Benchmarks: Display
Some of the biggest advancements in modern laptops revolve around the capabilities of the display panel. To provide a more meaningful overview of panel characteristics, we're deploying Datacolor's Spyder 4 Elite professional monitor analyser to return a quantitative assessment of display quality.
Some gaming laptops appeal to creative types due to the amount of power available under the hood. The Lenovo Legion Y520 isn't one of them as the IPS panel covers only 65 per cent of the sRGB space and 48 per cent of the AdobeRGB. Not what you want if you'll be editing photos of video.
Being able to display a wide gamut of colours is helpful, yet the colours themselves still need to deliver in terms of accuracy. In the above chart, the Delta-E figure corresponds to how close the displayed colours match up with real life and the lower the overall result, the better. Any figure below two is considered very good and the Y520 is just shy of the mark.
Brightness is distinctly average, making the matte display less enjoyable in well-lit environments, yet viewing angles are good in all directions, black levels are decent and so too is contrast. The 15.6in full-HD panel is ultimately enjoyable for gaming, but doesn't offer the wow-factor of premium alternatives.
