Lenovo Legion Tower 5 Desktop PC: Design

The Legion Tower 5 looks like your typical big, square computer. It weighs 27 pounds, which is light enough to move around, but still quite heavy, so you probably wouldn't want to move it around too often.

What makes it stand out is that it's not just a plain black box. It has a clear glass side so you can see inside, and it also has colorful lights on both the front and back. With its size of 8.07 x 15.57 x 16.54 inches, there's plenty of room inside to add upgrades. This also makes the lights look really cool.

While many computers are going for a flashy, colorful look inside, it's nice to see something different from the usual black case when you look at your desktop.

Lenovo Legion Tower 5 Desktop PC: Performance

Considering its price, the Legion Tower 5 did well when tested at 1080p. Games like Far Cry New Dawn ran smoothly at an average of 83 frames per second, and Grand Theft Auto 5 averaged 65 frames per second. Newer games ran a bit slower, but none drops below 30 frames per second. The slowest game was Red Dead Redemption 2, which ran at an average of 39 frames per second.

Older or less graphically-demanding games could be played at maximum graphics settings and still achieve 60 frames per second or more. However, newer big-budget games require some adjustments to maintain playable speeds.

The Legion Tower 5 is not a high-end gaming machine. Attempting to run the latest games in 4K resolution resulted in poor performance. While Far Cry New Dawn managed a respectable 35 frames per second in 4K, games like Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla struggled at 18 frames per second. Some games like Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Red Dead Redemption 2, and GTA V couldn’t run in 4K at all.

For non-gaming tasks, the Legion Tower 5 performs decently. It took a little over 10 minutes to complete a video editing test, transcoding a 4K video to 1080p. When duplicating 25 GB of multimedia files, its SSD achieved a transfer rate of 454 MBps. 

Lenovo Legion Tower 5 Desktop PC: Software

The Legion Tower 5 comes with pre-installed Windows 10 and McAfee antivirus software, though the antivirus does not do a better job than Windows Defender. 

Lenovo Legion Tower 5 Desktop PC: Ports and Accessories

The keyboard and mouse that come with the Legion Tower 5 aren't very good. Anyone who plans to use the Legion Tower 5 a lot, especially for gaming, will probably prefer to use their own mouse and keyboard.

It might seem silly to complain about free accessories not being as good as expensive ones, but it feels like Lenovo cut corners here to save money.

The Legion Tower 5 is a bit lacking in ports too. It has some ports on the top for headphones, microphones, and USB-A 3.2 Gen 1. On the back, there's an Ethernet port, three audio out ports, and ports for the graphics card. There's also a USB-C 3.2 port, two more USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 ports, and two USB-A 2.0 ports, giving a total of 7 USB ports.

The main issue with the Legion Tower 5 is the number of USB ports. While 7 isn't bad, other computers at this price have more. For example, the similarly priced Dell G5 has nine. You may have to keep switching out peripherals or use an old USB hub. While it's a small issue that can be fixed with a cheap hub, having a few more ports would be helpful for people with hard-to-reach setups.

Lenovo Legion Tower 5 Desktop PC: Upgradability

The good news is that for anyone wishing to tweak the specs of the Legion 5 computer, the case makes upgrading almost everything easy. All it takes is using a head screwdriver to remove two screws from the glass side of the case, and then you're inside. Inside, it's simple to add new RAM or a USB card because there's plenty of space and not many cords in the way.

Adding a new hard drive is a bit trickier, but still doable. There are open drive bays and SATA cables accessible from the opposite side of the case, although there's less space to work with. The Legion 5 PC is not great at managing cables, but the clean space visible behind the glass means there are many tightly bundled cables routed through the back side, which can be challenging to work around.

Putting a drive into a drive bay and connecting it would likely require loosening a few of Lenovo's cable ties to give some slack on the SATA and power hookups. Since there's not much open space on this side of the case, this might also involve some cable management once finished.

However, installing a hard drive seems like more of a minor inconvenience than a major problem. The only things that might be difficult for owners to upgrade or replace are the motherboard and processor, but that's true for most desktops.

Final Thoughts

The Legion Tower 5 delivers what it promises. It works fine as a gaming desktop right out of the box, though it's not exceptionally amazing. Most of its small issues can be fixed with quick and fairly cheap upgrades.

However, if this doesn't sound like a strong recommendation, it's because it's not. There are many good desktop PCs available for this price, some of which have extra features that the Legion 5 computer doesn't. 

In general, the Legion Tower 5 does not let you down, but it also does not impress as well.