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Lenovo Legion 5 Pro Review: RTX 3070 Gaming Laptop With Incredible Value for Money
June 9, 2021 Andrew Cheng

I’m gonna say this right out of the gate: the Lenovo Legion 5 Pro is the gaming laptop to get if you want the most affordable RTX 3070 laptop in the market now. Aside from its excellent value for money, it’s also a very good laptop overall with a stunning-looking display, solid performance, and surprisingly good battery life.

While the Legion 5 Pro does have some shortcomings, I will still wholeheartedly recommend this gaming laptop for anyone that’s looking to get the best level of performance below the RM7,000 price point. Keep on reading this review to find out why!

What It Is

Display16-inch WQXGA IPS (2560 x 1600), 165Hz
ProcessorAMD Ryzen 7 5800H (8C/16T, 3.2GHz with boost up to 4.4GHz)
GPUNvidia GeForce RTX 3070 8GB GDDR6 (140W TGP)
RAM16GB DDR4 3200MHz
Storage1TB M.2 PCIe 3.0 NVMe SSD
Camera720p
Battery80Wh
Dimensions356 x 260.4-264.4 x 21.7-26.85 mm
Weight2.45kg
AudioBottom-firing stereo speakers
Ports4x USB-A 3.2 Gen 1
2x USB-C Gen 2 (DisplayPort)
1x HDMI 2.1
1x RJ45
PriceRM6,590

Given its list of hardware, it’s almost unreal that this configuration of the Legion 5 Pro only costs RM6,590 on Lenovo’s Malaysian online store right now, though you do have to customise it yourself. In fact, you can even forego the two-year onsite warranty to save RM150, or opt for a smaller 512GB SSD to get an additional RM220 discount.

Now, I wouldn’t recommend skimping on storage capacity and warranty support, but the option is there to lower the price tag of the gaming laptop even further.

The Good Stuff

Since this is a gaming laptop, let’s get to the gaming performance of the Legion 5 Pro first. Its combination of a fast AMD Ryzen 7 5800H processor and an equally beefy Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 GPU – with a 140W TGP – perform very, very well. Take a look at the benchmarks below – the games were running at the laptop’s 2560 x 1600 native resolution.

Games (max settings @ 2560 x 1600)Average FPS
Genshin Impact (1.5 render resolution, locked at 60fps)60.363
Borderlands 3 (DX11)59.01
Witcher 3 (HairWorks disabled)82.729

With a 140W TGP, the RTX 3070 GPU under the hood of the Legion 5 Pro is obviously very capable. If you want even higher frame rates, you can always run the game at a lower 1080p resolution. Rest assured, this gaming laptop can run AAA games with little to no issue.

Of course, I tested the CPU performance of the Legion 5 Pro’s Ryzen 7 5800H processor as well. I put it through its paces in Cinebench R20, and it’s actually comparable (naturally) to other Ryzen 5000 series chips in the market now in both single-core and multi-core benchmarks.

ProcessorSingle-core testMulti-core test
AMD Ryzen 7 5800H (Lenovo Legion 5 Pro)5545116
AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX (Asus ROG Zephyrus Duo 15 SE)5665461
AMD Ryzen 9 5900HS (Asus ROG Flow X13)5724922
AMD Ryzen 9 4900HS (Asus ROG Zephyrus G14)4814173
AMD Ryzen 7 4800H (Asus TUF Gaming A15)4814106
Intel Core i7-10875H (Acer Predator Triton 500)4833773
Intel Core i7-11370H (Asus TUF Dash F15)5812749

Without a doubt the Legion 5 Pro offers strong performance, and the gaming experience on this laptop is further enhanced by its fast and sharp 16-inch 2560 x 1600 IPS screen – yes, it has a 16:10 aspect ratio – with a 165Hz refresh rate. Not only does the high refresh rate gives excellent motion clarity in fast-paced games, the panel quality itself is great too.

Whether I’m gaming or just streaming a show on Netflix, the Legion 5 Pro’s display is just very pleasing to look at. It can get really bright, it has very wide viewing angles, and colours look vibrant as well. I also love the fact that this is a tall 16:10 screen – this aspect ratio makes it ideal for productivity tasks.

Speaking of which, the Legion 5 Pro can actually serve as a decent productivity laptop; as long as you don’t mind its bulky nature. Outside of gaming, I can get about six to seven hours of use on a single charge. While this isn’t incredibly good battery life, it’s certainly above average for a gaming laptop with such beefy hardware and a sharp screen.

As for system noise, even when the Legion 5 Pro is under load, the fans don’t get obnoxiously loud, which is great. Thermals of the laptop, on the other hand, could be better, but I’ll get to this in the next section.

The Bad Stuff

In prolonged gaming sessions, the Legion 5 Pro does run quite hot. Its Ryzen 7 5800H processor got up to a toasty 90°C, while the RTX 3070 GPU hit a peak temperature of 83°C. Thankfully, the palm rest area doesn’t get too warm to the touch, so you can still game comfortably on it.

Aside from that, I’m not a big fan of the Legion 5 Pro’s keyboard either. It doesn’t offer a lot of key travel, which makes for a shallow typing experience. The keyboard’s short backspace – because Lenovo decided to squeeze in a numpad to the right of the keyboard – also throws me off a bit, though I did eventually get used to the slightly odd layout.

Tipping the scales at 2.54kg with a 26.85mm chassis (at its thickest point), the Legion 5 Pro is not the most portable machine. Granted, most folks who are shopping for a 16-inch gaming laptop probably won’t have portability in mind anyway, but it’s still a point worth mentioning.

Is It Worth It?

If you want a 16-inch gaming laptop with an RTX 3070 GPU below the RM7,000 price point – and there are not a lot of options in this price range – the Lenovo Legion 5 Pro is absolutely worth it. It’s fast, it has a fantastic-looking (and sharp) 16:10 screen with a fast 165Hz refresh rate, and it also has very respectable battery life for a gaming laptop.

Yes, the Legion 5 Pro doesn’t have a very good keyboard, and it does run a little hot, but I thoroughly enjoyed using it as my daily driver and gaming machine over the past few weeks. Plus, for only RM6,590 for this RTX 3070 configuration – and you can lower the price even further if you’re okay with skipping on warranty and storage – you’re getting excellent, excellent value for money here.

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