Lenovo Legion Y520

Design

The lid is black plastic with a woven pattern and a few lines that make it look aggressive but still approachable. A series of grates on the back wrap around to the bottom of the computer and frame two sets of vents, which makes them seem more like an intentional decoration than a technological necessity. Although it’s made of plastic, the Legion Y520 feels solid. It’s unsurprising to see the material used in the chassis for a budget gaming notebook, but I do appreciate that it feels like I can jam it in a bag and not have to worry about it.When you lift the lid, you’ll find the 15.6-inch, 1080p display with a thick bezel; a red, backlit, island-style keyboard; and a touchpad. The touchpad is surrounded by a red line and, oddly, some plastic that frames it as a trapezoid rather than a rectangle (more on that later).

At 15 x 10.4 x 1 inches and 5.6 pounds, the Legion is nice and portable. The Dell Inspiron 15 7000 is slightly larger and heavier, at 15.2 x 10.8 x 1 inches and 5.8 pounds, and the MSI PE60 Prestige is similarly sized, at 15.1 x 10.2 x 1.1 inches and 5.4 pounds. The Asus ROG Strix GL753VE, which has a 17-inch display, is unsurprisingly larger and heavier, at 16.3 x 10.7 x 1.3 inches and 6.4 pounds.

Display

Any setting less than maximum brightness makes it nearly impossible to see what’s on the Legion’s 15.6-inch, 1080p screen. On top of that, the display suffers from dull colors. When I watched a full-HD trailer for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2, Gamora’s green skin was pale and insipid, as if she had just seen a ghost. Meanwhile, the purple stripe down Nebula’s face was clear, but the blue on the sides of her head blended into her brown and red vest.

The Legion’s screen covers just 68 percent of the sRGB color gamut — a poor showing that barely surpassed the Inspiron’s 67 percent, and that screen was horrible. The average mainstream notebook shows off 94 percent of the sRGB color gamut, while the Strix (124 percent) and Prestige (133 percent) were more vivid.

Performance

Packed with a 2.8-GHz Intel Core i7-7700HQ CPU; 16GB of RAM; a 256GB PCIe SSD; and a 2TB, 5,400-rpm HDD, the Legion is primed to get work done once you’ve finished gaming. I had 40 tabs open in two instances of Google Chrome, including one streaming a 1080p episode of “The Daily Show with Trevor Noah” and didn’t see even a hint of lag when scrolling or switching tabs.

The Legion notched a score of 13,037 on the Geekbench 4 overall performance test, handily surpassing the mainstream-notebook average (11,455) and the competition. The Inspiron (10,363, Intel Core i5-7300HQ), the Strix (12,394, Intel Core i7-7700HQ CPU) and the Prestige (12,678, Intel Core i7-7700HQ) all had lower scores.

Battery Life

The Legion might be portable, but you’ll need to bring a charger with you. It endured for just 3 hours and 39 minutes on the Laptop Mag Battery Test, which browses the web continuously over Wi-Fi. The average for mainstream notebooks is 7:06, and all of the competition outlasted the Legion. The Prestige endured for 4:13, the Strix survived for 6:25 and the Inspiron ran for a whopping 11:23.