Lenovo Legion Slim 5 evaluate: OLED gaming at a surprisingly low worth

OLED screens are really the stuff of desires. Should you’re after crisp, stunning colours, deep inky black tones, phenomenal response occasions, and top-tier refresh charges, no different panel tech even mildly comes near delivering all these components in a single go. The Lenovo Legion Slim 5 14APH8 pairs precisely that with an exceptionally low price ticket, which means this laptop computer affords extraordinary worth already.

It’s not with out fault, in fact. Lenovo has definitely reduce some corners to facilitate that heavy funding, notably on condition that this OLED display additionally comes with a powerful 2,880 x 1,800 decision as effectively. For the cash, although, the Lenovo Legion Slim 5 is among the finest gaming laptops on the market immediately.

Who’s it for then? Merely put, a gamer who’s not trying to waste any money. The much less finances you’ve got, the extra beneficial that finances turns into, definitely in terms of placing it in the proper place. It’s a balancing act, ensuring you don’t unintentionally purchase a laptop computer that has an apparent bottleneck, and Lenovo has labored arduous to make sure that’s not going to occur.

There’s one large caveat to that assertion, however I’ll contact on that within the benchmark part. I’ve been testing the Legion Slim 5 for round two weeks now, utilizing it as my each day driver at occasions, gaming on it at others, and have run it by way of all method of benchmarks. I even managed to sneak in a number of hours on Baldur’s Gate 3 with it as effectively.

Specs

On the coronary heart of the Legion Slim 5 lies one of the crucial intriguing laptop computer processors on the market proper now. Simply on par with the Intel Core Extremely chips discovered within the likes of the Alienware M16 R2, the Ryzen 7 7840HS is an eight-core, 16-thread processor, clocking in at 3.8GHz and able to boosting all the best way as much as 5.1GHz.

What’s fascinating right here is that it is a hybrid processor, which concurrently has among the finest tech discovered within the Zen 4 structure, paired with a wholesome chunk of the RDNA 3 GPU structure too. Actually, the 7840HS is extremely just like the desktop Ryzen 7 8700G, that includes the identical core counts, max clock pace, cache, and built-in GPU as effectively, particularly the Radeon 780M.

That alone offers the 7840HS, the equal of round 37.5% of a Radeon RX 7600 at its core. AMD has additionally included a devoted Ryzen AI NPU (neural processing unit) on this chip, which is designed to assist with particular AI duties at the moment being built-in into Home windows 11.

Talking of GPUs, we’re not simply operating on built-in graphics right here, as Lenovo has additionally included a full-size devoted cellular graphics card within the type of the Nvidia RTX 4060 8GB. In contrast to lots of Nvidia’s cellular GPUs, this cellular chip really matches the desktop RTX 4060 in virtually each facet, even as much as its most 115W TDP. Nevertheless, Lenovo has dropped that energy score draw right down to 105W, to raised stability the inner thermal load.

That is one space that’s definitely been reduce, notably to hit that worth level. Because the display itself runs at 120Hz with a 2,880 x 1,800 decision, there’s no getting away from the truth that the RTX 4060 is simply not going to be able to dealing with any AAA titles at that decision at over 60fps. That may be a little bit of a disgrace, because it does imply you’ll need to drop the decision down to essentially take pleasure in that display within the newest video games, though the GPU’s assist for Nvidia DLSS does assist considerably to counter that.

The opposite slight quality-of-life compromise is on the reminiscence entrance. The Slim 5 has soldered LPDDR5X reminiscence on-board, somewhat than SODIMM slots. That may severely cut back the life expectancy of this machine, and upgrading your RAM later down the road goes to be a no-go.

On the plus facet, the RAM runs at a quick pace of 6,400MHz, whereas the 7840HS formally solely helps DDR5 reminiscence at as much as 5600MHz anyway, so you might be technically getting a quicker spec than that. Nonetheless, it might have been preferable to have the ability to improve your RAM at a later date should you wished.

Options

Inner {hardware} apart, the large promoting level of this laptop computer is its display, and oh boy is it a magnificence. For that upfront funding, you get your self an extremely crisp 14.5-inch OLED show, clocking in at 120Hz with a 2,880 x 1,800 decision.

That provides you a pixel density on the Home windows desktop of round 234.22ppi. For comparability, among the finest 4K gaming screens rocking 32-inch panels will solely web you 137.68ppi, which means the Legion Slim 5’s display is significantly sharp and crisp. Should you take pleasure in a superbly easy desktop expertise, that is the place to be.

Heck even gorgeous in-game too. There’s little to no perceivable ghosting in any respect, and shade accuracy is on level, notably when having fun with HDR content material, or something with a pop of shade in it. Latency is slightly slower than I’d like, logging simply 7.6ms in Blur Buster’s MPRT take a look at, which is considerably sluggish for an OLED, however it’s nonetheless not notably noticeable whenever you’re within the midst of a firefight (or a dialog tree).

In the meantime, the connection choices are tremendous, though they may very well be higher. There’s no Wi-Fi 7 or Bluetooth 5.4 assist for a begin, though you do nonetheless get loads of USB 3.2 Sort-C and Sort-A ports to assist you, plus there’s an HDMI out within the rear, and extra impressively a full-sized SD card reader too.

Nevertheless, there’s no devoted Ethernet port, until you’re hooking it up through a USB adapter, and also you solely get Wi-Fi 6E for wi-fi networking. Nonetheless, relying by yourself private networking circumstances, that may not be fairly the destructive it first seems. Wi-Fi 6E nonetheless delivers loads of bandwidth and channel entry, and equally, Bluetooth 5.2 affords greater than sufficient bandwidth for many modern-day gadgets.

The keyboard and trackpad are surprisingly pleasing to make use of as effectively. The trackpad specifically has a soft-touch, rubberized end that’s extremely easy and feels pretty underneath your fingers. In the meantime, the keys aren’t mechanical, however the motion is slick and silent, with a softness to every press that by no means feels overly spongey. They do have lighting, however it’s purely a white backlight, which is deactivated more often than not. Hilariously the ability button does in truth have an RGB LED, although.

You additionally get a fairly commonplace guarantee right here as effectively, only one 12 months og couriered or carry-in service, which is mildly irritating on condition that Lenovo is a multi-billion greenback firm, the reminiscence is soldered, and it’s important to take care of the potential quirks of the OLED display, equivalent to burn-in. Happily, Lenovo does have a useless pixel coverage, though there’s no point out of burn-in alternative or comparable.

Design

The Slim 5’s construct high quality is usually top-tier, with a mixture of plastics and anodized aluminum as commonplace. There’s delicate Legion branding etched onto the again of the display, and the general aesthetic is remarkably clear.

There are not any daring rounded edges such as you discover on the Alienware M16 R2, and the chassis balances the shape issue and cooling obligations effectively. At simply 1.75kg, the Lenovo Legion Slim can be extremely mild, and this together with its top of simply 2.1cm means you’ll don’t have any bother carrying it round in your bag.

The ports are effectively positioned too, with the rear of the laptop computer housing that 170W energy adapter, plus two USB Sort-A ports, and an HDMI output as effectively. These ports even have illuminated indicators above them, sat on a ledge simply earlier than the display itself, which provides the Legion Slim 5 a singular look.

Sadly, as beforehand talked about, it does have that soldered reminiscence, which can hurt the lifespan of this laptop computer long run, notably given you solely get 16GB. On the plus facet, nonetheless, it might probably assist as much as two PCIe 4.0 M.2 SSDs within the 2280 kind issue, so there’s loads of growth room, in case you are eager to chuck in an extra video games drive, or an SSD with slightly extra grunt.

Talking of which, Lenovo is utilizing an SK Hynix OEM M.2 PCIe 4.0 SSD right here, which is fairly quick on learn speeds, maxing out the PCIe 4.0 commonplace, nonetheless, write speeds are lower than half that (3.5GB/s), making it a superb candidate for an improve.

This machine can be significantly quiet in comparison with many gaming laptops. The fan noise is definitely there, however you don’t must drown it out with an honest headset to have an pleasing expertise with the Slim 5. It’s no louder than your common gaming PC underneath full load, if not really barely quieter than that. That’s little question partly because of a mix of AMD’s ridiculously environment friendly CPU Zen 4 structure, and the 105W RTX 4060 GPU.

Benchmarks

I’ve run the Legion Slim by way of a variety of benchmarks, together with artificial checks and actual sport benchmarks, to essentially get a superb gauge of simply how effectively it performs in day-to-day duties and gaming. General, that Ryzen chip is sort of the juggernaut. In Cinebench R24, it clocked in a rating of 872 in multi-core and 102 in single-core.

That’s really quicker than the Intel Core Extremely 9 discovered within the MSI Stealth 16 (although this chip is hindered by the cooling in that specific machine). Equally, its 3DMark CPU profile outcome averaged an index of seven,519 versus 7,972 from the Extremely Core 7 discovered within the Alienware M16 R2. However once more, that laptop computer prices a superb 75% greater than the Slim 5.

Gaming, although, effectively that’s a special matter. I run these laptops by way of two units of benchmark checks. One at 1080p, and one at its native decision. This offers us a very good concept of how effectively they carry out comparatively, and in isolation with that native display res.

The excellent news is that at 1080p the Slim 5 does a fairly good job of nailing body charges if the circumstances are right. Complete Conflict: Warhammer averaged 72fps, Cyberpunk 2077 with DLSS Tremendous Decision and body era enabled hit 75fps, and F1 2023 landed a median of 43fps (you possibly can allow DLSS on this sport to make it run faster too).

Leap as much as that 2,880 x 1,800 full-screen res, nonetheless, and that’s the place gaming efficiency begins to take a tumble. Complete Conflict had its body fee virtually reduce in half, right down to 37fps, Cyberpunk 2077 fell to only 19fps, even with DLSS enabled, and F1 23 averaged simply 25fps. That’s a painful drop.

In the end, your finest guess, should you do wish to play the newest titles, is to drop that decision right down to 1,920 x 1,080 or comparable. That’s not the tip of the world; you’re nonetheless taking a look at a pixel density of 151.92 should you do this, which remains to be sharper than 4K on a 32-inch display, however it’s not the display’s native decision.

Battery

The Slim 5 was mildly underwhelming on the battery life entrance as effectively. Lenovo’s packed in a 73.6 WHr battery pack into that 14.5-inch kind issue, with an included 170W reversible adapter to again it up.

That’s a reasonably first rate achievement, given the laptop computer’s already small bodily footprint, however it does hurt the battery life. In PC Mark 10’s gaming take a look at, the Slim 5 solely lasted for 53 minutes from 100% down to three%. It’s uncommon that we see gaming laptops final far more than an hour in a gaming take a look at, although.

By far the extra troubling outcome got here within the type of the modern-office take a look at, the place the Lenovo lasted simply 218 minutes earlier than it shut down. Intel Extremely Core-powered laptops we’ve not too long ago examined managed to final effectively into the 360-minute vary, earlier than reaching an analogous destiny.

Should you examine that to the Extremely Core 7 discovered within the Alienware unit, the Slim 5 solely lasted for 56% of what that machine managed, regardless of having a battery capability that’s 82% as massive. That is really probably as a consequence of Intel having a slight edge in its TDP management, with the newest Core Extremely chips operating as little as 20W versus Ryzen’s 35W, whereas concurrently profiting from low-power environment friendly cores.

Value

With that, it’s time to speak worth. Lenovo has apparently positioned the Legion Slim 5 at fairly an intriguing worth level. I’ve seen this very spec as little as $1,299 within the US, and £1,500 within the UK. For what you’re getting, each of these costs are literally fairly affordable. Getting an OLED display, even only a 14-inch one, actually does set the Slim 5 aside from the overwhelming majority of competing laptops at this worth.

There are downsides, in fact. This explicit spec isn’t going to final fairly so long as among the different choices on the market that don’t have soldered reminiscence, and sure the RTX 4060 is a little bit of an odd pairing with a display res that tops out at 5 million pixels. Nevertheless, it’s a reasonably well-rounded bundle nonetheless, and should you’re prepared to drop that display decision in video games, you’ll have a superb time in video games for a minimum of the following couple of years.

Options

Asus ROG Zephyrus G14

When you’ve got a bit more cash to spend, Asus’ newest ROG Zephyrus G14 has a equally dazzling 14-inch LED display and a stunning slimline design that solely weighs 1.5kg. The G14 suffers from the identical concern because the Lenovo Legion Slim 5 with its use of soldered reminiscence, however it’s a fantastic machine should you spec it up with 32GB in the beginning.

Once in a while you’ll discover it on supply as effectively, with the value for thew 15GB RTX 4060 mannequin on Greatest Purchase dropped from $1,599 to only $1,299, which means it then affords very comparable worth to the Lenovo.

Learn our full Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 evaluate.

Verdict

Lenovo’s Legion Slim 5 affords unbelievable worth, partly because of that luscious, crisp, and easy OLED panel and its excellent CPU for the cash. Nevertheless, the usage of soldered RAM is a mark in opposition to it, and we suggest shopping for this machine for 32GB should you can.

The RTX 4060 GPU additionally doesn’t have sufficient energy to play video games on the display’s native decision, though it might probably deal with 1080p gaming tremendous. That is all comprehensible, given the low worth MSRP, however it nonetheless would have been nice to a minimum of have a way of upgrading that reminiscence.

The Slim nonetheless ticks quite a lot of bins, although, particularly should you’re on a good finances. Should you’re prepared to drop the decision a smidge in video games, then it is a decently-balanced finances gaming laptop computer with a unbelievable display, and strong gaming efficiency, particularly should you lean into Nvidia’s DLSS upscaling and body era tech.