The latest Lenovo gaming laptops namely, the Legion Y540 and the Y740 have been launched in India at a starting price of Rs. 69,990 and Rs. 1,29,990 respectively. These laptops have respectable specifications for a portable gaming machine in Rs 70,000 to Rs 80,000 price range.
I attended the Lenovo’s event in Delhi and got a chance to spend a few hours with the latest Lenovo Legion gaming laptops. Here’s my first impressions review of the Lenovo Legion Y540 and Y740.
Lenovo Legion Y540 Preview
First up, the specifications; so here’s what the latest Lenovo Legion Y540 gaming laptop is running under its hood:
| Lenovo Y540 Specs | |
| RAM | 8GB/16GB/32GB DDR4 |
| CPU | Core i7-9750H or Core i5-9300H |
| GPU | NVIDIA GTX 1050/1650/1660Ti or RTX 2060 |
| HDD | Up to 512 GB SSD or 2TB HDD with Intel Optane Memory |
| Screen | 15.6″ FHD display with 60 Hz and Upto 144 Hz refresh rate |
Lenovo Legion Y540 gaming laptop starts from Rs. 69,990 which is the base version equipped with 8GB of RAM, Core-i5 and Nvidia GTX 1050. The Nvidia GTX 1050 is ancient at this point.
Lenovo didn’t have any games installed on this base version laptop, but I have an ASUS TUF gaming laptop with the exact same configuration. I can tell you for a fact that Nvidia GTX 1050 just isn’t enough for anything beyond eSports titles like Fortnite, PUBG, and World of Tanks. This card can play games like the Witcher 3 on around 40-50 FPS with settings turned down to low or medium.
Anyway, I did a get a chance to use the top end Lenovo Legion Y540 with Core i7 and Nvidia RTX 2060. I tested PUBG, Counter-Strike, Apex Legends and Tekken 7 on this model. The results were as expected. I mean the RTX 2060 is a beast of a GPU and testing these e-Sports titles is just overkill. Nonetheless, I got more than 120 FPS in all these gaming titles. I didn’t get a chance to use the GPU usage while these games were running but my experience says that the RTX 2060 would have been around 60-70% usage.
For some technical reason, the Tekken 7 was stuttering quite a lot on the top end Lenovo Y540 gaming laptop. It might have been an issue with the drivers because otherwise, the RTX 2060 is easily able to handle the game.
Another thing to note is that the 144 Hz display is simply amazing. I usually work on a 60 Hz monitor and to play a game on the 144 Hz display felt like a massive upgrade. The GTX 1080 in my CPU outputs 100+ FPS in almost AAA games, including Devil May Cry, but to witness a similar performance on a 144 Hz screen truly made a difference.
The one configuration which I think will be the best seller for Lenovo is the Core-i5 CPU with an Nvidia GTX 1650 GPU. This particular GPU is the successor to GTX 1050 Ti and performs way better while maintaining that famous low power requirement which entry-level Nvidia cards are famous for.
The keyboard was lit with RGB lighting and a couple of these lights were also placed inside the air vents as well. Lenovo also introduced a new software optimization that frees up RAM whenever you start a new game, kind of like game-boost in smartphones. However, I will need to test in a couple of games to find out its actual performance gain.
Lenovo Legion Y740 Preview
The specifications of the Lenovo Legion Y740 Gaming laptop are as follows:
| Lenovo Y740 Specs | |
| RAM | 8GB/16GB/32GB DDR4 |
| CPU | Core i7-9750H or Core i5-8300H |
| GPU | NVIDIA GTX 1660Ti RTX 2060/2070 Max Q/2080 Max Q |
| HDD | Up to 1 TB M.2 SSD |
| Screen | 15.6″ FHD display with a 144 Hz refresh rate |
The Lenovo Legion Y740 gaming laptop comes with a 144 Hz refresh rate display and an Nvidia GTX 1660 Ti GPU as standard and an Intel Core-i5. The base model of the Lenovo Y940 gaming laptop has a base price of Rs. 1,29,990.
Design-wise there is very little difference between the Lenovo Legion Y540 and Y740 gaming laptops. Both have RGB lightning, backlit keyboard, huge air vents, etc. The most visual difference between both of them is the screen. The 144 Hz comes as standard on Lenovo Y740 gaming laptop.
Similar to the base Lenovo Y540 laptop, there were no games installed on the entry-level Lenovo Y740 gaming laptop. I tested Lenovo Y740 with equipped with a Core-i7 CPU and Nvidia RTX 2060 Max Q graphics card.
The Max Q graphics card series of Nvidia is specially made for thin and light laptops. Although the Lenovo Legion Y740 was around 2.3 kg, it enclosed that weight in quite a neat form factor. The same can be said for the Lenovo Y540 as well.
I tested the same above mentioned games on the Lenovo Y740 as well and all of them performed flawlessly. I personally liked the RTX 2060 Max Q variant of the Lenovo Y740 because it was able to take full advantage of the 144 Hz display.
Lenovo Legion Laptops Preview Conclusion
Both Lenovo Legion laptops Y540 and the 740 faired quite well in my initial testing. However, I am yet to test whether the build quality of these laptops to see if the extra money that Lenovo is charging for its laptop is worth it or not.
Furthermore, Lenovo also introduced an Anti-ghosting key feature that registers 100% of key presses. This could be a really important feature in games like Starcraft 2 where high actions per minute is a requisite.
Needless to say, I won’t yet recommend Lenovo Legion gaming laptops until I don’t get my hands on a review unit. However, my initial impressions of these laptops have been quite great.
Watch out for my review!
Also Read:PS5: Release Date, Design, Price, Specs, All Confirmed Games For PlayStation 5
