When the need for a big, powerful laptop arises, you automatically think of Dell and HP. And I wouldn’t really blame you, for these two have dominated the 17-inch laptop market since forever. However, they now need to watch their backs as Lenovo is here with its Legion Y740 17-inch, to give them a run for their money.
Don’t get me wrong here, it’s not like Lenovo isn’t popular. On the contrary, it’s actually on-par with Dell and HP in the 14 and 15-inch mid-end laptop market with its Thinkpad series. Where it wasn’t strong was in the 17-inch gaming laptop segment. That was where its main rivals ruled and now they have a new threat to watch out for. Let’s see if the Legion Y740 is any good.
Design
The Legion Y740’s has a sturdy aluminum build that looks and feels premium. It comes in only a gun-metal color option and it’s not bad though I would’ve liked to have a matt black option as well. It gets kind of worse with the fact that the keys have the same color as the chassis which results in a monotonous look due to lack of contrast.
The keyboard does make it up by being backlit with Corsair® iCUE RGB Lighting. We all know that RGB keyboards are the epitome of cool on laptops and this is no less. Other than that, the sheer quality of the keys is top notch. They don’t feel flimsy and you get that satisfying tactile feedback upon pressing, which is always a plus.
Moving on to the back, things start to get really unconventional. There’s no manufacturer logo on the center of the lid like in any other laptop. Instead, you get a bold and glossy LEGION script going along the right edge. I mean, it’s unique but being a fan of symmetry, I don’t find myself liking it that much.
Things get worse when we get to the point where the lid ends. Now, the Legion Y740 is perceived as a gaming laptop and, as you all know, gaming laptops have flared decks for that extra bit of hardware. The Lenovo takes that design element and dials it up to 11. The deck comes so far backward that it starts to look absurd rather than intimidating. The vents, however, also get RGB lighting, which helps redeem the cool factor.
Performance
The Legion may not be the best out there design-wise, however, raw performance is where it truly shines. All Y740’s come standard with a Hexa-Core 8th Gen Intel® Core™ i7-8750H processor. Couple that with options to get NVIDIA® GeForce® RTX™ 2060, NVIDIA® GeForce® RTX™ 2070 Max-Q or the range-topping NVIDIA® GeForce® RTX™ 2080 Max-Q, and you’ve got yourself one best of a machine.
As far as the RAM is concerned, you can get it with 8GB, 16GB, or 32GB 2666MHz DDR4 units. The port, however, can support up to 16GB DDR4 at 3200MHz as well. Coming to storage, it comes with a 256 GB Samsung PM981 PCIe SSD and a 1 TB Seagate SATA HDD. This can be upgraded to 512GB for the SSD and 2TB for the HDD, which is more than enough for any possible purpose.
Coming to the display, you get a 17.3″ FHD display with a resolution of 1920×1080. It has a refresh rate of 144Hz and comes enabled with Dolby Vision. You can also have an option to equip it with NVIDIA® G-SYNC as well. It’s not very bright though as it only maxes out at 500nits of brightness. The display also, despite being 17.3″, seems small because of the huge bezels.
Lastly, the battery. The Y740 comes with a 76Wh. 4-cell battery that is rated by Lenovo to last 6 hours. However, after testing, the battery only managed a measly 2.5 hours upon medium usage. Now, I understand this laptop will primarily be used for gaming and will most likely be plugged in all the time. However, that doesn’t justify the poor battery life because, at the end of the day, it is a laptop and there’s no point of it being portable of it can’t last that long.
Connectivity
The Legion Y740 does have everything covered when it comes to connectivity. For starters, you get an option to either have a standard 2 x 2 802.11 AC + Bluetooth® 4.1 or a Killer™ Wireless 2 x 2 802.11 AC + Bluetooth 4.1 wireless module. The latter of which is the best in class for wireless connectivity in laptops.
Other than that, you also get an array of ports to cater to any time of connection you’d want. They include:
- USB 3.1 Gen 2
- 2x USB 3.1 Gen 1
- Mini DisplayPort™ 1.4
- HDMI™ 2.0
- Ethernet
- AC Power Inlet
- Thunderbolt™ 3 Type-C
- 3.5 mm Microphone/Headphone Combo
Price
The Lenovo Y740 starts at $1839 and can go up to $2829 when fully equipped. Compared to rivals, this is a bargain especially if you get the base model and just upgrade the RAM to 16GB. It will run any game you throw at it and will do any other task seamlessly. For less than $2000, you’ll get one of the best performing laptops out there at just the cost of low battery life and a dim display. However, if you intend to use it indoors and plugged in, you won’t even notice its flaws.