Lenovo Legion R45w-30 Review: A Beast of a Screen for Gamers

LaptopMedia.com Reviews and Analysis Lenovo Legion R45w-30 Review: A Beast of a Screen for Gamers Page 2

From: Severin Kolakov 24 February 2024 / 10:54 2

2. Display quality, Buy our profiles, Verdict

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Display quality, Buy our profiles, Verdict

The Lenovo Legion R45w-30 is equipped with a Double QHD VA panel. It comes with a 165Hz refresh rate (overclockable to 170Hz). Its diagonal is 44.5″ (113 cm), and the resolution – 5120 x 1440p. Additionally, the screen ratio is 32:9, the pixel density – 120 ppi, and their pitch – 0.21 x 0.21 mm. The screen can be considered Retina when viewed from at least 73 cm (from this distance, the average human eye can’t see the individual pixels).

Viewing angles are good. We offer images at different angles to evaluate the quality.

Also, a video with locked focus and exposure.

The maximum measured brightness is 464 nits (cd/m2) in the middle of the screen (preset „Color Settings\ Color Temp. => User RGB: R-100, G-100, B-100“ from „OSD“ menu After Factory Reset). The Correlated Color Temperature on a white screen After Factory Reset (preset from OSD menu – „Color Settings – Warm; Brightness 75%) and at maximum brightness is 6450К. In the illustration below you can see how the display performs from a uniformity perspective. The illustration below shows how matters are for operational brightness levels (approximately 140 nits) – in this particular case at 33% Brightness (White level = 142 cd/m2, Black level = 0.05 cd/m2). Values of dE2000 over 4.0 should not occur, and this parameter is one of the first you should check if you intend to use the laptop for color-sensitive work (a maximum tolerance of 2.0). We measured a good contrast ratio – 3040:1.

Color coverage

Here’s an illustration (Fig. 1). The whole “sail-shaped” map below consists of all the colors we can see, while the black crooked line shows all the colors from real-world scenes and nature around us.

Then, we’ve drawn some of the most important and interesting color spaces, compared to the colors the panel of Lenovo Legion R45w-30 can show:

Standard/For Web: sRGB – widely used color space for most consumer devices, ideal for Web design and development
For Print: AdobeRGB – used in professional photo editing, graphic design, and print
For Photographers/Video Editors: DCI-P3 – used in high-end film production, post-production, and digital cinema
Premium HDR: Rec.2020 – the widest consumer ITU color standard, covering a massive 75.8% of the visible spectrum, a benchmark for premium HDR content

Lenovo Legion R45w-30: the yellow dashed triangle (– – – – – –) represents the range of colors this monitor can display. In our tests, we calculated the total color coverage of the monitor at 100% of the sRGB color gamut and 95% DCI-P3 coverage.

(Fig.1) Lenovo Legion R45w-30 covers 100% of the Web colors (sRGB) and 95% of the DCI-P3 colors

This means that if the Lenovo Legion R45w-30 tries to show any color outside of its triangle, it will show the closest color to it that’s inside the triangle.

(Fig. 2) Lenovo Legion R45w-30 emulates the sRGB Color Space (OSD Menu => Color Settings\ Color Temp. => sRGB).

(Fig. 3) We also show Primaries and secondary colors in sRGB Color space with the factory settings (OSD Menu => Color Settings\ Color Temp. => sRGB).

Gamma and Color Temperature graph.

Color accuracy

Now let’s see how big is the difference between the real colors and the one you’ll see on the Lenovo Legion R45w-30. We measure that distance in DeltaE – the bigger the number, the more different they look. Also, values below 2.0 are considered suitable for color-sensitive work, while values below 1.0 can’t be distinguished by the human eye.

For the next illustration, we’ve chosen 24 common colors like dark and light skin, blue sky, green grass, etc. Below you can compare the results of the Lenovo Legion R45w-30 in factory condition with the sRGB color space.

You can also check the accuracy in the Display P3 color space after a Factory Reset.

Here are the results after a factory reset and an adjustment to the color temperature (preset from OSD menu – „Color Settings\ Color Temp. => User RGB: R-96, G-97, B-100“).

Response time (Gaming capabilities)

The graphs below, which mainly concern gamers, illustrate the pixel response time from “White” to “Black” and vice-versa from levels of 10% to 90% and vice-versa. Lower

response times provide a clearer during dynamic scenes.

The next graphs show the pixel response times in GtG (Grey to Grey) mode from “50%” White to “80%” White and “80%” White to “50% White” between the 10% and 90% of amplitudes.

Health Impact: PWM (Screen flickering)

Pulse-width modulation (PWM) is an easy way to control monitor brightness. When you lower the brightness, the light intensity of the display is not lowered, but instead turned off and on by the electronics with a frequency indistinguishable to the human eye. In these light impulses, the light/no-light time ratio varies, while brightness remains unchanged, which is harmful to your eyes. You can read more about that in our dedicated article on PWM.

Dell Latitude 15 5540’s display doesn’t use PWM for brightness adjustment.

Sound

The built-in stereo speaker setup on the monitor is clear and without any significant deviations across the entire frequency range.

BUY OUR DISPLAY PROFILES

Since our profiles are tailored for each individual display model, this article and its respective profile package are meant for the Lenovo Legion R45w-30.

*Should you have problems with downloading the purchased file, try using a different browser to open the link you’ll receive via e-mail. If the download target is a .php file instead of an archive, change the file extension to .zip or contact us at [email protected].

In addition to receiving efficient and health-friendly profiles, by buying LaptopMedia's products you also support the development of our labs, where we test devices in order to produce the most objective reviews possible.

Office Work

Office Work should be used mostly by users who spend most of the time looking at pieces of text, tables or just surfing. This profile aims to deliver better distinctness and clarity by keeping a flat gamma curve (2.20), native color temperature and perceptually accurate colors.

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Design and Gaming

This profile is aimed at designers who work with colors professionally, and for games and movies as well. Design and Gaming takes display panels to their limits, making them as accurate as possible in the sRGB IEC61966-2-1 standard for Web and HDTV, at white point D65.

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Health-Guard

Health-Guard eliminates the harmful Pulse-Width Modulation (PWM) and reduces the negative Blue Light which affects our eyes and body. Since it’s custom tailored for every panel, it manages to keep the colors perceptually accurate. Health-Guard simulates paper so the pressure on the eyes is greatly reduced.

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Get all 3 profiles with 33% discount

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Verdict

In conclusion, the Lenovo Legion R45w-30 is worthy of the praise that it’s getting and we’re sure it will get even more. It’s a gamer’s ultimate weapon, but it’s not only gamers that can acquire its services, as this is a beast screen for creativity too.

First of all, the design on it can rival that of any other wide-screen monitor, with a robust and adjustable stand, an incredible selection of ports, and enough buttons and shortcuts on the back to make going through the OSD menu a much easier endeavor.

Its Creator capabilities are outstanding, as the monitor shows 100% sRGB coverage and 95% sRGB coverage, the two most-valued color gamuts in the Creator industry. We also get really good color accuracy in the sRGB mode, with a dE value of 0.9, which is as good as it gets.

You can also experience great colors in the DCI-P3 space, however, you’d have to tweak the color temperature just a bit (thankfully, we show how that’s done). The peak brightness (464 nits) and the high contrast ratio (3040:1) of the VA panel are also some really good qualities, that can only improve the experience both when you’re creating content as well as when you’re gaming.

Gaming can be done to a pretty high level, thanks to the high refresh rate and the quick response times. Lenovo offers you 4 levels of panel overdrive, which can push the refresh rate to 170Hz and decrease the response time to values as low as 3.7 ms.

With these features and the FreeSync Premium Pro support, which also gives you a pretty good HDR feature-set, on top of the DisplayHDR400 that the monitor offers on its own. It also brings a decent set of built-in speakers, which are nice to have, while you can invest in some better headphones for when you’re gaming.

You can check the current price of the Lenovo Legion R45w-30: Buy from Amazon.com (#CommissionsEarned)

Pros

Modern design with a Curve, adjustable stand
Rich OSD menu
100% sRGB and 95% DCI-P3 coverage
Great color accuracy with our settings
Ample port selection
High-resolution
0 PWM usage
165Hz refresh rate and low response times thanks to panel overdrive and overclocking
FreeSync Premium Pro support

Cons

Brings HDMI 2.1 TMDS ports, and not the more modern 2.1 FRL ports

2. Display quality, Buy our profiles, Verdict

1. Intro, Specs, Drivers, What’s in the box Previous page Next page

Author: Severin Kolakov

2 Comments

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geoff

2 years ago

THANK YOU! Now this is a review. It’s great to see you added testing for pixel response times, PWM, and min/max brightness.

Apologies if I was a bit harsh before. You were right, the bar was previously set pretty high with your laptop reviews.

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Simeon Nikolov

2 years ago

Reply to geoff

Thanks to you too, Geoff. You’ve probably noticed that we stopped naming the shorter articles “reviews.” 🙂 We still don’t have the workforce to test all the monitors as thoroughly as this one, but we’ll surely do so if we have the chance in the future.