Lenovo Legion 7 16ARHA7 Laptop Review’ Top Of The Line

Lenovo Legion 7 16ARHA7 Laptop Review – Radeon RX 6850M XT debut

AMD only. Aside from a couple of niggles, the new 2022 Legion 7 16 is the best gaming laptop we’ve seen from Lenovo. The manufacturer did without Intel components – in addition to the AMD processor, the Raden RX 6850M XT video card is installed here. The latter, unfortunately, or fortunately, practically does not differ from the Radeon RX 6800M.

The Legion 7 16 is Lenovo’s top-of-the-line 16-inch gaming laptop that sits a notch above the  Legion 5 and IdeaPad Gaming series. The fresh 2022 model has completely changed compared to the  2021 predecessor: new design, new stuffing.

The tested configuration of the model is equipped with an AMD Zen 3+ Ryzen 9 6900HX processor, a 140-watt Radeon RX 6850M XT graphics card, 32 GB of DDR5-4800 RAM, and a 1 TB PCIe4 NVMe SSD. The cost of a laptop with these components is $2600. You can choose cheaper configurations based on the Ryzen 7 6800H and Radeon RX 6700M, but the display in all model variants is the same: 165 Hz, IPS, 16:10, resolution 2560×1600.

The closest alternatives to the Legion 7 16 are 16-inch top-end gaming laptops from other manufacturers such as the Asus ROG Zephyrus Duo 16 and HP Omen 16. At the moment, however, 15- and 17-inch models remain more popular, so we have added some of them to the comparison – among others MSI GE66.

Design and Features

The 2022 model inherited the materials of manufacture from its predecessor (anodized aluminum and metal), but with some visual changes. The design of the ventilation grilles has become much more restrained and now they do not protrude from the case. In general, the appearance of the entire rear protruding part of the body has changed and has become smoother and more rigorous. At the same time, the backlight, like the previous model, covers the front and sides, as well as the ventilation grilles. As a result, now with the backlight turned off, the laptop looks like one of the modern workstations with Nvidia Studio video cards, and when RGB is turned on, it again acquires the features of a gaming device.

The quality of the case is excellent, as is the durability: the base does not deform at all, even with a large effort on the center of the keyboard. The lid is a little worse in this regard, as are the hinges, which, in our opinion, should have been tightened harder. The lid deforms more easily than on the  Razer Blade 15 and also wobbles slightly when tilted.

The laptop is very close to the Asus ROG Zephyrus Duo 16 in terms of size and weight and, despite its rather thin body, is one of the heaviest among competitors. At the same time, it should be noted that the mentioned Asus has a second display, which explains such a large weight, while Lenovo has no obvious reasons for this. In principle, the heaviness of the Legion can be attributed to the evaporation chamber, as it is often heavier than conventional cooling systems.

Equipment

There are many ports, the vast majority on the back side. Among other things, there are as many as four USB-C – this is more than most modern laptops. However, only a few of the USB-Cs support DisplayPort and Power Delivery, as shown below.

There is no Thunderbolt as the laptop is based on AMD processors.

Webcam

The 2MP webcam delivers clearer, crisper images than standard 720p cameras. There is a switch on the right side of the case to quickly turn it off, but there is no indicator light for camera activity. An IR camera is missing, as is Windows Hello support.

Display

The Legion 7 16 comes with a high-quality IPS screen from BOE, the part number of which is almost the same as the Asus ROG Zephyrus Duo 16 (NE160QDM-NY1 and NE160QDM-NX1). Many indicators of these matrices are the same (such as response time, brightness, and contrast), but they differ in refresh rate and color gamut. Lenovo has full sRGB coverage at a higher 165Hz, while Asus has 120Hz and full DCI-P3 coverage.

The readability of the screen on the street is good due to the high brightness of 500 nits. And yet, direct sunlight is contraindicated, as it creates strong glare and reflections – in the shade, the eyes will strain much less. CPU

Processor performance is at a good level, and also meets the AMD Ryzen 9 6900HX norms in our database. Whatever the case, don’t expect a major performance boost over last year’s  Ryzen 9 5900HX, as the 6900HX is only 5% to 25% faster, depending on which laptop based on its predecessor is compared. In general, the performance level of the chip is lower than that of the Core i7-12700H and i9-12900HK by about 15% – 20%.

 

Running the CineBench R15 multi-threaded test for a long time shows that the processor performance is stable under constant load.

video card

The 3DMark scores for the installed 140W Radeon RX 6850M XT differ by a few percentage points from the Radeon RX 6800M scores of the Asus ROG Strix G15. In practice, the difference between these video cards is minimal.

The laptop is also available in configurations with the  Radeon RX 6700M which is 15% – 20% slower than the 6850M XT. In essence, both of these graphics cards are similar to the mobile GeForce RTX 3070 Ti and RTX 3080.

When switching from the Performance profile to Balanced, graphics card performance is reduced by 11% in 3DMark Fire Strike.

Real gaming performance is 10% lower than RTX 3080 Ti (MSI GE66 ). In most cases, the frame rate lag is small, and only in DOTA 2 the tested Lenovo, for some unknown reason, is much slower than its rival.

Lenovo Legion 7 16ARHA7 Specifications

CPU

AMD Ryzen 9 6900HX 8 x 3.3 – 4.9 GHz, 121 W PL2 / Short Burst, 98 W PL1 / Sustained, Rembrandt H (Zen 3+)

Graphics adapter

AMD Radeon RX 6850M XT – 12 GB VRAM, Memory: 2250 MHz, 140 W TDP, GDDR6, 30.0.15021.11005

RAM

32 GB, DDR5-4800, 40-39-39-77, Dual-Channel

Display

16.00 in. 16:10, 2560 x 1600 pix. 189dpi, BOE CQ NE160QDM-NY1, IPS, BOE0A9B, glossy: no, 165 Hz

Motherboard

AMD Promontory/Bixby FCH

Data storage

Samsung PM9A1 MZVL22T0HBLB, 2048 GB

Sound card

AMD Zen – Audio Processor – HD Audio Controller

Interfaces

6 USB 3.0 / 3.1 Gen1, 2 USB 3.1 Gen2, 1 USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 20Gbps, 1 USB 4.0 40 Gbps, USB-C Power Delivery (PD), 1 HDMI, 3 DisplayPort, Audio Connections: 3.5 mm combo

Communications

Realtek RTL8125 2.5GBe Family Ethernet Controller (10/100/1000/2500MBit/s), MediaTek RZ616 (a/b/g/n = Wi-Fi 4/ac = Wi-Fi 5/ax = Wi-Fi 6), Bluetooth 5.2

Dimensions

thickness x width x depth (mm): 19.4 x 358.1 x 263.5

Battery

99 Wh Lithium Polymer

Operating system

Microsoft Windows 11 Home

Camera

Main Front camera: 1080p 2.1 MP

Additionally

Speakers: 2x 2 W Harman Super Linear, Keyboard: Chiclet, Keyboard Light: yes, Lenovo Vantage, Hotkeys, Welcome, Spectrum, 12 Months Warranty guarantees in Europe

The weight

2.581 kg, power adapter: 999 g

Price

2500 USD

For More Updates, Click Here