If you haven’t noticed, the gaming laptop market is pretty much booming with business right now. It’s actually amazing how great things have been going for a plethora of gaming companies as of late. Take business PCs as an opposing example. This is an area where thin and light is how these guys are marketed, and that makes competition as tight as can be. The difference between that notion and the recent gaming PC world is this - the gaming manufacturers are allowed some design wiggle room. Gaming rigs aren’t expected to be the thinnest and lightest of devices, as the hardware inside these things are what make them running incredibly well. That’s why you may have noticed companies like Intel and Nvidia have been providing some very successful products that deliver great gaming without too much sacrifice.

When it comes to Lenovo, along with Dell and HP, this space is something the companies are fiercely working their way into, and thus far, everything's going pretty darn well. Take the Dell Inspiron 15 7559 for example. The speedy Windows 10-running laptop employs multi-tasking processing with Intel, Nvidia, and a 6-cell 74Whr battery for marathon gaming. It also weighs a bit (more than the mainstream notebook), around 5.72 pounds or so. This is considered more and more acceptable these days. I mean hey, there’s a lot going on inside these things to make them high-end gaming notebooks. Therefore, we have to expect the wiggle room, since the sacrifice made is oh-so worth it.

Now, Lenovo’s brand new Legion Y520 PCs are in the mix, not afraid to side with the many companies that are no longer afraid of being seen as “old-school” for having the necessary components to make them run well, even if it means a bit larger battery, etc. Along with many other huge gaming product brands, Lenovo has moved its Y series of laptops under the new Legion banner. Not only does this immediately suggest these rigs are a bit out of the ordinary, but also right in line with what gamers are expecting from a laptop. Take looks for example- an area, where in this case, Lenovo went with the trend of red accents, aggressive lines, and exposed vents; all physical features that fit the stereotype.

That being said, the 15.6-inch Lenovo Legion Y520, at 25.8mm thick, and 5.29 lbs (super close to that Dell Inspiron model mentioned), is still fairly portable by recent gaming laptop standards. Open it up, you’ll find the keyboard is lit with red outlines per key, red printing, as well as extra thick red borders (you know, just to emphasize this is a gaming piece). The display features a 1920x1080p resolution, and benchmark tests targeting the CPU, storage, and memory all suggest great results (for example, the fps rate ran a good average of 43.1 during high quality presettings, and that is great for gaming).

The Lenovo Legion laptops are fitted all the way up to Nvidia’s latest graphics, and Intel’s latest Core i7 processors. For storage, there’s both a 128GB SSD and a 1TB hard drive. The Y520 features a ton of I/O options, including Ethernet, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 3 USB 3.0s, a USB 2.0, an HDMI port, SD card slot, and USB Type-C (just no DisplayPort). Covered by a one-year warranty, the Lenovo Legion Y520 starts at $779.