Specification of Lenovo Legion 5 2022 15IAH7H

Design and Build Quality of Lenovo Legion 5 2022

The 2022 Legion 5 adds a metal lid cover, while the rest of the case is polycarbonate plastic. It has a matte finish. The metal lid reduces the flex compared to the last year’s plastic lid. Being a mid-tier segment, the chassis does have a bit of flex to it compared to the high-end Legion 7 series. While Lenovo has managed to make the 2022 model a bit more compact than the previous generation, the weight remains around 2.4 kg, considering it has a metal lid cover in the new model. Being a full-sized laptop and that too a gaming laptop, keep in mind this is still a slightly oversized machine with a dimension of 14.13 x 10.33 x 0.79 inches. This makes it slightly heavier and bulkier to some of the competitors but not considerably more.

The lid can be opened with a single hand. The little projection on the top housing the fullHD webcam, makes it easier to open. The hinges are stable and can do 180 degrees flat lay of the display.

Most of the IO ports are placed towards the back behind the screen, which in my opinion is good, and is also unobtrusive. You get a LAN port, another USB Type-C 3.2 (Gen. 2), an HDMI 2.1 connector, two USB Type-A 3.2 (Gen. 1) ports, and the power connector at the back.

On the right, there is a USB Type-A 3.2 (Gen. 1) port and an Audio jack. Also you find the e-shutter physical switch for the webcam here.

And to the left, there is a USB Type-C 3.2 (Gen. 2) port with DisplayPort 1.4 output, as well as a USB4

At the bottom, there is the ventilation grill and the speaker cutouts. The heat exhaust happens through two vents on the back and one on each side of the laptop. The footers are prominent and keep the laptop fixed in position when placed on the table.

Keyboard and Touchpad of Lenovo Legion 5 2022

Typing on Legion 5 is very comfortable and well, am typing this review right on this machine now. It has a full-size key and the spaced well. It has a Num-pad section and full-sized arrow keys as well. There is an array of function buttons on the top. The power button with a LED light is placed at the middle on top above the keyboard deck. The power button LED shines in blue, white or red depending on the performance mode you select.

The keyboard has an RGB backlit. There are 4 zones for illumination, and a profile in the Lenovo vantage software to customize it along with other lighting effects. There is no light-dimming button on the keyboard. You need to fiddle with the software for the tweaks.

The touchpad is quite big with a size of 75 by 120mm. Its Mylar surface is smooth, the tracking is good, and the response time is super quick, which is further aided by the 165Hz display.

Speakers, Webcam and Biometrics

There is a fullHD webcam housed in the small projection on top of the display, flanked by microphones. There is no privacy shutter for the webcam, but it can be electronically disabled by a press of a switch, which is found in the right side of the laptop. There is no fingerprint sensor or face recognition.

Display of Lenovo Legion 5 2022

The configuration of the Legion 5i 2022 we got for testing has a Quad-HD 165Hz IPS panel with a 15.6-inch size. It has a matte finish. The resolution is 2560 x 1440 pixels with a pixel density of 188 ppi. The screen ratio is 16:9. Do note Lenovo offers many display options in the series.

The viewing angles are excellent. The display as mentioned earlier can be flat-laid. The maximum brightness is around 390 nits in the middle. The display has a 97% sRGB, 71.6% DCI-P3, 73.8% AdobeRGB. The panel has GSync and Advanced Optimus support.

The panel is good for daily use and the 160Hz in my model makes it good for gaming too with good response time.

Performance of Lenovo Legion 5i

Lenovo has refreshed the intel lineup with the 12th gen. The machine I have is powered by Intel Core i7-12700H, with NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060, 16 GB of DDR5-4800 memory in dual channel, and 1 TB of GB of fast SSD storage. The graphics are handled by Nvidia RTX 3060 dGPU with 6 GB of vRAM and the Iris Xe iGPU integrated within the Intel processor.

A MUX is offered here, with several modes including dGPU-only or Advanced Optimus (several Hybrid modes). Switching to dGPU requires a restart while opting between the Hybrid modes does not.

For those who are interested in the synthetic benchmark tests, I have run a few tests for you and also benchmarked the FarCry 5 and Forza 5. Please note these tests are run on balance mode, and it might be notch higher score on performance mode.

In PCMark 10 test, it delivered a score of 7195 in the Timespy test. In 3DMark test, it returned a healthy 9344 score.

In the FarCry 5 benchmark test, it returned an average FPS of 125.

In Forza Horizon 4, the average FPS achieved was 81 fps.

The gaming performance is as expected for a high-power RTX 3060 laptop in 2022.

Lenovo has taken care of thermals with a two fans, four radiators and four heatpipes, there is an extra heatpipe for the GPU. Plus, there are radiator shields on top off RAM modules, SSDs and even the WiFi card. Legion 5 2022 manages a good thermal control for the gaming segment laptop. While playing game in balance mode, the thermal around the keyboard deck was manageable and was under 40 degree, it was only at the back bottom, you see it raises to 50 degree.

The read and write speed has pretty impressive results in the CrustalDisk Mark test.

Lenovo Vantage software

The Lenovo Vantage app is the one-stop place to access power profiles, updates, and other settings. The power profiles are Quiet, Balanced, and Performance, and you can select them from Vantage or switch between them with Fn+Q. Performance is only available with the laptop plugged into the wall. These profiles apply different power settings to the CPU/GPU and different fan profiles. The RGB illumination lighting can also be tweaked with various presets here.

There are three thermal mode settings – performance mode, which works when AC adapter is plugged in and delivers the maximum performance. It also gets noisier a bit since it runs on higher fan speed but helps in better thermal management too when you engage in full-throttle gaming.

Battery

My model of Legion 5 comes with an 80 Wh battery. The display panel is 165Hz and if you want more battery life you can manually set the refresh rate to 60Hz if battery life is your priority, you might end up with a bit more battery juice. The power brick is a chunky one, weighing around 1.2kg, adding considerably more to your travel weight. It is a 300W power brick. Alternatively, you can also use a 135W USB-C charger but optimal performance might be hampered with the USB charger while gaming. In my video loop test, I barely got 2 hours of battery life, which is disappointing. So basically it works, if you use it majorly on desk, connected to power.

Lenovo Legion 5i (2022 ) Review – Verdict

Overall, the Legion 5i is a good mid-tier gaming laptop that won’t disappoint you in gaming and also other intense use cases. It is a full-sized laptop, slightly oversized and a bit heavy at 2.4kg. It also comes with a chunky power brick, though you can use a type C charger.

What is Good

• Good inputs, IO and ergonomics
• Good performance.
• Comfortable keys
• Good display for gaming with 165Hz

What is bad

• Bit bulkier and heavy but it is expected being a gaming laptop
• Chunky power brick
• Poor battery life.

Specifications of Asus TUF 15 (2022) FX507ZM

• Processor: 12th Gen Intel® Core™ i7-12700H Processor 2.3 GHz (24M Cache, up to 4.7 GHz, 14 cores: 6 P-cores and 8 E-cores)
• Graphics: NVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ 3060 Laptop GPU, 115W (140W with Dynamic Boost) 6GB GDDR6 RAM
• Memory: 16GB DDR5 RAM, 2400Hz
• Storage : 1TB M.2 NVMe™ PCIe® 4.0 SSD
• Display : 15.6-inch, FHD (1920 x 1080) 16:9, anti-glare display, sRGB:100%, Refresh Rate:300Hz, IPS-level, MUX Switch + Optimus
• Keyboard: Backlit Chiclet Keyboard 1-Zone RGB
• I/O Port: 1x 3.5mm Combo Audio Jack, 1x HDMI 2.0, 2x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A, 1x RJ45 LAN port, 1x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C support DisplayPort™ / G-SYNC, 1x Thunderbolt™ 4 support DisplayPort™
• Speaker: Dual speaker with Dolby Atmos, Hi-res audio certification
• Battery: 90WHrs, 4S1P, 4-cell Li-ion
• Wi-Fi 6(802.11ax) (Dual band) 2*2 + Bluetooth 5.1
• 720p webcam
• Dimensions: 35.4 x 25.1 x 2.24 ~ 2.49 cm
• Weight: 2.2 kg
• Operating System: Windows 11 Home
• Software Included: MS Office 2019

Design and Build Quality of Asus Tuf F15 (2022)

Visually, there is no change to the Asus TUF F15 2022 model over the previous year, it is tad lighter by around 100 gms though and also marginally compact. It screams the same gamer centric design languages. A bit chunky, plenty of vents, gunmetal body complete with fake screws on the lid. I have seen more audacious gaming laptop designs which can have a very split in th middle opinions about it, but I feel this TUF F15 will have more acceptability in terms of design in this segment. Of course, if you are a non-gamer consumer, you might still have some reservations.

It has an angular design. the fake screws adding a dash on interest and TUF series logo embossed in the middle. The lid can be lifted by single finger. Asus claims the build quality meets MIL-STD-810H standards for resistance to shock, vibration, and other environmental extremes. In India it is available in two design variants but both are in grey color.

There is a unique clover-like arrangement of four LED indicators built into the keyboard deck which is also accessible when the lid is closed, these four LEDs give a status glance on key system information.

On the left, there’s the power jack, an RJ45 gigabit Ethernet port, HDMI 2.0, a Thunderbolt 4 port, USB 3.2 Type-C port, USB-A and a 3.5mm headphone jack. Thankfully, the Thunderbolt is labeled to clear confusion with the adjacent identical USB C port.

On the right, you’ve got a Kensington lock and the second USB-A. I think these would sort every needs, well there is no card reader slot if you want to nitpick.

The bottom side has a maze of air vent grilles, speakers and firm footers, that also allow the air to flow underneath.

Keyboard and Touchpad

The deck that houses the keyboard, and trackpad is made of plastic. Having tested their premium ROG and Strix machines, you know some cost-cutting has gone into here. It looks slightly cheaper but in terms of practicality, it serves the job. The keyboard is spread edge to edge, almost the entire width of the deck. It’s backlit, while there is only a single zone but the RGB lighting can be customized via the Armory crate software, you get static, breathing, strobing and colour cycle lighting modes to choose from. There are four dedicated key rows on top – for volume controls and one button to quick launch Asus Armory Crate software. The W A S P keys stand out in white translucent keys.

The keyboard also makes way for the number pad on the left side. With an array of special keys, function keys, and number pads, the keyboard deck does feel a bit cramped. The keys felt good while typing, I did not find it very cramped and hard to type the way it seemed to be. I quite liked the tactile feedback and the key bounce.

The touchpad is large enough measuring 5.7 x 3.1 inches. The touchpad also has the TUF logo at the top right corner. There are no dedicated mouse buttons but the whole area works as a clickpad for your right and left clicks. The gliding is smooth.

Speakers , Webcam and Biometrics

The FX507 has dual speakers with Dolby Atmos and Hi-res audio certification. There are two speakers firing on the bottom and to the sides. It is Ok for daily use.

The webcam is housed in an outward protruding cutout. It houses the webcam and microphone. You get a standard 720p webcam, which does a basic job. There is no privacy shutter. The laptop does not support Windows Hello support, fingerprint scanner is also not available.

Display of Asus TUF F15 FX507ZM

The laptop I got here has a 1080p panel with 300Hz refresh rate, but the F15 series also offers other variants that have 1080p panel with 144Hz as well WQHD 2K resolution panel with 165Hz. All variants support MUX Switch + Optimus. .

If you are looking for eSports gaming, you should be going with FHD screen with a very smooth 300Hz refresh rate offering. You get a matte panel with a 16:9 aspect ratio. The 320 nits brightness, just about makes to the agreeable limit. While this is a decent display, if you want top-notch you need to shell out more for the premium series. While binge-watching movies, I was ok with the display but in certain games, you might find the colour contrast bit wanting. Nevertheless, for gaming, the higher refresh rate and MUX Switch + Optimus are a welcome addition.

Performance of TUF Gaming F15 FX507Z

This is where the FX508X sprints a home run. Equipped with Intel Core i7-12700K CPU, 16GB of DDR4 RAM and a 1TB PCIe Gen 4 SSD, it makes mince meat of almost everything you throw at it. Open over two dozen Chrome tabs, 4K video editing, and multi-tasking everything is a breeze.

On the 3D Mark Time Spy test, it got an 8442 score, and PC Mark 10 returned a 7064 score.

In the Far Cry 5 benchmark score, it threw an impressive 125 avg FPS, making for a good gameplay on high graphics. Even in the Handbrake benchmark, it crushes most other competitors in the segment by transcoding 4K video to 1080p in just four-minute 40 seconds much lesser than the segment average time.

The F15 transcoded a 4K video to 1080p in just four minutes and 49 seconds on our HandBrake benchmark,

So if you are going by performance yardstick, the variant I have is a beast at work. Be it gaming or video editing, it does a brilliant job.

Battery

The TUF 15 2022 comes with a 90Whrs 4-cell battery. The battery life is pretty impressive. For non-gaming usage, I got around 6 hours of battery life which is pretty good for a gaming laptop.

Verdict

The latest refresh to the TUF F15 series makes the series a serious contender in the affordable gaming laptop segment. The TUF F15 FX507ZM I tested, proved to be a very capable machine for gaming as well as video editing and other heavy tasks.

Pros of Asus TUF F15 FX507ZM

• Impressive performance
• Good battery life
• Good array of I/O
• Slightly smaller and lighter than previous gen
• Competitive pricing in this segment

Cons of Asus TUF F15 FX507ZM

• Not exactly a con, but gameresque look and build do not exactly suits everyone

Lenovo Legion 5 Ryzen 5 4600H Specifications

• Processor: Intel Core i7-11370H, Tiger Lake-H35
• Memory: 16GB RAM @ 1600Mhz, dual channel
• Storage : 1TB NVMe
• Graphics: GeForce RTX™ 3070 GPU with 8GB GDDR6 VRAM
• Display : 15.6-inch,FHD (1920 x 1080) 16:9,anti-glare display, 240Hz, IPS
• Keyboard: backlight chiclet keyboard
• I/O Port: 3 x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type A, HDMI 2.0, Thunderbolt 4.0 with Display port 1.4 and Power delivery, RJ45, audio combo jack, Kensington lock, power input.
• Speaker: 2 x 2W speaker system, DTS:X
• Battery: 76WHrs, 4S1P, 4-cell Li-ion
• Webcam: NA
• 2.0 kg, 19.9mm
• Operating System: Windows 10 Home

Design and Build Quality of TUF DASH F15

The Tuf Dash is available in two colours – Moonlight White or Eclipse Gray. White is a colour you don’t often come across, if you are good at cleaning the dirt off, you would definitely like it. For a gaming laptop, the Dash F15 is relatively lightweight at 2.0 kg and at 19.9mm thin as well for this segment. It makes it manageable for both work and play. The body is made of plastics and aluminium alloy, with the lid and keyboard, made more durable with a metal build. Asus states the machine matches with MIL-STD-810H standards. The 2021 model is significantly thinner and lighter than the previous TUF gaming laptops.

The top lid has prominent TUF branding. There are clean angles and cuts giving a sharper meaner look. The lid can be opened with one hand.

The machine would be easier to service or if you decide to upgrade, the underside is easier to open with a screwdriver. You can get quick access to the M.2 ports, there are two of them. The RAM can also be upgraded up to 32GB of DDR4. The bottom has nice prominent footers for good grip and vents.

The right side has two USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type A ports,

Towards the left, you get one more USB-A, along with a Thunderbolt 4, HDMI, Ethernet, a 3.5mm combo jack, and a dedicated port for charging. PD support is there, charge the TUF Dash F15 via USB-C.

Display of TUF Dash F15

The display could be one of the strongest points of TUF Dash 15. It’s a 15.6-inch FullHD panel with a 240Hz refresh rate. The screen is bright and has a good colour punch to it. It measures 100% of the sRGB spectrum. I liked the display. Especially, after immediately moving to this laptop after spending time with Legion 5 laptop that I reviewed earlier, the difference was palpable. The TUF Dash F15 screen stood out instantly. Additionally, it is also treated to anti-glare.

Speakers, Webcam and Biometrics

There are a pair of 2W speakers placed at the bottom. The loudness is not the best out there. It hit the max around 82db and hovered around 78-80db to the most part. It does not sound bad either. It is manageable.

Surprisingly, there is no webcam. It doesn’t mean the display bezels are so thin there is no provision for a webcam, there is placed above the display to accommodate but it could be a purely cost-cutting measure. So you might have to invest in a good webcam if you have a need. Anyways for gamers if they are streaming, it is always good to invest in a good webcam, since most laptop webcams are mediocre.

With no webcam, face recognition is obviously ruled out. There is no fingerprint sensor either. That means no biometric login and you have to rely on a good old trusted password.

Keyboard and Touchpad

Personally, when it comes to the territory of large 15.6-inch laptops, I prefer a full-fledged keyboard, one thing that I liked in the Legion 5. Asus has lots of space in the keyboard deck but still have not gone for a full-sized one, so there is no separate Numpad. Somehow, it took a while for me to get adjusted to the keyboard of TUF gaming. The key travel is good. The keyboard has a backlight, the white laptop comes with a light sea green lighting or teal colour. I assume it would be a white backlight in the black colour model, not sure. The WASP keys are transparent and distinct, which makes it a bit bright with the backlight on. There’s no RGB lighting customization. There are four special keys on top of the function keys array. The special keys are for volume adjustment, the mic on/off toggle and a special key to launch Armoury Crate, Asus’s own customization software, which I will talk about in a while. The power button is distinct too in shape and has a white LED to it.

The trackpad is large, supports windows gestures. The bottom of the pad has divided portions for the right and left clicks. I have no issues with the trackpad. They are functional.

Performance of TUF Dash F15

With Intel i7 11th gen combined with GeForce RTX™ 3070 GPU with 8GB GDDR6 VRAM and 16GB DDR4 RAM, I expected a good performance show from this machine. Let me begin with the benchmark tests if you are interested. On the 3D Mark Spy test, it returned a 7336 score, which is good. The PC mark test gave a 5817 score. On Crystal Mark Disc test, it showed 3526 MB/s read speed and 3085 write speed.

I played Far Cry 5, and I had no issues while playing. On the default high graphic setting, I got an average FPS of 82 and on the Ultra setting, it evened at 79 FPS. For an ultra-portable gaming laptop, this is a pretty good one. It could handle any games you can put it through and you should be satisfied. On a ultra-portable format, it might not bring the best out of the 3070 GPU but it still is impressive.

The Core i7-11370H based on the Tigerlake H35 architecture has four Willow Cove processor cores (4-core, 8-thread). All four cores can reach up to 4.3 GHz and the boost of a single and two cores under load can reach up to 4.8 GHz. For creative professionals, it cannot be a dream replacement for a workstation but I don’t see any reason why you cannot be doing a 4K editing on this, it should be capable of and the screen compliments it as well.

Armoury Crate software

Armoury Crate is Asus’s software package for the gaming laptop series that allows one to tinker with various settings and gives many performance insights. You can access CPU, GPU, memory stats. It offers system configuration and insight into various performance modes. While there is no RGB colour customization for this laptop, you can change the backlight to strobing or breathing effects instead of static. The game visuals also can be changed to various presets. It also has the option to customize profiles for various games.

Battery life of TUF Dash F15

The TUF Dash F15 comes with a 76Whr battery. In my video loop test with display brightness at 50% and volume at 60%, playing a 1080p video, gave me a battery life of 8 hours 15 mins.

Verdict

The Asus TUF Dash F15 is a good ultraportable gaming laptop, well designed and makes for solid work and play hybrid machine on the go.

Pros of TUF Dash F15

• Brilliant display with 100% sRGB and 240Hz refresh rate.
• Good battery life
• Good gaming performance for an ultraportable laptop segment
• Plenty of ports
• Thin and lightweight for the gaming segment

Cons of TUF Dash F15

• No webcam
• No RGB light customization

Lenovo IdeaPad Gaming 15IMH05 Specifications:

• Processor: Intel® Core™ i5-10300H @ 2.50Ghz Comet Lake 8 MB L3 cache, 4 cores
• Graphics adapter: NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1650 Ti (4 GB GDDR6 dedicated)
• Memory:  8 GB DDR4 SDRAM Samsung M471A1K43DB1, dual channel upgradable
• Display: 15.6-inch, 1920 x 1080, 60Hz (120Hz options available)
• Storage:  1TB SATA, 256GB NVMe SSD
• Connections: 
• Networking: Intel® Wi-Fi 6 AX201 Bluetooth 5.0
• Battery: 45 Whr Li-ion (3-cell)
• Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 Pro 64 Bit
• Camera: 720p with privacy shutter
• Audio: 2 x 1.5 W Stereo Speakers with Dolby Audio
• Size: 359 x 249.6 x 24.9mm
• Weight:  2.2 kg

Design and Build Quality of IdeaPad Gaming 3i

I got a mixed feeling when it comes to the design. The Onyx Black color with matte finish is unassuming devoid of any extra flashy add-ons or logos barring a simple Lenovo logo in the top left corner. It has a PC and ABS plastic chassis but gives a rock solid feel when you handle it. There is no flex to complain about. Within the restrained mood, what is appealing is the angled corners and the sides of the lid slightly drooping downwards with a lid line, it manages some sort of characteristics to what would have been otherwise a standard plain vanilla look.

When you open the lid, you are reminded the Ideapad Gaming branding in blue on the single-wide hinge. The color matches with the blue backlight of the keyboard but is more subtle. The side bezels are thin. The top bezels is slightly thicker but it also accommodates a 720p web camera. It comes with a privacy shutter built-in. If you are someone who get paranoid or wary of prying web camera looking at you when not in use, you can just shut it out with the slider on top of it.

I kind of have a Russian tank feel to this laptop – they are sturdy not very visually enhanced but still have something that assures you with the quality.

Ports

The left side has almost everything to offer, there’s the power jack, an RJ45 Ethernet port, an HDMI port, one USB Type-A port, one USB Type-C port, a headphone jack, a Novo hole and a power indicator.

The right side has just one additional USB Type-A port. There is no card reader. Usually, have seen gaming laptops come with two USB type A ports but you need to content with two here. Also, the machine lacks Thunderbolt 3 port.

Display of Ideapad Gaming

You get a large 15-inch IPS panel with 1920 x 1080 resolution. The model I received has a 60Hz refresh rate but you can pay a more and upgrade to 120Hz. If you don/t mind paying the extra, would be wiser to go for the 120Hz panel for gaming. It also has an anti-glare coating.

While the colors are decent not exemplary, texts are sharp would have preferred a bit more bump to the 250nits brightness level. The viewing angles are good too.

Keyboard and Touchpad

The keyboard has a nice clicky response to it. I used it for a couple of hours of typing and I find it comfortable to use. A number pad is included. The keys have a blue font on it and the backlit is also blue in colour. You cannot customize the RGB-key lighting, so you are stuck with the blue colour. The touch pad is decently large enough, it does not have a physical left and right mouse buttons. It supports Windows 10 gestures, like two-finger scrolling and three-finger tabbing.

Lenovo vantage software gives an option to disable the trackpad while gaming so you won’t end up accidentally firing shots or aim shifts. The best part is if you set this option in the software, it works only when the game is launched and in other use cases the trackpad would work normally.

you can disable the trackpad using the Lenovo Vantage software so you don’t accidentally fire or shift your aim when you’re gaming. This only works when a game is launched, so you can just keep this setting on at all times without worrying about losing trackpad functionality when you’re working.

Lenovo Vantage App

Let’s talk a bit about the Lenovo Vantage app. Every brand in the gaming laptop arena, have their own software to customize and optimize the machine for your needs. With Lenovo Vantage app you get a lot to fiddle around your machine.

You can toggle thermal modes for the laptop between performance, balance and quiet mode, there is also an automatic switch to performance mode when launching games and switch back when exiting the game. There is a Network boost functionality, you can add your games to the list and it gets prioritized in terms of network speed on your network.

There are other options like touchpad lock which we talked about earlier, auto close apps that close and frees up resources when you launch a game. You can also enable rapid charge, which allows the battery to charge faster than usual. In the battery settings, there is also a conservation mode, which when enabled will charge the battery only to 55-60% of capacity thus ensuring the longevity of battery life. Wifi Security mode, Dolby toggle is also found. Miscellaneous Options include, enabling or disabling keyboard backlight, mouse settings, function key switches and microphone settings.

Speakers

The speakers are places on the sides of the Ideapad gaming. They are fairly loud but lacks bass. It supports Dolby and the feature can be enabled or disabled in the Lenovo Vantage app.

Performance of Ideapad Gaming 3i 15IMH05

Ideapad Gaming series offers various models as I said in the beginning and you can customize it for your needs if you are buying from their website’s build your own option. I will stick with the machine am reviewing which is powered by Intel® Core™ i5-10300H @ 2.50Ghz CPU and combines NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1650 Ti GPU with 4GB of VRAM and 8GB of RAM. (It has a dual-channel and you can top it to a total of 32GB RAM)

In 3DMark Time Spy, the laptop scores 3673 points and in Time Spy Extreme it delivered 1671. In PCMark 10 extended, the IdeaPad Gaming 3i scores 4,855 points. This are the synthetic benchmark scores which puts this Ideapad Gaming machine capable for every day tasks. I did some video editing though not the top of the chart performer, I could edit couple of my videos on Premier pro at ease.

Though the RTX 1650 Ti is not the powerful GPU from Nvidia, you can’t disown it, it still has in it. If you are aiming to mix gaming and work and a machine for multimedia editing, this variant proved to be fairly good in my use. This could be a good mid-level gaming machine. I used it for some of my video rendering and real-life use cases and it proved it to be a good reliable workhorse.

Notably, the machine was quieter even while gaming. The thermal designs were well done too. They have a dual fans, which are placed under the WASD keys and thus making sure those keys doesn’t get hot during longer gameplay.

Battery life of Ideapad Gaming 3i

The laptop has a 3 Cell Li-Polymer Internal Battery with 45Wh. Lenovo claims 7 hours of battery life. We all know, none of the laptops would deliver the claimed result conducted in lab testing.

If you are indulging on normal tasks like browsing, youtube etc, it gives around 4-5 hours of battery life. Do note this is with brightness around 60% and in balanced mode battery settings. The battery life might vary depending on your use if you stream more, game, it is obvious you will see a faster drain. Plus, if you are a gamer, you would know playing with AC power on will always give you better gaming performance. Even in some situation if you do play without a power source, Lenovo claims it would give you an hour of intense gaming.

Verdict on Lenovo Ideapad Gaming 3i review

Finally, the question you would want to know and probably why you are reading this review. Should you buy Lenovo Ideapad Gaming 3i? When it comes to gadgets especially laptops there is no one magic model one can suggest or fit everyone’s needs. If you are buying Lenovo Ideapad Gaming 3i, for sure it won’t disappoint in terms of performance. It has lots of positives to talk about in spec to cost value propostion. Do carefully make the right model decision or build your own from the Lenovo website to suit your needs.

Pros: What works for Ideapad Gaming 3i

• Sturdy build quality
• Good neat design
• Good keyboard
• Decent display
• Webcam with privacy shutter
• Quieter fans
• Good thermal design
• Decent battery life
• Customization options

Cons

• No RGB lighting customization for keyboard
• Only NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Ti option

HP Omen 15 2020 has a wider choice of configurations to choose from. The HP Omen 15-ek0019TX I got for my review is powered by Intel Core i7 10th gen combined with a modest NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1650 Ti. You can also get more adrenalin rush with GeForce® RTX 2070 with Max-Q configuration, if you are into higher spectrum of gaming.

HP OMEN 15-ek0019TX Specification

• Processor: Intel® Core™ i7-10750H (2.6 GHz base frequency, up to 5 GHz with Intel® Turbo Boost Technology, 12 MB L3 cache, 6 cores)
• Graphics adapter: NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1650 Ti (4 GB GDDR6 dedicated)
• Memory:  16 GB DDR4-2933 SDRAM (2 x 8 GB)
• Display: 15.6-inch, 1920 x 1080pixel, 300 nits, 144Hz refresh rate
• Storage:  1 TB PCIe® NVMe™ M.2 SSD
• Connections: 1 SuperSpeed USB Type-C 5Gbps signaling rate (DisplayPort™ 1.4, HP Sleep and Charge); 1 SuperSpeed USB Type-A 5Gbps signaling rate (HP Sleep and Charge); 2 SuperSpeed USB Type-A 5Gbps signaling rate; 1 Mini DisplayPort™; 1 HDMI 2.0a; 1 RJ-45; 1 AC smart pin; 1 headphone/microphone combo
• Networking: Intel® Wi-Fi 6 AX201 (2×2) and Bluetooth® 5 combo
• Battery: 52.5 Wh Li-ion (3-cell)
• Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 Pro 64 Bit
• Camera: 720p
• Audio: SAudio by Bang & Olufsen; DTS:X® Ultra; OMEN Audio Control Support DTS:X® Ultra; Dual speakers; HP Audio Boost 2.0
• Weight:  2.36 kg

Design and Build Quality

With the 2020 model, HP had toned down the aggressive dash of curves and lines in their gaming machines. When you call out gaming laptops these days, there are flurry of offerings with strong accentuated cuts and psychedelic LED colors popping out. The HP Omen 2020 lineup is muted in comparison and follows traditional laptop looks with robust build. It can sneakily blend in an office environment.

It is made of a combination of aluminum and plastic with the underlying chasis in metal and gives a sturdy and robust feel to it and probably can handle few knocks too. The matte finish on the lid tend to catch grease easily and is a fingerprint magnet. The lid has a diamond-shaped mirror-like logo which glistens in green and blue, depending on the angle viewed. Personally, I find the logo too bland but on hindsight, this subtle logo would appeal to even non-gamers.

Weighing 2.36 kg, the Omen 15 2020 definitely has fair bit of heft to it and measures 22.6mm in thickness. If you are planning a machine to carry often, this should be kept under consideration. A Wide Vision 720p HD web camera is housed on the top bezel. There is no privacy shutter, a while light indicator glows when the camera is active. Like most webcams in laptops, this is passable for video calls. The power button finds an odd place between the F12 and delete button.

The bottom has a large ventilation grills, which could inhale lots of air towards the heat sinks.

Ports

The HP Omen packs a lot in terms of port selection. On the left, you get a USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A port, an HDMI port, an full-sized SD card reader, a Gigabit Ethernet port, headphone/microphone jack, and power jacks.

On the right side, you get a pair of USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A ports along with a mini DisplayPort and a USB 3.2 Gen 2 Thunderbolt Type-C port. 

Display

The Omen 15 2020 laptops can be flat laid to 180 degree and the hinge mechanism is confident. The Omen 15’s 15.6-inch 1920 x 1080-pixel display is love at first sight. I liked the popping colors, deep blacks and the colors are vibrant. Details are crisp and you will not miss anything in good game scenarios. It clocks 313 nits brightness which I find to be adequate and 71.8% of the DCI-P3 colour gamut is impressive. In short, the display is extremely likeable. There is also Nvidia G-Sync support.

Keyboard and Touchpad

The chiclet keyboard is almost silent which I kind of like for my laptops unlike the mechanical keyboards I like for my desktops. HP might also have gone for the silent treatment inline with the design choice of blending it in office ecosystem. The keyboard is full-fledged with separate numeric keys and calculator and arrow keys. I didn’t have any issues while typing. The travel distance is comfortable to use.

Then there is the RGB lighting, which most games would love to see. The back lighting can be customized from the OMEN command center. They keyboard is split into four zones for RGB lighting. The customization is not free wheeling but you can pick the colors for the four zones and the lighting is static. There is no strobbing, breathing or other dynamic effects.

The trackpad is large and easy to use. There are no separate dedicated left and right buttons. Omen 15 supports gestures and responds very well to them

Performance

Coming to the performance, if you are looking at top-notch gaming performance you should go with the GeForce® RTX 2070 for the max performance but that also costs a bit more than the unit I have here. Though the RTX 1650 Ti is not the powerful GPU from Nvidia, you can’t disown it, it still has in it. If you are aiming to mix gaming and work and a machine for multimedia editing, this variant proved to be fairly good in my use. This could be a good mid-level gaming machine. I used it for some of my video rendering and real-life use cases and it proved it to be a good reliable workhorse.

In 3D mark benchmark test we got 3897 in Time Spy test and 1761 in Time Spy Extreme test.

It has a Samsung NVme 1TB SSD storage. On Crystalmark 7 test, we got the following results in real-life performance and peak performance tests. There is 16GB of dual-channel DDR4 memory (8GB x 2 sticks), which can be upgraded to 32GB.

Omen Command center is you go-for destination to customize the keyboard lighting, adjust fan speed, monitor system diagnostics. For gamers, it also has an AI-based software that maps your play and throws pointers on your weak points. The game stream functionality aids to stream your game to another device in the same local network.

Battery life

The Omen 15 packs a 3-cell 52.5 Wh Li-ion battery. I could get a bit above 6 hours on an average on Omen 15 laptop, which is pretty good for a gaming laptop.

Verdict

The HP Omen 15-ek0019TX is a great mid-segment gaming laptop. If you don’t fancy the over the top design cues of gaming laptops and want something that would blend with your office environment, this is a great buy. Plus, the display is stellar and you get decent battery life for this segment.

Build and Design:

Keyboard and TrackPad 

Display of Zephyrus M GU502

Performance

Asus Zephyrus M GU502 Internals

The battery life of Zephyrus GU 502

Verdict:

Difference between TUF FX505DY and FX705DY

TUF FX705DY Design and Build Quality

Keyboard and Trackpad

Connectivity options of FX507DY

Display of Asus FX507DY

Performance of Asus FX507DY

The battery life of TUF Gaming FX705DY

Verdict – TUF Gaming FX705DY – To Buy or Not

General Specifications of Asus ROG Zephyrus M GM501

Design of ROG GM 501:

Display of ROG GM 501 Gaming laptop:

For the visual lightings what most gamers love, the keyboard lits up when you touch. You can sync your colour schemes with Asus-compatible monitors, mice and other peripherals via the cloud. You get the Auto core utility app for customization of the light elements with a 16.8 million colour wheel allowing to pick your own colours. You don’t get to individually program each key but four designated zones.

The trackpad is fairly large and has a 4.1 x 2.3 dimension.

The audio performance of ROG GM 501:

Performance of ROG GM501:

Battery life:

Does the ROG Zephyrus GM 501 heats up?

Verdict – Is this the perfect gaming machine?

What works for Zephyrus ROG:

• Excellent build
• Beast of a configuration
• Good audio performance
• 144Hz refresh rate
• upgradable memory
• Good thermal management

What is bad

• Short battery life
• no built-in Ethernet jack

• Both laptops are powered by 7th Gen Intel Core i7 processors and sport Nvidia’s discrete graphics cards.

Legion Y520 key features:

• The Lenovo Legion Y520 sports an aluminium-brushed body
• It features a red backlit keyboard with 1.7mm of travel.
• The laptop sports two 2W Harman Kardon speakers with Dolby Audio Premium.
• The device offers users the option of 128GB PCIe SSD storage, 1TB HDD storage or both.
• The laptop is equipped with a Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti and two 8GB DDR4 RAM.
• User can customize settings, such as audio, active keys, cooling, and network priority to focus on the game. Then, once in the zone, one can record highlights for replaying or uploading to streaming sites. Lenovo Nerve Sense makes it effortless.
• It measures 1.01″ (25.8 mm) thickness and weighs 2.5 kg

Legion Y720 Key Features:

• The Lenovo Legion Y720 sports an aluminium-brushed body
•  The laptop is equipped with a 15.6-inch Full HD display
• It runs on 7th Gen Intel® Core™ processors.
• It has two 8GB DDR4 RAM
• Powered by a Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 graphics
• It’s Oculus certified VR-ready laptop
• The device comes with Thunderbolt 3 and the company says that it is the world’s first Dolby Atmos Windows-based PC.
• Lenovo Nerve Sense lets you get into the nitty gritty and customize your setup, so it’s perfect for you. Adjust keyboard lighting for nighttime gaming, customize hotkeys for hair-trigger gaming precision
• the Y720 has you covered with integrated Xbox One Wireless Controller Support