CES 2021 | Lenovo announces a refresh for the subdued Legion 5 15 and Legion 5 17

The subdued design from last year returns, meaning that the Legion 5 won’t stand out in a crowd. This is positive for Lenovo’s target audience of gamers who want a laptop that is useable in public without looking like they’re on their way to try out for a spot on Fnatic.

Lenovo can’t reveal the exact processor and graphics card combinations ahead of time, but with this refresh timing we would expect them to be mobile variants of Ryzen 7 5000 and Nvidia GeForce RTX 30. Lenovo uses its Legion AI Engine to tweak the power budget allocation between the CPU and GPU depending on the workload. The expected combinations of up to 32 GB DDR4-3200 RAM, 2x2 WiFi 6, and Bluetooth 5.1 are also present here.

The smaller display has a higher refresh rate at 165 Hz and a sub-3ms advertised response time, with 120 Hz and 60 Hz options as cheaper alternatives with lower potential battery impact. The larger laptop has a 144 Hz refresh rate with just a single slower 60 Hz panel alternative. The flagship panel on each model has a 100% sRGB rating and is Dolby Vision compatible.

Weight’s are unimpressive at 2.4 kg for the Legion 5 15 and a hair under 3 kg for the Legion 5 17, but they make up for this by packing in a nearly full suite of I/O. These include 2 x USB-C with Display Port 1.4 and power delivery, 4 x USB3, 1 x HDMI 2.1, 1 x RJ45 Ethernet, power, and an electronic shutter button.

The Lenovo Legion 5 15 and 17 launches in March 2021, starting at an MSRP of US$770.