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00:00Hey, how's it going? Dave2D here. So, we've seen a lot of gaming laptops on this channel.
00:09Big ones, little ones, expensive ones, less expensive ones, but usually they fall into
00:13two kind of main categories. Cheaper ones that are bigger, thicker, less nice looking,
00:19and more expensive ones that look better, but that price tag is invariably higher. This
00:24is the Legion Y530 from Lenovo, and its main strength is the design. It's one of the best
00:29looking devices you're going to get for this kind of money, at least for a gaming laptop.
00:32So, the big draw, the big thing that makes it special, is the bezel on the screen. It's
00:37very thin, and it reminds me of much more expensive laptops. So, the XPS 15 is probably
00:41one of the first 15 inch laptops to use a thin bezel like this, but a lot of the gaming
00:45laptops nowadays are...
00:46Whatever, there's a lawnmower going outside. A lot of gaming laptops these days are going
00:56with bigger screens with thin bezels, and it looks nice. So, the main advantage of having
01:01a thin bezel isn't just for the fact that it's a thin bezel device, right? Obviously
01:05it looks good, but it also makes the whole device smaller, right? When you have less
01:09bezel, that means the footprint of the whole device is smaller, so it's just a more portable
01:13and more compact device, and this looks really good. The design of this thing on the exterior
01:17is a much more muted look than we traditionally see from Lenovo. Lenovo was like one of the
01:22bigger companies with like the red and black thing going on. They just love that. They
01:26played it out for several years. This is all black this year. Not a single drop of red.
01:30Not even a red LED, if I'm not mistaken. Yeah, there isn't even a red LED. The only lighting
01:35you'll have up front is this little light on the Legion logo, which lights up when the
01:39laptop is on. It's a simple white light. You can't change any of the RGBs or anything.
01:43It's just white, and I think it looks good. The top surface is this kind of textured plastic.
01:49It's basically a radial pattern that originates from the O, from the Legion, and it just spreads
01:53out. It's a pretty durable finish up top. I thought it might scuff easily because of
01:57that texture, but took some keys to it, tried to scratch it a little bit. It stays solid.
02:01The build quality in here feels good. It's not amazing or anything. It is a predominantly
02:05plastic laptop. I wouldn't say that it's bad. Like nothing kind of strikes me as being like
02:11an issue or anything like that. I like the hinge that they're using. Some of the older
02:14Lenovo laptops had a really bad hinge design. This is a good one, and it feels like it just
02:19feels well made. I'm surprised that they changed the design of this laptop so drastically
02:23from the previous year. This looks nothing like the original Lenovo Y-series gaming laptops.
02:28This looks completely different, and I like it. It's just improved across the board. The
02:32other thing, and you'll see that I'm doing this in the video, I'm pulling the screen
02:35all the way back repeatedly, and it just, the screen can go all the way flat, and they're
02:39able to do this because, well, the hinge design for one, but if you'll notice, the back of
02:43the laptop extends a little bit beyond the base of the screen, and it's a design element
02:48that usually helps with improving the thermals on a laptop. The ports are on the back of
02:53the device, at least most of them. There's still an audio jack and a USB on each side,
02:56but the main cluster of ports is on the back, and I really like that. It's obviously a personal
03:00preference, but I like to have all of my connections, like the AC adapter, any of like the USB-C
03:05or Ethernet. I like it when it's on the back of the device, just out of the way, and this
03:10allows you to do that. I don't like how the USB-C isn't Thunderbolt 3 capable. It's kind
03:14of expected at this price point, but still disappointing. Inside the device, we're looking
03:19at a keyboard deck that has soft-touch material everywhere. I've talked about this in my previous
03:22videos, but it's a nice material at first, but I've always worried about long-term use.
03:27This stuff can get gunky. Now, that being said, I have seen brands, like I have seen
03:31products where the soft-touch material has held up over time, but it's not something
03:34that I can tell based on just a short experience like this. The keyboard itself is good, and
03:39I like how they've done the layout. So, on a traditional laptop, you're either gonna
03:43have a spacious keyboard that doesn't have a number pad, or a cramped keyboard with a
03:48number pad, but they've done something quite different. They have their regular layout,
03:52and it's spacious, but their number pad is actually above the arrow key, so they've actually
03:57made a really good use of this. It's a different layout than a lot of other keyboards, but
04:00I think you'll get used to it. The only concern is that if you're someone that uses a number
04:03pad a lot, this is a different kind of, like your muscle memory will be different on this
04:08number pad than the traditional number pad. Trackpad, great trackpad. It's got hardware
04:13buttons, like dedicated hardware buttons, which is not common these days. I like them.
04:17Windows Precision, great tracking. The only thing I have to complain about is that the
04:21button mechanism is quite loud.
04:22Alright, let's talk about the speakers. They sound good, and they're positioned well. They're
04:28in this kind of tucked, beveled area up front. The bass isn't great, like the lower frequencies
04:33just aren't represented well on this device. I don't expect it, considering the price and
04:37considering the fact that it's a laptop, but if you want a bass, it's not really there.
04:41Okay, to get inside this laptop, it's relatively easy. You do have to struggle with the tabs
04:46a little bit on the bottom. It's just a bunch of screws, and they come off easily, but you
04:50just gotta be careful opening it, because there are plastic tabs that hold it in place.
04:54Once you're inside, you have access to everything. You have your Wi-Fi card you can swap out,
04:58your two RAM slots, there's two drive slots, there's an NVMe, and there's two and a half
05:02inch SATA. You also have access to your battery. It's a 52 and a half watt hour battery. It's
05:07not particularly large, it's actually relatively small, and battery life on this thing is only
05:11four hours. A little bit more than four hours, and that's with screen at 250 nits. So, yeah,
05:16a lot of devices like this are gonna have shorter battery lives, but this is actually
05:20one of the shorter ones. That's what you get. Four hour battery. You're gonna have to bring
05:24your AC adapter if you want to bring this thing to class or whatever, because you're
05:27not gonna go through a day on four hours of battery life. Okay, last thing. The screen.
05:32This is the money. The design of the screen is seriously the best part of this laptop,
05:36and it makes it look like a much more expensive device than it actually is. It's reasonably
05:40color accurate, it's definitely good enough for games, but I wish it was brighter. If
05:43you're playing in a more lit environment, it might be difficult to use this screen.
05:48The webcam's down on the bottom, underneath the screen, and, well, it's a nose cam. This
05:53device comes in a few configurations. You get a GTX 1050, or a 1050 Ti. This one's a
05:591050 Ti, and the performance is good, but you're not gonna get anything mind-blowing.
06:03You're gonna be able to play most AAA games near 60 frames per second, but you're gonna
06:07have to play with that graphics quality slider a bit. The thermals on this device are good.
06:12It doesn't throttle, and the fans aren't super loud. Even on max load, it's not crazy loud
06:16or anything. I do like that there's software control of the fans, so if you want to, you
06:19can put on the maximum fan mode and just let it rip, and I'm really happy that Lenovo was
06:24able to make something that looks like this in a thermally appropriate chassis. Like,
06:30that's not easy. I think a lot of companies try and just don't have great thermals and
06:33don't really care about it, but they did a good job. Now, it's not a particularly powerful
06:37card. It is a 1050 Ti. I would have really liked to have seen a 1060, or at least a 1060
06:42Max-Q, because I feel like the chassis could handle it. The thermals are good enough, it's
06:45just they don't offer that option. It just doesn't make sense to me, especially because
06:49there's a 144Hz screen option. Like, they have a high refresh screen available, but
06:54not a particularly powerful GPU available, so that combination doesn't really work for
06:59me. Maybe in the future, they'll add more powerful GPU options. Other things I don't
07:03like. The screen, I wish it was brighter, but at this price point, it's tough to get
07:08a really bright screen. And the third thing is the battery life. A four-hour battery life,
07:13like I mentioned, isn't a full-day battery, so yeah. Those are the only real negatives
07:17about this whole product. I like it a lot. They've done a good job with it. Again, the
07:22big thing about this thing, though, is the design. It's thinner than your average $950
07:28gaming laptop, and I think on sale, this is gonna be even cheaper. Like, during Black
07:30Friday or the end of the summer, I could see this thing going to like $850 or like $900,
07:35so yeah. Overall, great device. I think Lenovo really knocked this one out of the park. It's
07:42rare for a company to make something that looks this good at this price point. Okay,
07:46I hope you guys enjoyed this video. Thumbs if you liked it, subs if you loved it. I'll
07:49see you guys next time.