Review: Lenovo Legion Y720 gaming Ultrabook

Computing's puts the mid-priced machine through its paces, and asks if the Nvidia GTX 1060 can push its performance beyond what you'd expect from its value

The Legion 720 is an attractive machine - if you like lots of black and red - sporting a metal cover and backlit programmable keyboard (with RGB lighting as an option), but does its performance match its looks?

A glance at its possible specs suggests that it should. Available configurations include the Intel Core i7-7700HQ processor, Nvidia GTX 1060 graphics card and 6GB of GDDR5 memory - which are the components on the unit we tested. Our unit also boasted a 4K display (minimal screen reflectance and good viewing angles) and a 256GB SSD, with a further 1GB of HDD - which hits the current sweet spot between (almost) instant powering up and down, and affordability.

The 4K display capability however should be taken with a small pinch of salt unless you're intending to output to a far larger screen. This is a 15.6-inch gaming rig, and unless you've considerably upgraded your eyes, you won't notice the difference between this and 2k resolution (2048 x 1080), and in fact at this size, it's only a marginal upgrade over the more standard 1920 x 1080.

Though the Y720 is a fair upgrade over previous models, it takes some design cues from earlier models. The central hinge, which is pleasingly smooth and resilient, is straight from the IdeaPad Y900, and that's no bad thing. In fact build quality feels high throughout, perhaps more so than you'd expect for a mid-priced machine.

This sense of quality extends to the sound, which Lenovo slightly breathlessly enthuses in its marketing material as a result of its Dolby Atmos technology. We found the soundscape to be rich and vibrant over headphones, and were impressed by both the range and volume of the in-built speakers. Comparing this to the sound of the Medion Erazer X7835 (also owned by Lenovo) is like comparing a live performance of your favourite band with a bootleg copy you recorded off the radio in the ‘80s on an old C90. In other words, it's very good.

Next: Benchmarks

Review: Lenovo Legion Y720 gaming Ultrabook

Computing's puts the mid-priced machine through its paces, and asks if the Nvidia GTX 1060 can push its performance beyond what you'd expect from its value

But what of its ability to push geometric shapes around the screen? Certainly you'd have high hopes given the graphics card it boasts - just about the best money can buy currently - and the results are certainly not to be sniffed at.

We ran the latest 3DMark benchmarking test from Futuremark, and the Y720 scored a respectable 3485, which puts it on an even footing with the average modern gaming laptop. So, a decent if unexceptional score.

But benchmarks are well and good, how did it fare with some real-life games? We tested a handful of fairly demanding titles, starting with Forza Horizons 3, at 3840 x 2160 resolution with all settings on maximum - enough to bring all but the most top-end systems to their knees. At these setting the game is not far from photorealistic, and the average framerate of 40 was perfectly acceptable to our eyes. Scaling it back to 2560 x 1600 resolution made little difference to the viewing experience (although again, you'll notice the subtle difference if you're outputting to a larger screen), and pushed the average framerate up to around 48.

Next up was Skyrim, from Bethesda. What, a game from 2011? Yes, the game from 2011, not the recently remastered edition. But, the game from 2011 with a truckload of mods installed to bring textures up to at least 2K, increase the draw distance, massively increase the amount of and resolution of foliage, massively improve the lighting, and do about a thousand other things to bring it up to a modern day visual experience. The full list of mods we used can be found here. Again this is a fairly demanding test, and we experienced an average framerate of 44 at 3840 x 2160 resolution (just a shade under what we'd call full 4K).

We also tried Star Wars Battlefront, at 3840 x 2160 resolution and with all settings at maximum, and besides marvelling at how Endor is basically photo-realistic in this configuration, we had a buttery smooth experience.

Next: VR & Summary

Review: Lenovo Legion Y720 gaming Ultrabook

Computing's puts the mid-priced machine through its paces, and asks if the Nvidia GTX 1060 can push its performance beyond what you'd expect from its value

So it's a damn fine gaming rig, exactly as you'd expect. In fact, Lenovo pitches it as a VR-ready laptop, which is currently a fairly niche corner of the market, but soon won't be. Not only is that Nvidia card perfectly capable of powering your VR headset of choice, but the bundled Entertainment Hub software is able to upscale films and games into a VR experience, even if the application isn't specifically designed for VR.

It does this by producing two images from slightly different angles, mimicking the angles from which your eyes would normally see the real world. Unfortunately we didn't have a VR headset available to us, so couldn't test the feature for ourselves. We'd expect though that the rig has the power to work with most existing VR games and applications, but that the ability to upscale a non-VR experience sounds a tad gimmicky to us. For one thing, VR games need to be developed with a VR-specific control scheme to work best, but we'd need to try it to pass valuable judgement.

What about heat? Most gaming laptops suffer from severe overheating issues, which most solve by making a noise like a Dreamliner taking off. Whilst the Y720 was certainly quieter than the Medion Erazer X7835, it is far from silent when under duress. However, it is quiet for a gaming laptop, which is little like saying the Sun is small for a star. What does work in its favour is its superior speakers, which are easily capable of drowning out the fan noise, just don't expect anyone you're sharing a room with to thank you.

Besides that, it has a Thunderbolt 3 port, and integrated support for Wireless Xbox One controllers, both of which will be great news for some users.