The Lenovo Legion Y545 (starting at $ 799, $ 999 as revised) is like buying a luxury car at the econobox price. His understated style and design made me feel like a player in disguise. One minute, I prepare spreadsheets, documents and PowerPoint files, and the next minute, I’m on a mission in Call of Duty – Modern Warfare, sitting on a park bench during my lunch break. You can even listen to spy music in the background as you travel, knowing it’s always on! This is our Lenovo Legion Y545 review.
Review of the Lenovo Legion Y545 – Design
With its industrial design accentuated by clean, attractive lines, the Lenovo Legion Y545 contrasts beautifully with many of its flashy colleagues. Its discreet style, combined with aggressive and tasteful rear and bottom ventilation, makes it unique. Its dark iron-gray aluminum cover has a similar appeal to a basic Mercedes-Benz or BMW. The white Y symbol, with backlighting, is distinctive and offers the car a respectable amount of elegance.
Opening the lid, you can see more of this smooth dark gray aluminum. The island-style keyboard is at the top of the deck, the triangular power button above the F8 key challenges you to intervene. The large touchpad below the keyboard in the middle of the palm rest completes the presentation. The Legion Y545 has enough ports to become a workstation that can be traversed. On the right side, there is a USB 3.1 Type A port and a headphone / microphone combination. On the left side, there is another USB 3.1 Type A port.
Do you need more doors? Look back and you will find a virtual smorgasbord. From left to right, you’ll find a USB 3.1 Type C port, a mini DisplayPort, another USB Type A 3.1 port, an HDMI and Ethernet connection, followed by the DC input port and a Kensington lock.
Keyboard and TouchPad
As a person with very large hands, I liked the large, island-like keyboard. With a fully numeric keypad and white backlight, as well as an exclusive recording key for players who want to capture their best gaming moments, this keyboard is made for gamers. I did better than expected in the typing test with 10 fast fingers, with a score of 90 words per minute and an accuracy of 96%.
The 4.1 x 2.7 inch touchpad is made of matte black Mylar and is smooth to the touch. Windows 10 gestures were very accurate, even when using three or four finger gestures and simple finger taps. The bottom corners of the touchpad are very responsive and offer an excellent click when pressed.
Lenovo Legion Y545 Review – Screen
When I first saw the Legion Y545’s 15.6-inch, 1920 x 1080 anti-glare panel, I wanted to go somewhere quiet, ignore my family and play as if my life depended on it. When I saw the Fast and Furious trailer, I found the colors so vivid, the explosions and high-speed chases so bright and beautiful that, in the end, I wished I had Vin’s muscles because they looked fantastic on this panel.
A few hours later, I still love this canvas. When I looked, and although 60Hz is not as fast as the most expensive gaming installations, the Y545’s refresh rate provided a smooth and buttery display when I played Grand Theft Auto 5. Everything looked crisp; the colors were perfectly saturated, brilliant and brilliant. While driving, I continued to make U-turns, to enjoy all the excellent details and to drive over some people. Even the details in the distance seemed accurate, and as I approached, the sharpness came to the fore.
When we measured the color output capabilities of the screen, the Y545’s screen reached 99% of the sRGB range, which is just below the 100% minimum and 110% average for conventional gaming laptops. Still, the Y545 was more animated than the Zephyrus (71%), the Pavillion 15 (66%) and the G3 15 (63%). Whoa, this laptop is brilliant! The Y545 panel had a clear average of 300 nits and surpassed the average of 284 nits. Although none of its competitors could hold Lenovo’s proverbial sail, Dell came closer to 272 nits. Asus reached 240 nits, while HP delivered a dismal 176 nits.
Audio
Laptop speakers often disappoint, but this was certainly not one of those moments. Dolby Atmos software, in combination with a pair of speakers tuned by Harman / Kardon, offers the Legion Y545 its excellent sound quality. The notebook’s volume is loud enough to fill my 200 square foot living room, and there’s just the right amount of bass to add depth to the sound. As an old audiophile, I had to hear the funky horns of the earth, wind and fire.
When they played “September”, the horns arrived hot and rich. Maurice White’s velvety vocals were beautiful and full, and Phillip Bailey’s falsetto was clean and clear. I felt totally immersed while playing Grand Theft Auto 5. The screams of realistic tires and staccato shots took my gaming experience to another level. I was very impressed with the fullness of the sound every time I hit something. The sound quality is so sharp and impressive when using this laptop that I didn’t have to use headphones or connect to a Bluetooth speaker.
I made time to play with Dolby Atmos software by activating Sound Radar, which allows the Dolby engine to simulate spatial sounds within the game environment, and that just adds buttery goodness. It took the audio experience to another level, with sounds coming from all directions. I could hear another vehicle park on my right or left. This additional dimension makes the game palpable.
Graphics and games
I played, conquered, twisted my thumbs while pushing the Lenovo Legion Y545 as hard as I could. I wanted to see how much Legion Y545’s Nvidia GTX 1660 TI GPU can support with 6 GB VRAM. So I terrified everyone, crashed all cars in GTA V (1920 x 1080 at Very High, with an incredible average of 62 frames per minute, exceeding the average of 59 fps. The Zephyrus, which also has a 1660 Ti, had 57 fps, while the HP and GPU GTX 1650 achieved only 39 fps.
So I switched to one of my all-time favorites, Hitman 2, as there is nothing like a good old-fashioned murder to help someone relax. When testing Hitman in 1920 x 1080 on Ultra with DirectX 12, the Legion Y545 produced 95 fps, beating the average of 85 fps and Zephyrus, which achieved 73 fps. The G3 15 and the Pavilion reached 62 and 57 fps, respectively. Lenovo doubled its game even further during Far Cry New Dawn, which reached 79 fps. It is enough to overcome the average of 65 fps, as well as the Pavilion, Dell and Asus, which were within a frame at 54, 53 and 52 fps, respectively.
Get ready to play Star Wars: Vadar Immortal because the Lenovo Legion Y545 makes a surprisingly good virtual reality for an intermediate system. In the SteamVR performance test, the Lenovo reached 8.6, which is below the average of 9.1. It is still better than HP and Dell, which reached 5.9 and 5.8, respectively. Asus beat the park in 9.2, while HP reached 5.8, beating its competitors again.
Lenovo Legion Y545 Review – Performance
With a 2.6 GHz Intel 9th Generation Intel Core i7-9750H processor and 16 GB of RAM, the laptop doesn’t struggle for a minute. He even dealt with Google Chrome draining resources while running 25 tabs, including an Avengers End Game on Disney Plus, without any problems. I downloaded DaVinci Resolve 16 to test how the Y545 video would be edited and rendered. The Legion Y545 held up, but didn’t produce HD video as fast as my desktop, which has a desktop processor and 32 GB of RAM.
However, if I were to record a video and do a quick edit, that would be more than enough. I would take it with me on the spot when I take photos or film. The Y545 was removed from the door during the overall performance test of Geekbench 4.3 with a score of 23,868. It surpassed the average of 20,511 games in general, the Pavilion (21,326, Core i7-9750H), the Zephyrus (14,106, AMD Ryzen 7 3750H processor), the 14,106 and the G3 15 (16,650, Core i5-9300H).
During the file transfer test, the Legion Y545’s 128 GB PCIe SSD took 0:27 hours to duplicate 4.97 GB of mixed media files for a transfer rate of 188.5 megabytes per second. This slow result was well below the average of 464.2 MBps. The G3 15 (128GB SSD) performed slightly better at 299MBps. Pavillion (256GB PCIe NVMe SSD) performed even better at 351MBps, while Zephyrus (512GB SSD PCIe NVMe M.2) advanced at 424MBps.
Lenovo Legion Y545 review – Battery life
Gaming laptops are often anathema to battery life. The Legion Y545 only lasted 3:38 in our battery test, which consists of continuous web browsing over Wi-Fi at 150 nits of brightness. That time is still slightly below the average of the main games at 4:06. Both the Zephyrus and the Pavilion lasted longer, with times of 4:48 and 5:06, respectively. But the G3 15 proved that it has staying power and enters at 6:41.
Heat
The Legion Y545 uses Cold Front cooling technology, a two-channel cooling system that simultaneously cools the CPU and GPU with exclusive fans and heatsinks. Although the rear and bottom vents are well positioned and flow well with the laptop’s aesthetics, I found the system heated up after 20 minutes or more while multitasking, playing video or playing games. There were times when the fans were loud, but the fan noise is similar to other laptops in the same price range with related specifications. Sometimes fans got taller in short bursts, while other times they kept the system cool.
I explored ancient Greece for 15 minutes in Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey and then measured strategic points along with the laptop. The touchpad measures 94 degrees Fahrenheit, just above our 95 degree comfort limit. The middle of the keyboard and the laptop chassis reached 109 degrees relatively hot. After 15 minutes of streaming a 1080p video from YouTube in full screen, the Legion Y545 measures 101 degrees Fahrenheit at the bottom, just above our 95 degree comfort limit. The touchpad and the center of the keyboard registered 81 and 90 degrees, respectively.
Pricing and configuration options
The Legion Y545 I rated the cost at $ 999 and features a 2.6 GHz Intel Core i7-9750H processor, 16 GB of RAM, a 128 GB PCIe SSD and an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Ti with 6 GB of VRAM. The entry-level model costs $ 799, but takes you back to 8 GB of RAM and an entry-level GeForce GTX 1650 GPU with 4 GB of video memory. However, you get more storage space with a 256 GB PCIe SSD. Both models are reliable, but our review unit offers the user more financial return.
Review of the Lenovo Legion Y545 – Conclusion
The Lenovo Legion Y545 is an entry-level gaming laptop that offers low promise and performance. The laptop’s discreet Nvidia graphics chip is priced at $ 999 and offers a surprising amount of power, with above-average results. And if you’re not playing, the laptop’s Core i7 processor is more than capable of creating spreadsheets, making some light video edits, and, of course, watching some movies on the beautiful 1080p screen.
However, if you want something with longer battery life and comparable performance, check out the Asus ROG Zephyrus G GA502, worth $ 1,049. But if you want to play on a budget without sacrificing a lot of performance, the Lenovo Legion Y545 is a great option.
Lenovo Legion Y545 Overall Score
