And what is "impressive" in this screen, the author?

Lousy sRGB color space, where is AdobeRGB 95%/100% DCI-P3? For such a price, the buyer has the right to expect exactly the same screen as top Asus laptops. It NOT "Pro" screen. This is an extremely cheap screen for amateurs.

The contrast is so-so - again, for this price, the buyer expects 1500:1+. And I would like LG Black IPS c 2000:1. It's 2023.

ppi isn't high enough to completely eliminate problems with murky, non-disableable fonts in Chrome. You need at least 220-230 ppi to radically solve this problem with shadows around characters due to incorrect black and white or color anti-aliasing. And only a 4k@120Hz panel gives that much, which, moreover, would allow playing in the most sharp fhd mode at the pixel level, which a 2.5k panel cannot give. We play fhd, we work in 4k.

The speed of the panel is disgustingly high - again fake "240Hz", but really about 110Hz by real average response time, i.e. 2 times worse.

Actual memory bandwidth could be better optimized for writing and copying. In read only mode, it is close in speed to the theoretical limit of ddr5 5600.

Well, the rest is not much to discuss.

For the price, you can get a desktop with the 7950X+4080, which is guaranteed to be faster, and a high-end laptop to go along with it. I would do just that - a quiet vengeful desktop and laptop to relax with it on the sofa / bed with surf and take it somewhere if necessary. Why suffer with such noise in games, I don't understand, but this model will probably find such eccentrics. The world is big, 8 billion people already, there are enough cranks with money to sell almost anything...

I don't think they proof read or bothered reading the numbers when they wrote it, given they said it was impressive across the board despite having nearly the same specs as any average gaming display vs the higher ups.

I'd be curious if the nebula screen could be swapped in since same size.

[NikoB]

I'd be curious if the nebula screen could be swapped in since same size.

In general, this is not a problem. The series only supports 240Hz officially, without checking, it's not clear if the BIOS will support brightness control on 165Hz panels. But finding a 16" matrix with 100% DCI-P3 and higher on panelook and other models from other manufacturers is not a problem. The problem is with accurate calibration under sRGB - otherwise everything will be oversaturated.

Unfortunately, Intel/NVidia do not have a built-in sRGB auto-calibrator based on the panel's EDID data. AMD has had it for over 15 years, but L7Pro doesn't even have AMD specs yet, only Chinese versions sell them. Actually, they are better, because AMD HX series processors are much faster and cooler. But at rest, as the owners are already reporting, there are huge problems with power management in both series - consumption is clearly increased, even worse on AMD, despite the fact that under load they are much colder and faster at the same time by 30%.

So if you change the panel to 100% + DCI-P3 240Hz (or 165Hz if brightness control works), then it's better with the AMD version, not Intel, otherwise most software will have problems with poisonous, oversaturated colors.

Unfortunately, Windows still cannot work with EDID and cannot auto-calibrate any panel (like the AMD driver) to sRGB/Rec.709(SDR) when viewing photo/video content in sRGB/Rec.709 is required.

If you try to make a replacement, it's better in a place where a panel replacement service is available right in front of you, it will be possible, together with the master, to pre-connect a new panel, instead of the native one, without pulling out the native one from the screen cover and decide whether the color rendition suits you and whether it is possible to set everything to sRGB.

In general, AdobeRGB 95%+ and parallel 95% DCI-P3 coverage produce extremely impressive colors in content designed for such a wide color space, but in day-to-day work, exact sRGB matching is more important. Apparently Lenovo doesn't want to mess around with wide gamut panels. it requires a special utility that works in the background (as a resident) that will allow you to easily switch all Windows windows at the discretion of the owner to sRGB mode or native wide gamut. Apparently they are not able to write a high-quality utility for managing the color space in Windows on the fly, otherwise they installed more expensive and high-quality panels, because their price is so much different from the current options, especially against the backdrop of the monstrous price of a laptop.

[Jake Kleintank]

I'd be curious if the nebula screen could be swapped in since same size.

In general, this is not a problem.

I know its not problem just curious if its the same plugin type/size since 16" have a few variant sizes

Unfortunately, Intel/NVidia do not have a built-in sRGB auto-calibrator based on the panel's EDID data. AMD has had it for over 15 years, but L7Pro doesn't even have AMD specs yet, only Chinese versions sell them. Actually, they are better, because AMD HX series processors are much faster and cooler.

Incorrect, and also not accurate at all.

So if you change the panel to 100% + DCI-P3 240Hz (or 165Hz if brightness control works), then it's better with the AMD version, not Intel, otherwise most software will have problems with poisonous, oversaturated colors.

You're really hard sold on AMD I take it but doesn't really have any relevance on this discussion, since calibration exists and is still required regardless for most accuracy.

Unfortunately, Windows still cannot work with EDID and cannot auto-calibrate any panel (like the AMD driver) to sRGB/Rec.709(SDR) when viewing photo/video content in sRGB/Rec.709 is required.

I see no issue here, using color calibration hardware + displaycal = 0 issue, idky AMD keeps getting brought up.

If you try to make a replacement, it's better in a place where a panel replacement service is available right in front of you, it will be possible, together with the master, to pre-connect a new panel, instead of the native one, without pulling out the native one from the screen cover and decide whether the color rendition suits you and whether it is possible to set everything to sRGB.

Its just 2 cables its not a hard swap out generally takes 10 minutes tops.

[NikoB]

Hardware calibration is not available to all owners, it is necessary to buy an expensive calibrator and be able to use the appropriate software. Not only that, as I wrote above, the calibration profile is not used in many Windows software, they ignore the applied settings from the icm profile, so it is extremely important that the driver itself makes sure that all (or only the right one) works in the right color space, as the owner should. This has not yet been done in Windows at the level of a standard api with a driver.

In the AMD catalyst, the autocalibrator is turned on with one checkmark, which is an easy salvation for most owners when they just need to view content in an sRGB profile, and not a native wide gamut.

Therefore, panels with a wide gamut, for ordinary people, present a clear problem with the need for hardware calibration and with hemorrhoids in a bunch of software that ignores the icm settings of the Windows system.

I understand these nuances, as the owner of devices with a wide gamut, but many do not even understand that they have distorted colors on the screen.
Many people are so technically illiterate that they don't understand anything about it, and even out of their own stupidity sit at a brightness above 100-150 nits with normal lighting at home and in the office, burning out their retinas. The same thing with the brightness on TV, I observed it in the homes of many friends - they do not know how to properly adjust the brightness and color reproduction. Can't so many people have a damaged retina that they so stupidly turn up the brightness many times higher than it is necessary in reality, so that the picture looks natural? And about the correct color reproduction - this is about the same topic as high-quality sound - most do not care about the correct, high-quality sound. Most people have already lost their hearing by the age of 30. In Germany, for example, already 15 years ago, it turned out that more than 50% of young people by the age of 30 have damaged hearing. It seems to be more difficult to spoil the vision, but I observe an amazing picture among my friends, which suggests the opposite. Well, some people are, to some extent, color blind.

[Neenyah]

Most people have already lost their hearing by the age of 30.

This is amazing 😂😂

(The rest of it too, like having stupid friends, but this is another level of extremism, haha)