14 DAY TRIAL // Lenovo Legion Y25f is a monitor built primarily for gamers, but it can easily gain other uses, with its great colors and contrast. It’s not a perfect monitor, but it’s difficult to find good competition for it, especially in its price range.
The fact that manufacturers are now making monitors specifically for gamers is a welcomed improvement. To be fair, this trend is not a new one, but in the past, gaming monitors were few, expensive, and only used to showcase what we could have and never afford.
It also doesn’t help that manufacturers use all sort of terms that don’t really express what people are getting. If you have a regular monitor, with medium range features, you might not see a fantastic improvement in quality, at least not as much as the manufacturers would let you believe.
Ultimately, this hyperpolarization of the features and technologies available in a monitor works against the companies, but they can’t to abstain themselves. For example, Leveno says that the incredible range of colors and contract will make it seem like everything is popping out of the screen.
Also, Lenovo dramatically exaggerates the impact of the 144Hz refresh rate will have on your games. They don’t tell the rest of the story, and the part that does escape from their press docket is embellished. And Lenovo is not the only company to say this sort of things. Everyone is doing it, and it’s the norm, but this is where we come in.
Is a gaming monitor a thing?
While the Lenovo Legion Y25f is marketed as a gaming monitor, it doesn’t mean that it can’t be used in a regular way, like in an office setting, for example. In fact, some people might find the much-improved luminosity and contrast that come with such a monitor a blessing.
But the question remains? Is there such a thing as a gaming monitor and what makes it so? It’s a combination of factors, each with its degree of importance. For the most part, all the fancy words used to describe the technologies integrated into the monitor are true and useful, which means that you need those 144Hz and the 1ms delays. But what do they mean?
The gaming attributes of a gaming monitor don’t constitute a long list. There are a few key factors that have to be observed when you’re picking new hardware. Let’s says that you’re buying a monitor to play games on? What’s the first thing you check?
Now that we’ve established that gaming monitors are not just a marketing gimmick, we have to take a closer look at the features and options provided by the Lenovo Legion Y25f, and see who they fit into the broader picture.
What you’re getting
One of the most important features to have in such a monitor is the response time, which should be as low as possible. If you buy something with a high response time, you will be confronted with a ghosting effect that’s mostly visible when objects move with high speed on the screen. The Lenovo Legion Y25f has a 1ms response time, and that’s more than enough for a gaming monitor.
The Lenovo monitor also boasts a 144Hz refresh rate, which also happens to be a relevant metric, although there are a couple of caveats. First of all, one of the reasons for such a high refresh rate is to prevent tearing, among other things. The problem is that in order to prevent tearing you need a similar metric from the games themselves. In this case, you need to achieve 144FPS in games so that it matches the refresh rate.
The software solution is called V-SYNC. When enabled in games, this option syncs the refresh rate of the monitor to the frame rate, but it also means that you need a powerful computer that can achieve such framerates.
On the other hand, the Lenovo monitor also comes with AMD FreeSync, a technology that’s meant to do the work of regular V-Sync in a much more efficient way. This technology can sync the framerate to FPS, even if it's not 144Hz. Unfortunately, as the name suggests, it’s not compatible with Nvidia cards.
The size of the display is 24,5” and is using LED technology. It’s a large monitor, but it only comes with a 1920 x 1080 resolution, and that’s something that some people might find to be insufficient, especially if they want to play games at higher resolutions. There is a software workaround, but it’s not all that reliable.
Lenovo Legion Y25f also features a 16*9 aspect ratio, which is pretty standard, and a contrast of 1000:1. It comes with a decent viewing angle of 170° for horizontal and 160° for vertical, and the overall luminosity is rated at 400 cd/m2, which should be enough for most scenarios.
The one thing that will definitely be noticed by users is the extremely thin bezel, of just 2mm on the sides and on top. The bottom bezel is considerably larger, at 23,5 mm. While the thin bezel is a pleasure to look at, it’s also a little bit of a lie. The image on the screen doesn’t extend all the way to the bezel, which means that when the monitor is turned on you’ll notice an extra bezel on the screen itself, so the size is about 4mm.
Everything else that you’re getting
Let’s get the hardware stuff out of the way. Users will be happy to know that Legion Y25f also comes with three USB ports, two of which are on the side, a headphone jack, a DisplayPort and an HDMI port. This is 2018, so you’re not getting a DVI anymore. Also, the left side is home to a handy support for the headset, which folds nicely if it’s not needed.
It’s also important to mention the fact that the display can be adjusted on three axes, with 30 degrees on left and right, and -5 degrees front and 22 degrees back. The support for the monitor is quite tall as well, and it has an 11cm adjustable height. There is no vertical mode available.
Also, the base on the monitor is quite sturdy and heavy, and the entire apparatus is easy to set up with no screws. Interestingly enough, it doesn’t use the regular power cable that we all know, but a custom one. The transformer is outside, which helps to keep the thickness of the monitor down.
The Good
Furthermore, the quality of the display, colors, luminosity, and contrast are really good, even at medium settings. The software support in the monitor itself is impressive, with options for pretty much everything, and profiles dedicated to gaming. Users will also find that they can choose from a wide array of scaling options, which is always nice to have.
The response time and the refresh rate are essential, of course, and they fulfill their role beautifully. If coupled with a powerful computer, it can do wonders for your overall gaming experience.
The Bad
What I didn’t like was the fact that there was no way to do some proper cable management at the back. Usually, monitors come with a ring or a space to gather all the cables, but this isn’t the case. Some improvisations are possible, but it’s not elegant, and the small gap in the support stand is not all that useful.
Also, I felt like I was a little bit cheated with the small bezels. I thought that the image would extend to edge, but it’s not. In fact, you can see the dead space on the display even when it’s off. It’s not a significant problem, and I forgot about it in a couple of hours, but it still bothered me.
Conclusion
All in all, the Lenovo Legion Y25f is a great tool for any user that wants to experience the glorious 144Hz gaming, within a reasonable price range, and to know how games should really look and feel.
