The Legion 5 15 Gen.6 focuses on the core components of a gaming laptops and offers plenty of performance with a fast 165 Hz display. The problems with the automatic graphics switching are annoying though and should be fixed as soon as possible. Our test model is an interestingly balanced configuration of the Lenovo Legion 5 15ACH6 series, with an AMD Ryzen 5 5600H processor, an Nvidia RTX 3060 graphics chip, 16 GB of DDR4-3200 MHz memory, and a fast Samsung PM981 PCIe x4 gen3 SSD. Now, based on my past experience with other recent Ryzen configurations, I was expecting this laptop to be efficient and run for a fair while on a charge, but it did not. Not sure exactly what’s going on, because Optimus seems to work fine and the CPU scales down in frequency and power as expected, yet somehow the efficiency with light use left plenty to be desired. And no, I don’t have the iCUE software installed on this unit. As far as I can tell there’s some sort of an issue with the AMD Radeon iGPU driver, as the panel is shown as a 10-bit 165 Hz model in the Advanced Display Settings tab. That aside, there’s also no option to manually switch to a 60 Hz refresh rate. The Legion doesn’t make too much noise either – there’s fan noise present when you play games or push the hardware, but it’s not irritating or problematic. Temperatures were fine on the inside and outside, and there were no throttling issues. It’s just as good as the Asus and MSI here. Battery Life

Switching over to the Balanced profile leads to the Ryzen 5 stabilizing at 45W of power. The fans spin at 43-44 dB in this case, and temperatures stabilize in the low-80s.

Performance - Lenovo uses fast AMD Ryzen 7

The eight-core AMD processor is brilliant. Its PCMark 10 result of 7038 is more than 600 points ahead of the Asus, which used the same chip to lesser affect. Lenovo’s laptop scored 1404 and 7197 in the Geekbench tests, with both results also outpacing Asus. This chip is even further ahead of the Intel Core i7-11800H used in the MSI. According to the spec sheet, the Legion 5 should have a 60Wh battery but the battery in my review unit was most definitely an 80Wh (5,210mAh) unit. Had it been the former, that would more easily explain the rather poor performance in our video rundown test. Finally, the CPUs run at ~25 W on battery as well, on the Balanced profile, with the fans still at <32 dB. The CPU performance on the battery is roughly what the system delivers on the Quiet mode when plugged in.

Finally, I’ll mention that camera at the top of the screen. It’s HD-only and washed-out quality even in good light, but at least it’s there and can do that job when needed. This comes with an electronic shutter on the left side of the laptop, which electronically kills both the camera and the microphones, and not just covers the lens with a piece of plastic. Battery life The 2022 Legion 5 15 is a major update over the 2021 Legion 5 15. It utilizes the same GPU albeit at a higher TGP target (140 W vs. 130 W) while upgrading the CPU to the latest 12th gen Alder Lake-H series. The external chassis has also been updated for a newer and sleeker look. The new Legion 5 is yet another great option in this increasingly contested section of the laptop market. It’s capable of better gaming performance than both the Acer Nitro 5 and the Asus TUF Dash F15 and it also comes within striking distance of the far pricier Asus ROG Zephyrus G15 as well. For storage, our unit came with a fast Samsung PM981 drive and an extra slot ready for upgrades. Both M.2 slots are 2280 PCIe x4 gen3.Running Witcher 3 on Performance mode to represent typical gaming loads would cause the Nvidia GPU to stabilize at 1972 MHz, 134 W board power draw, and 76 C. If on Balanced mode, the GPU would instead stabilize at 1665 MHz, 95 W, and 70 C for a 10 percent performance deficit as detailed in our GPU Performance section above. Users must therefore enable Performance mode through the Vantage software if they want to exploit the GPU to its fullest. Unlike the 3050Ti variant we’ve already covered a few months ago, this 3060 is significantly more capable in games and GPU-intensive workloads, for roughly 200 EUR more over here in Europe. This article here goes over the AMD Ryzen 5 + RTX 3060 + FHD 165Hz configuration of the Lenovo Legion 5, and we’ll also go over a similar Legion 5 Pro variant in this article. USB-A 3.2 gen2, 1x USB-C 3.2 DP 1.4, 1x USB-C with DP 1.4 and PD support, 1x HDMI 2.1, Ethernet, mic/earphone

It’s not just about the GPU, however. This particular laptop also includes an AMD CPU – the Ryzen 7 5800H in the case of the review model or a Ryzen 5 5600H model – and the laptop is being marketed under the AMD’s “Advanced Edition” banner ( you can see exactly what this entails here). In a nutshell, this is a raft of system optimisations designed to get the best from laptops using AMD’s CPUs, GPUs and accompanying systems such as FideltyFX Super Resolution technology and FreeSync. All in all, the Legion 5 is one of the best-value mid-tier laptops of this generation, and a potential recommendation in this 3060 configuration over here in Europe where it’s very aggressively priced. That’s not the case everywhere, though, as the same configuration is expensive in other regions. Competitors to the Legion 5 15 include other mid-range 15.6-inch gaming laptops like the Razer Blade 15 Base Edition, Asus TUF Gaming F15, MSI Bravo 15, or Acer Aspire Nitro 5. The Legion 5 15 should not be confused with the Legion 5 Pro which is a larger 16-inch design. DDR5 is here and it’s ready to put your gaming in the fast lane. With 2x the bandwidth compared to previous DDR4 technology, witness a big step up in frame rate reliability and power efficiency. With up to 32GB 4800 MHz DDR5 support from the Legion 5 you can enjoy the latest performance benefits. On the other hand, this is only FHD resolution, it’s not a very bright panel, so it might not suffice outdoors or in brightness environments, and it’s not wide-gamut either, so might not do for certain color-accurate workloads. But it’s still a fair option for this sort of mid-tier laptop, even at the higher price tag of the 3060/3070 configurations.However, like the Omen 16, the Lenovo Legion doesn’t get much change from its large battery, lasting 7hrs 38mins from an 80Wh (5,210mAh) battery in our video rundown test. Lenovo Legion 5 Advantage Edition review: Verdict The fans run loud on this laptop, though, ramping up to 50 dB at head-level on performance with the laptop sitting on the desk and 52 dB with it pushed up. You’ll need a good pair of headphones to cover that up. Far Cry 5, Middle Earth, Strange Brigade, Red Dead Redemption 2, Tomb Raider games – recorded with the included Benchmark utilities; The Legion 5 is available in most areas of the world at the time of this article, but the prices seem to differ significantly from region to region.