Lenovo Legion Y740 Review: 17″ of Pleasant Surprises

Written by Soon Kai Hong

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Today, we’re taking a look at another gaming laptop from Lenovo, the 17″ Legion Y740.

First thing, design. This is something that a lot of manufacturers are going for nowadays. Minimalistic, industrial, and an overall clean design, the Legion Y740 looks great for a gaming laptop.

It is also really well-built, being made up almost entirely of aluminium, with almost zero flex on any part of the device.The only part that isn’t aluminum is this thick plastic bar structure that runs through the entire back of the laptop. but even that feels solid, and it does create a nice offset to the matte gray color, creating quite a unique look.

This has an Intel Core i7-9750H, an NVIDIA RTX 2080 Max-Q, 32GB of DDR4 RAM, and a 1TB NVMe SSD and a 1TB hard disk for storage.

So, without a doubt, the Y740 is rocking some high-end specs, and this will give you a hint of what you can expect from its performance.

For the display, you get a 17.3-inch Full HD, 1,920 x 1,080 IPS panel that has a matte finish and supports 144Hz, along with G-Sync. Viewing angles are good, and colors are pretty accurate, supporting a full 100 percent SRGB. So, you’ll be happy to know that you can most likely use this laptop for creative work too, no issues at all.

Up top, you get a webcam, although sadly, there’s no support for Windows Hello.

Next, the keyboard. You have support for RGB, as all gaming laptops would most definitely have, and you can easily cycle through different modes just by using the function key and hitting the spacebar. The RGB functions are controlled through Corsair iCUE software.

But let’s talk about the keys themselves. They feel nice, with a good amount of travel and a little tactile feedback. You of course do get a full size keyboard complete with a numpad, since this is a 17-inch device, and there’s still plenty of room to spare. Overall, a great typing experience and I think most people will like it.

Moving further down, we have the trackpad. The good thing to know is that it runs Windows Precision drivers, so the feel of using the trackpad itself is definitely great, and the individual right and left clicks do feel nice and tactile. The only drawback is the size of the trackpad, which I feel can be made much larger, considering the size of this laptop. But for just quick and light use, it won’t be a problem. Still, I suggest a mouse.

For I/O, you get a good amount, and for some, the layout might be slightly different from what you’re used to.

On the left, you get a single USB-C that supports Thunderbolt 3, along with a headphone mic combo jack, while on the right, you get a single USB 3.1.

And that’s all for the sides, because all the rest of the ports are actually located on the back.

From left to right, you get a MiniDisplay Port, HDMI 2.0, a couple of USB 3.1 ports and RJ45 Ethernet, and the proprietary power jack.

For those of you who are looking at this laptop as a Desktop Replacement, this layout is actually more suitable, and will certainly help out a lot with cable management.

Battery life is decent. You’ll get roughly 4 hours and 15 minutes of general usage on the better battery setting, or just a solid hour if you’re gaming, and since we’re on the topic, the Legion series from Lenovo is all about gaming. Equipped with an RTX 2080 Max-Q, you can pretty much throw any game at it, and it’ll handle it, no problem at all.

In CS:GO, it goes without saying that you’ll get well over 250 frames per second at 1080P. An RTX 2080 Max Q might be overkill for just CS:GO, but you’ll definitely enjoy it on this 144hz display.

Playing PUBG will net you about 120 frames per second at 1080P Ultra, and likewise, you’ll really enjoy this on this display.

Moving on to more demanding games, Rise of the Tomb Raider, on DX12, will get you over a hundred frames per second at 1080P, with everything maxed out, including Anti-Aliasing.

Final Fantasy XV is really enjoyable, giving you a solid 62 frames per second, with everything maxed out and the Nvidia options turned on, like Hairworks, at 1080P.

Ace Combat 7 is visually a really nice looking game, and you’ll be able to comfortably play at 1080P, max settings, with roughly 160 frames per second.

A little bit of an older title, but Witcher 3 will run smoothly at over 80 frames per second at 1080P with everything maxed out, including all the additional Nvidia options.

Lastly, we have Battlefield V, which get you 92 frames per second at 1080P Ultra, or 65 frames per second with DXR enabled. This was tested on a full 64 multiplayer map.

I’ll still however suggest not to enable DXR, and to enjoy the high frame rate instead. The game still looks really good without it.

As for temperatures, it was a little mixed, but do note that my testing was done at an ambient room temperature of 29 degrees celsius. While running games, the CPU will hit 91 degrees celsius while the GPU fares much better at 84 degrees celsius.

However, the CPU was running way past its base clock, and was constantly boosting to roughly 3.6GHz, till 4GHz. So, you’re definitely not missing out on performance.

So that’s gaming at a glance. But if you’re looking at this laptop to be your creative workhorse, it’ll also handle it pretty easily too.

In Cinebench R20, the Intel Core i7-9750H scored a Multi-Thread performance of 2491 and a Single-Thread performance of 426.

Using DaVinci Resolve 16, rendering a 10 minute 1080P project took 8 minutes and 35 seconds while rendering a 15 minute 4K project took 24 minutes and 40 seconds.

If you open up the laptop, inside you’ll find the 76 watt hour battery, two slots for your RAM, space for a single M.2 NVMe SSD, along with space for a single 2 and half inch drive on the opposite side. You’ll also have easy access to the WiFI card, should you want to swap it out.

Now, there’s one thing I want to mention on this laptop, that I was actually really impressed by, and that’s the speakers. You actually do get a 2.1 setup, with two side firing speakers, and a small subwoofer near the back. There’s certainly more punch in the bass department and the mids and highs are nice and clean as well.

Listening to music and playing games on the Y740, with just the speaker, was far more enjoyable than I initially thought. This is a pretty solid feature that I feel most people out there might appreciate.

So, the last thing to talk about is the price.

As configured right here, the Legion Y740 costs just under S$4,500. That’s honestly not cheap. But you’ll be glad to know that there are many configurations available for the Y740, and you can customize it to your liking on the website.

My suggestion, and I believe to be the best price to performance ratio, if you’re just specifically looking at this laptop, is to get the one with an Intel Core i7-9750H, 16GB of RAM, an RTX 2070, and a 512GB NVMe SSD.

That configuration will set you back, roughly S$3,200 and you’ll still enjoy great performance in the same package.

If you’re even more of a lighter gamer, you can even drop it down to an RTX 2060, saving you even more. And if you don’t want a 17-inch laptop, there is a 15-inch version of the Y740.

So all in all, I do actually think it’s a really nice laptop, especially if you’re in the market for a desktop replacement, or simply looking for a 17-inch laptop. You get great gaming performance, a nice display with support for G-Sync and an overall minimalistic design.

More information about the Y740 can be found on Lenovo’s website.