LenovoLegion 5 Gaming Laptop, 15.6" FHD Display, AMD Ryzen 7 5800H, 16GB RAM, 512GB Storage, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050Ti, Windows 10H, Phantom Blue

Lenovo Computer ReviewI’m no IT guru, so this is a total non-techy user review. I’ve owned and used this laptop computer September of 2021, and I love it! It was well past time for an upgrade, and I spent a lot of time looking at laptops, trying to decide what fit my needs and wants best. I narrowed it down to a few from Asus, Dell, Acer, and Lenovo. Even though this is marketed as a gaming laptop, it’s important to note that I am not a computer guru, nor am I a gamer. I don’t own a single game, so I can’t review it from that standpoint. I simply wanted a computer for everyday computing and web surfing, managing my music collection, editing photos, and running my telescopes (astronomy is one of my hobbies.)For my purposes, this computer is fast! It boots up in just a few seconds. The graphics are great! Being able to change the keyboard backlighting color is a great feature for me. Astronomy is a hobby of mine, so my keyboard lighting is red, since I don’t want bright light sources ruining my dark-adapted night vision when I'm using the laptop with my telescopes at night.No computer is perfect, and I do have a few minor nit-picks with this one, though there are none that I find unacceptable. First, this computer came with ABSOLUTELY NO DOCUMENTATION! No manual, printed or otherwise. Not even a quick-start guide. No CD with a manual or utilities. All you get in the box is the laptop and the power cord/AC adapter. In spite of the lack of documentation, it was pretty easy for me to power it up and start using it. Next, the AC adapter is very bulky, compared to the ones that come with most other laptops. It’s about 6”x 3”x 1”, it’s heavy for its size, and it’s situated in the middle of the power cord. I will say that the power cord is quite long, which is good. The power cord plugs into the back of the unit, rather than on the side. There’s only one USB port on right side of the computer, and there’s a USB-C port and a headphone jack on the left side. I would have preferred two side USB ports, but there are three more on the back of the unit, along with a HDMI port, another USB-C port, and a LAN connection. There’s plenty of connectability, if you don’t mind most of it being on the back of the unit. The speakers sound like typical laptop speakers, and I think it’s silly to expect much more than that. I use headphones, Bluetooth speakers, or I just Bluetooth my music from the laptop to my home stereo system. Last, the battery doesn’t last long as long as I’d like, but that’s to be expected from a computer with the high-end processing and graphics capability this computer has. For every day, non-gaming use, I get about two-and-a-half to three hours of use from the battery before I need to recharge it. If you need portability power, you’d do well to use all of the power saving settings, have an alternate power supply to plug into, or an extra battery, or consider another computer altogether. Again, none of these are things that cause me any real issues, but they might for others. In spite of them all, I do love this machine!One of the things about this computer that was a big selling point for me is that it was sold directly by Amazon, rather than a third-party vendor on Amazon. I hear a lot of hard luck stories from folks who bought computers from third-party vendors who had a tough time either getting warranty service for computers with problems, or returning them for refunds. And a lot of computers offered by third-party vendors have been modified by those vendors. I read a lot of reviews from customers of a lot of those units, complaining of inferior parts being used for the mods. Luckily for me, I had no desire to return my computer, nor have I had any functionality issues with it. But when I have had to return anything to Amazon, it’s always been a no-hassle experience for me. And to top it off, the Amazon price on this computer was less than that offered directly from Lenovo.What I like:Looks great!It’s fast! Boots up in only a few seconds.Graphics are top notch.WIFI and Bluetooth work wellKeyboard backlighting colors are changeable (red is my preference)10-key pad on keyboard (I use this a lot!)Sold directly by Amazon (at least it was when I bought mine)What I don’t like:NO documentationThe battery could last longerMost of the connectivity ports are on the back of the computerBulky AC adapterAnnoying occasional sales nags from McAfee and Microsoft. Fairly easily removed.

After 12 months of owning this, i can say it was a very nice and solid choice of a laptop for the price i got it for (1000$).+ The Pros:- Slick design that doesn't scream gamer.- The laptop build is solid.- Keyboard is pleasant to type on.- Nice and vibrant screen.- Plays anything i throw at it with ease (@1080p 60fps on god of war. 120+ fps apex legends. 90+ fps monster hunter rise. 200+ fps divinity original sin).- Runs cool, CPU and GPU doesn't exceed 75c in most demanding games/applications (if you apply the tips below).- Decent 4.5 hours battery life.- The Cons:- The 3050ti is actually great but the 4gb of vram might prevent you from choosing very high textures in games or could be an issue if you try to render super heavy scenes in 3d softwares that require alot of vram. (For me it was enough to run Lumion 3D without issues and it never exceeded 4GB)- My unit has high pitched fans so it's loud under load.Tips to reduce your CPU and GPU temperatures on the laptop:1- Have the back of your laptop raised by few centimeters to allow more air into the vents. (3 to 5c lower temps)2- Play on balanced mode instead of Performance, you will get lower temps (by up to 10c) and not much performance is lost (5% to 10% at worst, at least that's what i saw with my games.)3- Disable boost, this had minor impact on my fps but i had cooler temps on my ryzen 5800h temps (14c lower temps).To disable boost follow steps below:– Run cmd as administrator and type in:powercfg -attributes sub_processor perfboostmode -attrib_hideThis will reveal a setting "Processor performance boost mode" in the advanced options in your power plan settings that lets you enable or disable boost.– If you want to Undo the previous operationpowercfg -attributes sub_processor perfboostmode +attrib_hide– Configure it in your preferred power plan:Control Panel/Power Options/Change Plan Settings/Change advanced power settings/Processor power management/Processor performance boost modeWhile Disabled (Default: Aggressive) your thermals will improve drastically with minimal or zero performance lost depending on the game.If you don't want to completely disable it use Efficient Aggressive.Note that disabling boost reduces performance when doing demanding non-gaming workloads like rendering (mostly CPU workloads), so disable it if you want max performance at the cost of more heat.[Review updated with pictures showing temperature improvements for both CPU (Ryzen 7 5800H) and GPU (3050TI) using the tips above running Monster Hunter Rise]