PC gaming usually requires some high-performance hardware, and if you’re looking for that in a laptop, you’ll typically be looking at some really expensive laptop. Lenovo’s new Legion Y530, however, will get you excellent gaming performance without breaking the bank.
The Lenovo Legion Y530 looks like a rather conventional laptop, at least as compared with other gaming laptops that seem to scream out to get attention. In fact, the Legion Y530 might even pass off as a laptop for work. The only thing fancy with it is the white-coloured “Y” in the LEGION branding on the lid of the laptop.
One thing is for sure, the Lenovo Legion Y530 is a powerhouse. To suit its gaming purpose, its powerful H-class 8th generation Intel Core i7 processor is supplemented by NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti graphics. It also has plenty of ports for everything you need to connect to it.
The Lenovo Legion Y530 comes with a 15.6-inch anti-glare IPS display. It has 250 nits of brightness. The main letdown of this display is that it’s just Full HD resolution, with no upgrade option. The lower resolution, no doubt, will help games run faster.
At 250 nits, this display is bright. It’s colour performance, however, isn’t impressive. At just 93%, 64% and 69% coverage for sRGB, NTSC, and AdobeRGB, respectively, the Legion Y530’s colour coverage isn’t good, but perhaps this won’t matter that much for most gaming.
With the large keyboard deck on the Lenovo Legion Y530, the keyboard is spacious, with room for a dedicated number pad and proper full-sized arrow keys. The keys are nice to type on, with 1.7 mm of travel and good tactile feedback for general typing. Gamers, however, may still find the keys slightly on the soft side.
Given the generous size of the keyboard, particularly with it stretching edge-to-edge, the touchpad comes as a little bit of disappointment due to its small size. The touchpad supports Windows Precesion Drivers, and there are two physical buttons below. For gaming, however, I think you’d probably use an external mouse.
The Lenovo Legion Y530’s chassis measures 365 x 260 x 24.2 mm, and weighs from 2.3 kg. Given the 15.6-inch display and powerful innards, the Legion Y530 can pass off as being relatively compact, at least for a gaming laptop.
As I earlier mentioned, the Lenovo Legion Y530 has a generous offering of ports.
Starting from the left side, there is one USB 3.1 port and a 3.5 mm combo audio jack.
There’s another USB 3.1 port on the right side of the Lenovo Legion Y530.
Most of the ports, however, are on the back of the Lenovo Legion Y530.
First, there’s a USB Type-C port, a Mini DisplayPort, yet another (the third) USB 3.1 port, HDMI port, Gigabit Ethernet RJ45 port, and power input connector. The Lenovo Legion Y530 supports DisplayPort 1.4 and HDMI 2.0 standards. The USB Type-C port on this notebook does not support Thunderbolt.
In addition to the Gigabit Ethernet port for network connectivity, the Lenovo Legion Y530 also supports 802.11ac with 2×2 antennas. It also has Bluetooth 4.1 support.
Under the hood, my review unit came with an Intel Core i7-8750H with 24 GB memory (8 GB DDR4 2666 RAM + 16 GB Intel Optane memory). and NVIDIA
GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4 GB DDR5 memory.
Performance was excellent.
- PCMark 10 Extended: 5507 (overall), 8063 (essentials), 6533 (productivity), 5585 (digital content creation), 8450 (gaming)
- 3DMark: 3941 (TimeSpy), 1800 (TimeSpy Extreme), 30729 (CloudGate), 26902 (Sky Diver)
- Geekbench: 4813 (single), 18996 (multi), 125745 (compute)
For such a large notebook, Lenovo only provided a smallish 52.5 WHr battery in the Legion Y530. In PMark 8 Home Conventional Battery tests, the Legion Y530 ran for only 158 minutes.
In terms of thermal management, the Lenovo Legion Y530 does a good job keeping temperatures in check. The fans can spin up some 54 dB of noise, however, though you probably wouldn’t hear them if you’re gaming with a headset. Keyboard temperatures hit up to 54°C. The large fans and generous room to draw air flow is plainly visible from the underside of the laptop.
The USB Type-C port cannot be used for charging. You need to power the Lenovo Legion Y530 with the included 135 Watt power adapter.
The Lenovo Legion Y530 is available in stores now, with a retail price from S$1,799.00 onwards.
Conclusion
The Lenovo Legion Y530 is a powerful gaming laptop that won’t break the bank.
Pros:
- Compact size for a 15.6-inch display gaming laptop
- Good CPU and NVIDIA graphics hardware
- Very good performance
- Good keyboard
Cons:
- Only Full HD resolution
- No Thunderbolt 3
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