Lenovo Legion Y740 Gaming Laptop Deep Dive Review With Benchmarks
Lenovo Legion Y740 Review: Design And Build Quality
The model Lenovo shipped us comes equipped with a powerful Intel Core i7-8750H processor. This chip has a boost clock speed of 4.1GHz along with 6 physical cores and 12 threads. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 Max-Q, is similar to it's desktop counter-part, but it's a power saving variant with reduced clock speeds and power consumption that's more suitable for thinner gaming laptop designs. It is based on the same TU106 chip with 2,304 shaders and 8 GB GDDR6 memory. These two chips, along with 16GB of DDR4 system memory should pack quite the processing punch. As for storage you have three options. A 128GB SSD, a 256GB SSD, or a 512GB SSD. That's really not going to be enough for most gamers, but there's a 1TB HDD included for bulk storage as well.
The bottom of the laptop may look like it's built to just move air for cooling but looks can be deceiving. The bottom offers cool air intake but also its actually where the speakers are located and in this case you have two speakers on the right and left side along with an added subwoofer in the middle. For a laptop, we found the speakers to be quite good. In fact we actually played most of our games without a headset. The only thing lacking was real deep bass. The speakers could handle the highs and mids with ease, but the bass still couldn't match that of a good headset. This is always going to be the case with laptop speakers, but we commend Lenovo for delivering better than most here.
The side edges of the Legion Y740 have very little when it comes to connectivity. The right side has a USB 3.1 connector and on the left there's a USB Type-C/Thunderbolt combo port along with the audio jack. The majority of connectivity is found on its back IO panel. Just behind the I/O ports on both sides are the main ventilation ports for the processor or and GPU. One cool feature about this area is the illuminating color can be changed via the Corsair iCUE software. The default color is blue, but there are a ton of color choices available. Each key's color can also be independently changed, making the color combinations virtually endless.
Unlike most laptops the back is where all the connectivity is found. From left to right you have a Mini DisplayPort, HDMI port, USB port, Gigabit LAN port, (yet another) USB port and the power port. There are also two more vents for fans to push air out of the system. And with the majority of ports on the back of the machine, cable management will be a breeze, which again underscores that fact that the Legion Y740 is more of a desktop replacement machine.
We found a lot to like about the Lenovo Legion Y740's keyboard which is commonplace in our opinion for Lenovo laptops. However, we did have one complaint. The keys themselves are comfortable, have good travel, a fast response rate and a satisfyingly soft bottom-out. The only issue we had, actually had nothing to do with the keyboard itself. The problem is the placement of the keys. With the additional macro keys on the left, all the other keys were pushed to the right. Normally this wouldn't be an issue, but the trackpad is still centered, which makes everything feel just a tiny bit off kilter. However, a small bit of learning curve and it should feel like home here soon enough.
That said, we liked the additional keys because you get a quick launch button for Lenovo's Vantage software, along with two programmable macro buttons, an in-game record button and LED brightness buttons. In the gaming world, more control is usually better.
The Legion Y740 has a 15.6-inch FHD display that supports NVIDIA G-SYNC and has a fast 144Hz refresh rate. While the GTX 1050 Ti found in the Y730 might not have been able to take full advantage of a 144Hz refresh rate (even at 1080p), the GeForce RTX 2070 Max-Q on board this year's model should be able to run most games at high frame rates zero tearing or jitter. In our testing, we didn't come across any screen tearing and we really put it through it's paces. The bezels are also improved over last year's model. The top and side bezels are noticeably smaller than those on the Y730, but in order to achieve this Lenovo had to move the webcam to the bottom of the screen. We know some people can pull off that viewing angle and still look like a rockstar, but for some of us it's very unflattering double-chin city.
That said, we liked the additional keys because you get a quick launch button for Lenovo's Vantage software, along with two programmable macro buttons, an in-game record button and LED brightness buttons. In the gaming world, more control is usually better.
The Legion Y740 has a 15.6-inch FHD display that supports NVIDIA G-SYNC and has a fast 144Hz refresh rate. While the GTX 1050 Ti found in the Y730 might not have been able to take full advantage of a 144Hz refresh rate (even at 1080p), the GeForce RTX 2070 Max-Q on board this year's model should be able to run most games at high frame rates zero tearing or jitter. In our testing, we didn't come across any screen tearing and we really put it through it's paces. The bezels are also improved over last year's model. The top and side bezels are noticeably smaller than those on the Y730, but in order to achieve this Lenovo had to move the webcam to the bottom of the screen. We know some people can pull off that viewing angle and still look like a rockstar, but for some of us it's very unflattering double-chin city.
The display itself is vibrant and bright, with good color uniformity and accuracy for its 72% gamut coverage specs. It also sports an anti-reflective coating, which will certainly help mitigate glare and maintain its solid viewing angles. All told, this is an excellent gaming display. Next we will take a look at the included software, which has an assist from both Corsair and McAfee.
