Lenovo Legion Y545 15.6" 2019 Review

Looking for a solid gaming laptop deal from a few years back? The Lenovo Legion Y545 is a name that pops up a lot in the used and refurbished market. It's a 2019-era machine built around Intel's 9th Gen i7-9750H processor and an NVIDIA GTX 1660 Ti graphics card, paired with 16GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD. For around $1200, you're getting a full gaming setup that can still handle a lot of modern titles, though you'll need to temper your expectations for the latest AAA games at max settings. It's a classic example of a mid-range gaming workhorse from its time.

Let's talk gaming. The GTX 1660 Ti is the star here, and it lands in the 70th percentile for GPU performance. That means it's faster than most integrated graphics and older cards, but it's well behind today's RTX 40-series laptops. In practice, you can expect smooth 60+ fps gameplay in popular esports titles like Valorant or Fortnite at 1080p with high settings. For more demanding games like Cyberpunk 2077, you'll be dialing settings down to medium or a mix of medium/low to stay playable. The CPU, an i7-9750H, is the clear bottleneck, sitting in just the 3rd percentile. It's fine for gaming, but don't expect it to breeze through heavy multitasking or CPU-intensive creative apps. The 16GB of RAM is adequate, though its 22nd percentile ranking shows it's on the lower end for modern standards.

At its current asking price of around $1239, the value proposition is tricky. You're paying new-laptop money for 5-year-old hardware. While the GTX 1660 Ti is competent, you can often find newer laptops with RTX 4050 or 4060 graphics in this price range during sales, which offer better performance, DLSS support, and a more modern feature set. The Y545's value is really only in very specific scenarios, like finding a certified refurbished model for several hundred dollars less.

Compared to modern competitors, the age gap is obvious. A current-gen laptop like the MSI Vector 16 HX with an RTX 4060 will run circles around the Y545 in both gaming and CPU tasks. Even compared to other 2019 contemporaries, the Y545's weak CPU holds it back. The more relevant question is, should you buy this or a newer budget gaming laptop? For similar money, a new ASUS TUF or Lenovo IdeaPad Gaming with an RTX 4050 will give you a better screen (often 144Hz), a much faster modern CPU, and longer driver support. The only reason to choose the Y545 is if you find it at a steep discount, well under $1000.

Should you buy the Lenovo Legion Y545 in 2024? For most people, the answer is no. Its aging i7 CPU and 60Hz screen are major drawbacks at this price. It's not a good choice for developers or content creators due to that slow processor. However, if you're on a tight budget and you find one for a steal—say, under $800—and you only care about 1080p gaming in older or less demanding titles, it can still be a functional machine. Just know you're buying into hardware that's already at the end of its support cycle. For anyone with $1200 to spend, putting that toward a newer model with current-gen specs is a much smarter long-term investment.