Lenovo Legion 5 82B1000AUS: Is This $999 Gaming Laptop for Real?

Lenovo’s latest offering in gaming laptops is the Legion 5 82B1000AUS. The company that has brought us popular laptop brands like ThinkPad and Yoga has slowly expanded its footprint in gaming gear. With the latest addition to its Legion brand of gaming, Lenovo aims to lure casual gamers who may not want an expensive gaming laptop.

A 15-inch Full HD IPS display, an 8-core processor, a 6GB graphics card, 512GB SSD, 16GB RAM — at the price tag of just $999, Lenovo has managed to fit all the power in this gaming laptop. At its price, the Legion 5 is surely a great bargain and its performance proves that.

Design and Build

We have not been fans of Lenovo’s laptop designs but we do expect a gaming laptop to look exciting. Gaming is not only about performance but also about the feel of using the hardware. Gladly, Lenovo has done a considerably good job as designing Legion 5.

The overall look and feel of this Legion laptop is kept minimal. It’s not a fancy, colorful, attention grabbing piece of gaming gear and honestly, we like that. The Phantom Black body looks gorgeous, and its slim bezels provide more screen in a smaller package. Those fine-cut edges give this Legion laptop a subtle feel. The back of the display is kept mostly plain and simple with ‘Lenovo’ and ‘Legion’ logos kept on sides. A lot of room to put your stickers?

Lenovo’s smart design choices reflects even more in the way the cooling vents and ports are placed. Instead of putting all ports on the sides, Lenovo designers chose to use that space for cooling. Majority of ports are placed at the back instead.

With a minimal and sophisticated design is packed durability. Legion 5 hinges feel sturdy while opening and closing. Same with keyboard which feels smooth and at the same time, very responsive. One little turn off is the placement of arrow keys which feel a bit out of place. Although it seems to be a design choice to offer bigger arrow keys, it does seem odd to look at. We might be able to get over it soon. Probably.

Overall, this Legion 5 gaming laptop is a fine blend of minimal design and durability.

Tech Specs and Performance

What can a $999 gaming laptop possibly offer in terms of hardware? Well, if it’s Legion 5 82B1000AUS, it can offer a lot.

Powered by an octa-core AMD Ryzen 7 4800H processor, this Legion 5 carries loads of processing power. Combine that with 16GB DDR4 3200 MHz RAM and imagine the power this $999 laptop will produce? Yes, that’s a lot — a lot for a gaming laptop you are spending just thousand bucks on.

That’s not it. There’s a 6GB NVIDIA GTX 1660Ti DDR6 graphics card to give you all that buttery-smooth gaming graphics. Smooth graphics processing coming alive on a 15-inch 144Hz Full HD IPS display? Now that’s a gaming experience to bet on. And then there’s an ultra fast 512GB M.2 2280 PCIe NVMe SSD storage that offers enhanced file operations, quick boot and shutdown and plenty of room to install games. If that’s not enough, you can always get an external SSD drive.

To handle all that heat your stretched gaming sessions will bring, it has Legion Coldfront 2.0 system that dissipates heat via a dual-channel thermal mechanism of 67 liquid crystal polymer-coated fan blades along with dedicated copper heat pipes to keep things cool.

The integrated 60Wh battery lasts for 5 hours on full charge but of course, you will be connected to the power source while playing games, anyway. Other notable features include backlit keyboard with 1.5mm of travel, FW TPM 2.0 and 2x Array microphones. The pre-installed Windows 10 Home comes with free Office trial.

Of course, it comes as no surprise that the overall performance is super smooth, super fast and super awesome. Legion 5 boots quickly, launches games and other programs fast and graphics are crisp and immersive. And yes, we are still talking about that $999 gaming laptop.

Ports and Connectivity

Lenovo Legion 5 82B1000AUS has plenty of ports to help gamers connect all their peripherals conveniently. There are four USB 3.1 Gen 1 ports, one USB-C port, an HDMI port, an Ethernet port and an audio jack. It’s good to see all USB ports being USB 3.1 ports unlike other laptops where they still put USB 2.0 ports along.

For wireless connectivity, this Legion 5 gaming laptop is equipped with Bluetooth 5.0 and 2×2 802.11ax Wi-Fi 6. Both the latest wireless technologies offer superfast connectivity with compatible devices in a wide range. With a powerful Wi-Fi antenna, gamers will be able to stay connected to the internet without interruptions.

In addition, there’s a 720p HD webcam with privacy shutter that blends nicely with bezels.

Lenovo Legion 5 82B1000AUS: Overall Impressions

Lenovo’s latest addition to its range of gaming laptops is a budget-friendly beast. Powered by an octa-core AMD processor, 16GB DDR4 RAM, 512GM SSD and 6GB NVIDIA GTX DDR6 graphics, this Legion 5 laptop is not short on power. In addition, there’s a 15-inch Full HD IPS display that outputs crisp graphics and then there’s a smart cooling mechanism to keep things from getting hot.

With impressive performance backed by powerful hardware, Legion 82B1000AUS bears a price tag of just $999. At its price, this Lenovo laptop is clearly a great choice for casual/occasional gamers who might not want to spend too much on a gaming laptop. With its performance and minimal looks, it can also be a perfect office/home companion, too.

We love Lenovo Legion 5 for its look and feel, build quality, tech specs, performance and price tag. Combine all of this and you get a budget gaming laptop that offers great value for money.