Lenovo Legion Phone Duel Review

We believe the Legion Phone Duel is the greatest gaming phone we’ve tried in 2020. We say that in light of the fact that Lenovo has made a gadget without large numbers of the issues we’ve seen on other gaming-focused handsets with regards to ‘regular’ highlights, while likewise ticking all the ‘gaming telephone’ boxes.

It has the top chipset accessible when it is sent off, the Snapdragon 865 Plus, matched with 12GB or 16GB RAM, an AMOLED screen has a 144Hz refresh rate for distinct tones and seamless continuing interaction, as well as two forward-facing speakers for powerful sound. It also has a long-lasting battery that will easily get you through extended gaming sessions.

These specs generally put the Lenovo Legion Phone Duel on a standard with other gaming telephones, yet the non-gaming perspectives hoist it over the pack. While most telephones intended for portable gamers have issues with regards to elements and execution beyond gaming, this is as great an everyday cell phone as it is a gaming gadget.

The Lenovo Legion Phone Duel is a touch more modest than numerous other gaming cell phones, and its power button is found down and out on the right side so it’s not difficult to reach when you need to wake the handset, making this a for the most part preferable one-hand gadget over its opponents. Its product likewise feels clean; while it’s not in fact stock Android it feels basically the same, offering Google’s set-up of applications and doing without bloatware.

Because of the 16GB RAM variant, the Lenovo Legion Phone Duel is the first phone to include 90W rapid charging – this utilizes both of the phone’s USB-C ports and takes less than 30 minutes to charge the phone from a dead battery. There’s also a more affordable 12GB RAM version of the phone, which charges at a still-quick 65W.

Our one significant issue with the Legion Phone Duel is, fortunately, one that Lenovo ought to have the option to fix through patches: programming issues. These went from the entertaining, as the untranslated message in the Legion gaming application, to the irritating, similar to message in warnings in some cases being some unacceptable variety and difficult to peruse, to the really irksome, with the telephone every now and again closing down for reasons unknown.

The Phone Duel’s cost is likewise touching on the high side for a gaming telephone – it’s probably the priciest telephone on the street, handful more phones with identical features, such as the Nubia Red Magic 5G and Black Shark, are undermining the market. Without a doubt, the Legion Phone beats them in a couple of regards, however, some may not consider that value the additional expense.

Cost and Accessibility

You can get the Lenovo Legion Phone Duel in the UK and Europe at this moment – the handset hasn’t yet been affirmed for the US or Australia, however since the organization for the most part works in those domains, we won’t preclude it.

For the 12GB RAM/256GB extra room variant of the telephone, you’ll be paying generally $1,060. There’s likewise a 16GB/512GB choice, which offers the previously mentioned 90W quick charging, and which will cost you about $1,200.

Since that quick charging isn’t accessible right now, and scarcely any individuals will truly see the value in the additional RAM, we’d say the base model is likely fine for the vast majority, yet aggressive gamers, or individuals who need without a doubt the greatest extra room conceivable, could favor the pricier model. For this survey, we tried the specced-up handset.

The Legion Phone Duel rivals the Nubia Red Magic 5G, which gets you 8GB RAM/128GB capacity for $579; the Xiaomi Black Shark 3, which has the Red Magic’s RAM and capacity specs yet a sticker price of $599; and the 12GB/256GB Black Shark 3 Pro, which costs about $1,060.

So as may be obvious, the Lenovo Legion Phone Duel’s cost positions it as one of the pricier gaming telephones, despite the fact that its higher specs and elements ought to go a viable approach to legitimizing that.

Design

It’s anything but a tremendous telephone as gaming handsets go, with aspects of 169.2 x 78.5 x 9.9mm, in spite of the fact that somebody who’s unused to handsets in this market would probably view that as quite large. It weighs 239g, which is definitely on the heavier side of the spectrum.

On the right is a side-mounted power button, and it’s wretched, so we envision that the vast majority will find it simple to reach. However, the higher volume rocker on the left side isn’t as helpfully positioned. There’s likewise a second USB-C port underneath the volume, notwithstanding the ‘primary’ one on the lower part of the telephone – this allows you to connect a subsequent extra, or charge quicker from two ports without a moment’s delay.

Likewise on the right edge of the telephone – or on the top while you’re holding it scene – are two triggers for gaming. These aren’t actual buttons that stick out, but instead, haptic regions that you crush, like the Active Edge include on some Google Pixel telephones. You’d be pardoned for not seeing these triggers by simply taking a gander at the telephone, as the main signs that they’re there are two little designed regions towards the top and lower part of the right side.

This is a gaming telephone, and that implies you’re getting light-up LED designs on the back. Some disdain this, others like it incidentally, and a couple of individuals really like telephones that seem to be this. Whichever classification you fall into, the back LEDs aren’t excessively large or upsetting contrasted with those on some other gaming gadgets.

Display

The Lenovo Legion Phone Duel has a 6.65-inch show – that is a touch more modest than the screens on some other gaming telephones, yet just barely. It’s an FHD+ HDR10+ AMOLED show, so pictures look genuinely high-goal with punchy colors. It’ll show any game at the most extreme graphical settings the title can uphold, and the transferred video looks incredible as well.

The handset has a 144Hz greatest revive rate, equivalent to some other gaming telephones, and that implies the presentation picture is refreshed 144 times each second. In principle that is perfect for gaming, as it makes movement look smoother, in spite of the fact that as of the handset’s delivery very few games support this high revive rate. You can turn this down to 120Hz, 90Hz or 60Hz when you don’t require it, which delays battery duration.

Cameras

The Lenovo Legion Phone Duel has two back cameras, a 64MP f/1.9 primary and 16MP f/2.2 ultra-wide snapper, and they’re both fantastic, despite the fact that you won’t be capturing really spectacular photos with this phone.

Generally speaking quality was great, with a lot of detail, yet the snaps didn’t have a wide unique reach, and numerous shots had a yellowish cast – this was most clear in lower-light settings, including most insides, however, it was observable in outside shots as well.

Low-light pictures, and hazier pieces of photographs, would in general look somewhat grainy, and need detail. This was especially valid for snaps taken with the super-wide camera, albeit the principal snapper wasn’t totally liberated from the issue.

Profundity impacts were at times jumbled as well, especially with food shots – the profundity of the field would in general be excessively shallow, which brought about bunches of the dish we were attempting to wake up being from the center.

One fascinating component here is that naturally, pictures taken are in a 19.5:9 perspective proportion (equivalent to the telephone screen), not 4:3 as on most other cell phone cameras, in spite of the fact that you can choose that viewpoint proportion on the off chance that you like. More extensive shots like this will generally look more true to life – films are incomparable proportions – and we felt that the photographs we took looked a piece ‘cooler’, for the absence of a superior word, thus.

The spring-up selfie camera is 20MP and f/2.2, and we had the option to get some very great selfies, however, the absence of a Portrait mode (on either the front or back cameras) could be an issue for some. There are excellent modes that you can change, however, no foundation obscuring or comparable.

Performance and specs

• Snapdragon 865 Plus chipset, 12GB or 16GB RAM
• Valuable virtual triggers for gaming
• Double speakers sound perfect

The Lenovo Legion Phone Duel’s internals is actually the ‘point’ of this gadget, as the whole telephone is custom-made to convey an extraordinary gaming experience.

It seems OK, then, at that point, that the telephone utilizes the Snapdragon 865 Plus chipset, which was the most ideal gaming-advanced processor that anyone could hope to find for Android telephones at the hour of its send-off.

This is matched with 12GB or 16GB RAM, contingent upon which model you decide on, despite the fact that as we’ve referenced it’s far-fetched many individuals will see an obvious distinction between the two.

At the point when we put the 16GB model through the Geekbench 5 benchmarking test, it returned a multi-center score of 3335. That is a high score, and keeping in mind that it’s beaten by the Asus ROG Phone 3 it’s by a simple five focuses.

At this high finish of the benchmark range, five focuses won’t have a lick of effect on execution, and the Lenovo Legion Phone Duel is basically as quick and strong as you could need.

Battery duration

We were genuinely dazzled with the Lenovo Legion Phone Duel’s battery duration, both when in ordinary use and while gaming. The telephone has a 5,000mAh battery limit, which is high for a cell phone, albeit normal for a gaming gadget.

At the point when we weren’t gaming, the telephone effectively endured a day without waiting to be charged, and frequently made it a fair way through a subsequent day – and in the event that you can’t go a day without playing, you’ll be satisfied to realize that the handset will, in any case, last you daily in the event that you play a couple of long stretches of games all through.

The greatest charging velocity of the telephone is 65W for the 12GB RAM rendition of the telephone, and a super-rapid 90W for the 16GB variant. While 65W is extraordinarily quick, 90W is the quickest we’ve found in a monetarily accessible cell phone.

You can accomplish this 90W speed by using both USB-C ports, utilizing the 60W and 30W chargers that accompany the telephone – so regardless of whether you just decide to involve the previous to let loose a port, you’re getting smart fueling. The 12GB telephone has two ports as well, so you can change your rates by possibly utilizing each in turn in the event that you need it.

Final Thoughts

If you are looking for a phone that will let you game to your heart’s content, the Lenovo Legion Phone Duel is the perfect option. It has all of the features you need to enjoy high-quality gameplay, and it also looks great too. So if you’re in the market for a new phone, be sure to check out this model – I think you’ll be impressed.