Comparing the Legion 5 Pro and Legion 7 AMD

I posted this in the main thread but so as any discussion does not hijack the main Legion 2021 thread.

These are my opinions only and the sample size for each is one. From reading other reviews and experiences, there is a LOT of variation between units so everyone's mileage may vary. This is just one more data point on what appears to a be a wide QC spectrum.

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So I have pulled apart both a Legion 5 Pro and a Legion 7 (AMD versions) and I am pretty sure both are effectively the same motherboard, with only daughter board changes to account for different ports, color of the PCB, and some minor component changes (for example the ribbon cable connection for the light bar is absent on Legion 5 Pro).
This makes sense to me as it would be less R&D and better economy of scale for Lenovo, as the core specifications of the chassis can be the same between models.

In theory one could make a 3080 vapor chamber Legion 5 Pro by swapping the motherboards and the cooling solution. Lenovo also could have made this, but I suspect they knew it would cut into the sales of the Legion 7 to get a 3080 variant a bit cheaper without the aesthetic upgrades (which mean nothing to me, but perhaps for other people).
EDIT: There is just enough difference in the chassis to prevent a direct swap. The screws for the fans which connect to the hinge location are in slightly different locations. If you ground off the alignment studs it would probably work.


Keyboard on Legion 7 is pretty bad for me. There is almost no key travel. The keyboard on my ipad and my thin and light has more travel than the Legion 7's. Also not all the keys are the same height, and because there is so little travel it can be evident on closer inspection. It is also noisier with less consistent noises across the keys compared to the Legion 5 Pro likely for the same reason. Instead of the typical dull thud of the Legion 5 Pro keys, it is a much more audible tap as the key bottoms out on the chassis.

Also because the keyboard color matches the chassis finish, and the letters are white, and the keys are flat as opposed to dished on L5P, in certain lighting it is almost impossible to see the lettering on the keys without back light, whereas the contrast of the black keyboard of the Legion 5 Pro prevents this.

I don't really understand this design choice. It may have made the laptop a hair thinner than the Legion 5 Pro, but the loss of the extra 1/2mm of key travel was not worth it on a laptop this heavy. The legion 5 pro keyboard is far superior for a typing experience unless you are a very light and lithe tapper of the keys.

The Laptop is overall thinner than the 5 Pro (probably same as non pro) but again this is not noticeable because of weight and size. The rest of the dimensions are also smaller slightly but only due to the design choices of the 5 pro aesthetic.

As a result the Lid has more flex and play on the Legion 7, but with my unit this does not induce any issues. There are no abnormal noises, and pushing on the lid, while it does flex the screen does not distort the image to suggest that there are pressure points behind the screen. Effectively the entire lid flexes as a unit.

The deck is more solid than the L5P due aluminum construction vs plastic. rest of the chassis seems equally stiff.

The sound is supposed to be better on the Legion 7 with notably larger speakers (almost twice the area), and more audio customization, but in practice I think this is lost because they face STRAIGHT DOWN, where all other models have at least angled speaker ports to direct the sound out. This had to be done because of the light bar took up too much of the chamfer to fit the speaker properly. So they sacrificed sound quality for lighting. Now I realize that speakers on a laptop aren't that great anyway, so this is probably a wash.

Overall, unless you need the 3080 and the 5900hx or top Intel chip, or really want the aesthetics, or a lid that can fold down all the way flat, I think the Legion 5 pro is the better buy and nicer machine.

One last thing I forgot to mention is that the Thermal Paste on the Legion 7 seems different from that on the Legion 5 Pro. It was not dried out, and appeared to have silver metal embedded into it. I discovered it when I pulled off the vapor chamber, and tried to clean off the paste with alcohol. It did not dissolve well and left a silver metal behind (this is not liquid metal), which had to be scraped off with a spudger. So I think you should leave the vapor chamber and thermal paste alone on this unit.

Per Atma in the main discussion the actual paste is below

"Paste - Honeywell PTM7950SP phase change silicone grease
The thing about the paste though is you have to let it cure for 15 hours after applying before you put the sink back on.

That why I bought Honeywell PTM7950 phase change thermal conductive sheet."

 

Reply from the discussion:

The difference in height between the two units is only about 2mm at its max point when they are both on the table. This is due to the curvature of the Legion 5 Lid. So if that is much thicker to someone so be it. I think it gets washed away with the rest of the size of the machine, and Jarrod mentions the same. The Legion 7 is slightly smaller footprint because the plastics of the Legion 5 Pro stick out more.

As far as the colors of the Legion 5 Pro, there are actually only 2. The gray aluminum finish, which is slightly darker than the Legion 7's, and the dark plastic of the keyboard and vents and the bottom plate being black. If you wish to count the bottom being a different color because it is aluminum vs plastic then it could be 3 colors.

The Legion 7 also has 2 (or again 3 depending on how you look at it), but it is much more hidden. The lighter gray aluminum, (slightly different shade on the plastic keys of course), and the rear grill which is black plastic.


As far as the contrasting keys being distracting, this is personal preference. Many laptops use contrasting keys, or a darker finish overall, particularly on business laptops and especially apple.
But for me it is not the contrast as much as the glare when you are unable to control the artificial light source. This is made worse by the keys being flat rather than dished. I had a similar problem on other laptops.
View attachment 196090


My bigger issue with the keyboard is the lack of consistency between the keys and the key presses on the Legion 7. Each key on the top row presses and sounds different from the other. Flex is noticeably worse on the left side of the keyboard and virtually stops around the Return key. Does this affect my ability to type? No but it is noticeable to me and not what I would expect from a more premium build. The Legion 5 pro also suffers from this to some degree, though not nearly to the same extent.


Most people can type better on short travel keys because you are not punished for over pressing (at least in the short term), and it is more difficult to under press on short travel keys. While there is less flex overall in the Legion 7 deck compared to the Legion 5 Pro this is largely due to the thinner keyboard and the metal top plate construction. However neither of my units has enough flex in the deck under normal typing to be noticeable. Not sure if this was Jarrod's specific unit or mine, but I do not appreciate nearly the amount of flex he demonstrates in the video on the Legion 5 Pro.

You can hear a little about how the keys sound different in the Legion 7 in his review though, some sound like normal short travel keys, others appear to slap the deck when pressed. Mine is worse.
Also in contrast to his video, my Legion 7 touch pad was noticeably more consistent in press pressure and registering clicks vs the Legion 5 Pro.

The biggest thing that bothers me about my particular Legion 7 is that the screen is noticeably inferior to the Legion 5 Pro. I don't have any dead pixels that I have seen, but the contrast, sharpness, color depth, max brightness, and effectively viewing angles are noticeably lower on the Legion 7, even from a couple meters away. (For clarity, this is same profile, background, brightness, etc). Given that there seem to be a number of Legion laptops with the 16" screen having some issues, I think this is not surprising. I was actually thinking about swapping out the displays, but that would be a lot of work.

Others have had the opposite experience, so there appears to be a wide variation in one panel to another. HOWEVER, this is not to say that the panels are bad, just that side by side there is a noticeable difference. Or put another way, looking at the Legion 7 panel one would say, yes that is a nice screen. But the Legion 5 Pro one would say, that is a great looking screen

With the Demand for laptops so high, it would make sense the QC is less strict, which explains the overall lack of consistency from one unit to another in the same line. The build quality is supposed to be superior on the Legion 7, I agree it should be, which is why I am more noticing of the small flaws and inconsistencies as the more premium build quality demands.