Gaming laptops, including Lenovo’s, have been using a “Stealth-bomber” design style for some time, and no-one in the industry could tell us how that style started. But it doesn’t matter anymore because Lenovo is coming up with refreshing new designs for both laptops and desktop gaming computers, at E3 2018. Classy, clean but still aggressive, these chassis make “last-gen” gaming PCs look older.
If you are unfamiliar with it, Legion is the general PC Gaming line of products at Lenovo. The new laptops include the Legion Y7000, Legion Y730 (15.6”, 17”) and the Legion Y530. There are four new Desktop models called Legion T730 Tower/ Legion T530 Tower, and Legion C730 Cube / Legion C530 Cube.
Laptops
Legion Y7000 and Y530
Let’s start with the laptops. The new design is very well done because they don’t look like business computers, and there’s something definitely powerful coming from them.
Yet, all models are noticeably thinner than their predecessors, and certainly thin-looking for Gaming laptops. That has been an industry trend, especially following the NVIDIA MaxQ concept introduced last year.
Diving into the details, the Legion Y530 and Legion Y7000 are similar systems, with small differences in look because the Y530 is available exclusively at Best Buy. The Legion Y7000 has a more expensive-looking aluminum cover and palm rest, but the Y530 also has a great design with the display hinge being a bit off-centered, making it look smaller than it really is.
Lenovo Legion Y530
The Y530 also has a soft-touch palm rest which feels warmer than metal. If you like streaming video, note that the Y7000 and Y530 have the webcam placed at the bottom of the screen.
The Legion Y530 has most of its ports in the back, making it easy to have a neat table with no cables hanging out to the side and potentially impeding the mouse’s movements. The Legion Y7000 has a similar philosophy but has more ports to the sides. Both weigh ~5.1 Lbs.
The base configuration is Core™ i7-8750H & i5-8300H Processor, Up to 32 GB DDR4 2666 MHz, PCI storage 1TB (7200rpm); 2TB (5400rpm); 512 GB PCIe SSD and 2 TB HDD, Intel® Optane™ Ready. NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1050/GTX 1050 Ti. Displays are 15.6”, 1080p at up to 144GHz if you get the NVIDIA G-Sync option. A starting price just below $1000 make them an attractive offer.
Legion Y730 in 15” and 17”
The Legion Y730 is the higher-end gaming laptop that comes with all the design and technical goodness that Lenovo can pack at this price point: $1179.99 for the 15”, and $1249.99 for the 17” laptop.
The GPU (graphics processor) has 4GB of memory, and the Ram options include overclocked Corsair RAM modules. The dual-storage system can go as high as 512GB of SSD and 2TB of HDD. Optionally, the display can reach 144Hz at 300 NITs, if you take that option.
To make sure that everything can have good sustained performance, Lenovo is using a dual-channel cooling that takes cool air from the sides, and pushes the hotter air out from the back. Airflow is said to have improved by 16% for an outcome of 10% cooler systems when compared to the last-generation laptops. The larger fan blades are also quieter.
From a design standpoint, the Legion Y730 has the general design language of the Y530 but features an Aluminum chassis and an RGB keyboard (Corsair iCUE) that is often seen as a must-have on gaming computers. The sound system (2x2W) is more powerful than the other models, thanks to the Dolby Atmos surround sound, and Harman-Kardon tuning.
Desktops
We have been agreeably surprised by the new design of the new Lenovo Gaming Desktop PCs. Both models share a common design philosophy, but we’ll admit that the C-Series (Cube) is our favorite. Both models can be open and upgraded without requiring tools.
The internal Cube design cleverly uses the motherboard to separate the hard disk drives from the CPU and GPU in two distinct cooling area where the airflow takes a straight, optimal, path. The same airflow care is true for the Legion tower, although with a slightly different design.
Legion T730 and T530 Tower
With a starting price difference of ~$100 between these two models, let’s spot the differences. The Legion T730 can have the Intel K-Series processor which are better for overclocking.
The NVIDIA GTX 1060 has 6GB on the T730 but can get 4GB or 2GB on the T530, to lower the barrier of entry. In terms of storage, the T730 can be configured with 2TB more HDD. Perhaps the most visible difference is the fact that the Legion T730 has customizable RGB lighting while the Legion T530 has red lighting only.
Oh, and there is an integrated optical drive, hidden behind a small tray – clever.
Legion C730 and C530 Cube
The Cube series follows the same technical segmentation as the Tower series, but in a smaller chassis. The Legion C730 Cube has RGB lighting, more storage options, more GPU RAM and powerful Intel K-Series CPU options. Interestingly, the C730 has the overclocked memory that does not seem to be an option on the Legion T730. The Legion C530 Cube is a more affordable version,
We absolutely love the Legion Cube series’ design. We see a lot of PC chassis, and 96.47% of them are boring and often ugly. It is surprising to see a PC OEM come up with such a delightful design which begs to be seen and shown.
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