Lenovo V17 Gen 2 review

Nowadays, the term “low-budget” laptop has been really watered down. There has been a trio of notebooks that really showed the bright sides of owning an affordable device in 2022. They were the HP 470 G8, the Acer Aspire 3 (A317-53), and the Lenovo IdeaPad 3 (17″, 2021). Interestingly, Lenovo has gone even further to show that they can shave even more off the end price.

This time their effort is called the V17 Gen 2 (or V17 G2 ITL). Indeed, not a very creative name, but we kind of like it for its shortness. Nevertheless, what should be more likable is what we would find inside. In contrast to the IdeaPad 3 (17″, 2021), this time we have Intel onboard. The CPU options start with the Pentium Gold 7505 and go all the way up to the Core i7-1165G7.

As far as the displays go, there are two options – a 1600×900 TN panel, and a Full HD IPS one. Of course, we are talking about 17.3-inch beasts, so you would want a higher resolution. Not the least – because of the superiority of the IPS panel. To be quite honest, we feel that you’re in for a surprise, but we’re going to keep it a secret for a little while.

You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System:
https://laptopmedia.com/series/lenovo-v17-gen-2-intel/

Contents


Specs Sheet

Lenovo V17 Gen 2 (Intel) - Specs

  • AUO B173HAN04.3 (AUO439D)
  • Color accuracy  3.6  1.1
  • HDD/SSD
  • up to 2000GB SSD + up to 1000GB HDD
  • RAM
  • up to 40GB
  • OS
  • Windows 11 Pro, Windows 11 Home, Windows 10 Home, Windows 10 Pro, No OS
  • Battery
  • 45Wh, 3-cell, 45Wh, 42Wh, 3-cell, 38Wh, 2-cell
  • Body material
  • Plastic / Polycarbonate
  • Dimensions
  • 399 x 274 x 19.9 mm (15.71" x 10.79" x 0.78")
  • Weight
  • 2.20 kg (4.9 lbs)
  • Ports and connectivity
  • 1x USB Type-A
  • 2.0
  • 1x USB Type-A
  • 3.2 Gen 1 (5 Gbps)
  • 1x USB Type-C
  • 3.2 Gen 1 (5 Gbps)
  • HDMI
  • 1.4b
  • Card reader
  • MMC, SD, SDHC, SDXC
  • Ethernet LAN
  • Wi-Fi
  • 802.11ax
  • Bluetooth
  • 5.1
  • Audio jack
  • 3.5mm Combo Jack
  • Features
  • Fingerprint reader
  • optional
  • Web camera
  • HD
  • Backlit keyboard
  • optional
  • Microphone
  • Dual Array Microphone
  • Speakers
  • 2x 1.5W, Dolby Audio
  • Optical drive

All Lenovo V17 Gen 2 (Intel) configurations

#CommissionsEarned

What’s in the box?

Here, you are treated to a quite basic unboxing experience. You only get some boring papers and a 65W charger.


Design and construction

You shouldn’t be surprised to learn that the V17 Gen 2 is made entirely out of plastic. Its large footprint doesn’t really help with the twist resistance too, as we see quite some flex from both the base and the lid.

On the bright side, the laptop doesn’t feel cheap, and it is extremely portable for a 17-incher. Its profile is 19.9mm tall, while the weight starts from 2.20 kilos.

Well, expectedly, the lid can’t be opened with a single hand. However, its side bezels are really thin. In addition, the top one houses an HD Web camera with a dedicated privacy shutter.

Moving to the base, we see a lot of empty space. Once again, this isn’t something new. What is better is the fact that there is an optional fingerprint reader, which would be found on the power button. As for the keyboard, it has a NumberPad, a backlight, and check this out – spill resistance. Its key travel is average, but the clicky feedback makes the typing experience nothing short of great.

In our view, the touchpad could have been bigger. Nevertheless, it features a Mylar surface, which is good. The clicking mechanism is comfortable but satisfying, so we would give it a decent score.

Looking at the bottom panel, we see two small speaker cutouts, as well as a ventilation grill. As usual, the heat exhaust is in between the lid and the base.

Ports

On the left side, there is the power plug, a USB Type-A 3.2 (Gen. 1) port, an HDMI 1.4b connector, а USB Type-C 3.2 (Gen. 1) port (used for data transfer only), and an audio jack. Switch sides, and you will find a USB Type-A 2.0 port, and an SD card reader.


Disassembly, upgrade options and maintenance

To get inside this laptop, you need to undo all 10 Phillips-head screws.

This device is sold with a 38Wh or a 45Wh battery pack. We got the larger one and it lasts for nearly 9 hours of Web browsing, or about 7 hours of video playback.

There is one SODIMM slot that works in conjunction with either 4 or 8GB of soldered RAM. In terms of storage, we got one M.2 PCIe x4 slot. If you opt for the smaller battery pack, you will get a 2.5-inch SATA drive bay.

The cooling comprises a single heat pipe, which connects to a medium-sized heat sink. A standard fan blows the heat away from the device.


Display quality

Lenovo V17 Gen 2 is equipped with a Full HD IPS panel, model number AUO B173HAN04.3 (AUO439D). Its diagonal is 17.3″ (43.94 cm), and the resolution is 1920 х 1080 pixels. The screen ratio is 16:9, and we are looking at a pixel density of – 127 ppi, and a pitch of 0.2 х 0.2 mm. The screen turns into Retina when viewed at distance equal to or greater than 69cm (27″) (from this distance one’s eye stops differentiating the separate pixels, and it is normal for looking at a laptop).

Viewing angles are comfortable. We offer images at 45° to evaluate image quality.

Also, a video with locked focus and exposure.

The measured maximum brightness of 356 nits in the middle of the screen and also 334 nits as an average for the whole area, with a maximum deviation of 8%. The Correlated Color Temperature on a white screen is 7090K – a bit colder than the optimal for the sRGB standard of 6500K.
In the illustration below you can see how the display performs from a uniformity perspective. In other words, the leakage of light from the light source.

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. The contrast ratio is good – 1230:1.

To make sure we are on the same page, we would like to give you a little introduction to the sRGB color gamut and the Adobe RGB. To start, there’s the CIE 1976 Uniform Chromaticity Diagram that represents the visible specter of colors by the human eye, giving you a better perception of the color gamut coverage and the color accuracy.

Inside the black triangle, you will see the standard color gamut (sRGB) that is being used by millions of people on HDTV and on the web. As for the Adobe RGB, this is used in professional cameras, monitors, etc for printing. Colors inside the black triangle are used by everyone and this is the essential part of the color quality and color accuracy of a mainstream notebook.

Still, we’ve included other color spaces like the famous DCI-P3 standard used by movie studios, as well as the digital UHD Rec.2020 standard. Rec.2020, however, is still a thing of the future and it’s difficult for today’s displays to cover that well. We’ve also included the so-called Michael Pointer gamut, or Pointer’s gamut, which represents the colors that naturally occur around us every day.

The yellow dotted line shows Lenovo V17 Gen 2’s color gamut coverage.

Its display covers 97% of the sRGB/ITU-R BT.709 (web/HDTV standard) in CIE1976.

Our “Design and Gaming” profile delivers optimal color temperature (6500K) at 140 cd/m2 luminance and sRGB gamma mode.

We tested the accuracy of the display with 24 commonly used colors like light and dark human skin, blue sky, green grass, orange, etc. You can check out the results at factory condition and also, with the “Design and Gaming” profile.

Below you see the scores of Lenovo V17 Gen 2 with the “Gaming and Web design” profile.

The next figure shows how well the display is able to reproduce really dark parts of an image, which is essential when watching movies or playing games in low ambient light.

The left side of the image represents the display with stock settings, while the right one is with the “Gaming and Web Design” profile activated. On the horizontal axis, you will find the grayscale, and on the vertical axis – the luminance of the display. On the two graphs below you can easily check for yourself how your display handles the darkest nuances but keep in mind that this also depends on the settings of your current display, the calibration, the viewing angle, and the surrounding light conditions.

Response time (Gaming capabilities)

We test the reaction time of the pixels with the usual “black-to-white” and “white-to-black” method from 10% to 90% and vice versa.

We recorded Fall Time + Rise Time = 26 ms.

After that, we test the reaction time of the pixels with the usual “Gray-to-Gray” method from 50% White to 80% White and vice versa between 10% and 90% of the amplitude.


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 backlight 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.

The backlight of the Lenovo V17 Gen 2 doesn’t use PWM to adjust its levels of brightness. This means the display is comfortable for use, without presenting any excessive eye strain in this aspect.

Blue light emissions

Installing our Health-Guard profile not only eliminates PWM but also reduces the harmful Blue Light emissions while keeping the colors of the screen perceptually accurate. If you’re not familiar with the Blue light, the TL;DR version is – emissions that negatively affect your eyes, skin, and your whole body. You can find more information about that in our dedicated article on Blue Light.

Buy our profiles

Since our profiles are tailored for each individual display model, this article and its respective profile package are meant for Lenovo V17 Gen 2 configurations with 17.3″ FHD IPS AUO B173HAN04.3 (AUO439D).

*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].

Read more about the profiles HERE.

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.

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.

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.

Get all 3 profiles with 33% discount


Sound

Lenovo V17 Gen 2’s speakers produce a sound of very good quality. The low, mid, and high tones are all clear of deviations.


Drivers

All drivers and utilities for this notebook can be found here: https://pcsupport.lenovo.com/us/en/products/laptops-and-netbooks/lenovo-v-series-laptops/v17-g2-itl/downloads/driver-list

Battery

Now, we conduct the battery tests with the Windows Better performance setting turned on, screen brightness adjusted to 120 nits, and all other programs turned off except for the one we are testing the notebook with. Our unit comes with the larger 45Wh battery pack. It lasts for 8 hours and 45 minutes of Web browsing, or 6 hours and 57 minutes of video playback.

In order to simulate real-life conditions, we used our own script for automatic web browsing through over 70 websites.

For every test like this, we use the same video in HD.


CPU options

This device can be found with the Pentium Gold 7505, Core i3-1115G4, Core i5-1135G7, or Core i7-1165G7.


GPU options

As for the graphics, the options include the integrated solutions, as well as the dedicated GeForce MX350 with 2GB of GDDR5 memory.


Gaming tests

cs-go-benchmarks

CS:GOHD 1080p, Low (Check settings)HD 1080p, Medium (Check settings)HD 1080p, MAX (Check settings)
Average FPS112 fps79 fps56 fps

DOTA 2HD 1080p, Low (Check settings)HD 1080p, Normal (Check settings)HD 1080p, High (Check settings)
Average FPS113 fps75 fps43 fps

Temperatures and comfort

Max CPU load

In this test we use 100% on the CPU cores, monitoring their frequencies and chip temperature. The first column shows a computer’s reaction to a short load (2-10 seconds), the second column simulates a serious task (between 15 and 30 seconds), and the third column is a good indicator of how good the laptop is for long loads such as video rendering.

Average core frequency (base frequency + X); CPU temp.

Intel Core i5-1135G7 (15W TDP)0:02 – 0:10 sec0:15 – 0:30 sec10:00 – 15:00 min
Lenovo V17 Gen 23.65 GHz (B+52%) @ 92°C @ 53W3.20 GHz (B+33%) @ 89°C @ 41W2.48 GHz (B+3%) @ 66°C @ 25W
HP 470 G83.09 GHz (B+29%) @ 79°C @ 31W2.60 GHz (B+8%) @ 80°C @ 24W2.42 GHz (B+1%) @ 78°C @ 18W
Dynabook Tecra A50-J3.77 GHz (B+57%) @ 97°C @ 52W3.22 GHz (B+34%) @ 87°C @ 36W2.82 GHz (B+18%) @ 76°C @ 28W
Dynabook Tecra A40-J3.74 GHz (B+56%) @ 96°C @ 51W3.21 GHz (B+34%) @ 86°C @ 36W2.91 GHz (B+21%) @ 77°C @ 28W
HP ProBook 430 G83.32 GHz (B+38%) @ 97°C @ 35W2.74 GHz (B+14%) @ 89°C @ 24W2.29 GHz (B-5%) @ 75°C @ 17W
Acer Swift 3 (SF314-511)3.15 GHz (B+31%) @ 91°C @ 34W2.89 GHz (B+20%) @ 91°C @ 28W2.69 GHz (B+12%) @ 91°C @ 25W
Microsoft Surface Laptop 4 (13.5)3.80 GHz (B+58%) @ 80°C @ 46W3.62 GHz (B+51%) @ 89°C @ 43W1.99 GHz (B-17%) @ 60°C @ 13W
ASUS VivoBook 15 OLED K5133.39 GHz (B+41%) @ 83°C @ 40W3.28 GHz (B+34%) @ 91°C @ 37W2.96 GHz (B+23%) @ 85°C @ 28W
MSI Summit E13 Flip Evo3.65 GHz (B+52%) @ 96°C @ 45W3.31 GHz (B+38%) @ 96°C @ 47W3.03 GHz (B+25%) @ 96°C @ 29W
Dell XPS 13 9310 (2-in-1)3.36 GHz (B+40%) @ 99°C @ 41W3.16 GHz (B+32%) @ 99°C @ 37W1.92 GHz @ 72°C @ 16W
Dell XPS 13 93103.15 GHz (B+31%) @ 100°C @ 40W2.73 GHz (B+14%) @ 100°C @ 30W1.65 GHz @ 73°C @ 15W
Dell Vostro 14 54023.02 GHz (B+26%) @ 99°C @ 29W2.61 GHz (B+9%) @ 99°C @ 25W2.00 GHz @ 76°C @ 15W
MSI Modern 15 (A11X)3.59 GHz (B+50%) @ 94°C @ 44W3.45 GHz (B+44%) @ 95°C @ 40W3.18 GHz (B+33%) @ 91°C @ 34W
Lenovo ThinkBook 14s Yoga3.52 GHz (B+47%) @ 94°C3.24 GHz (B+35%) @ 94°C2.63 GHz (B+10%) @ 75°C
Lenovo Yoga 7 (14)3.34 GHz (B+39%) @ 94°C2.97 GHz (B+24%) @ 94°C2.39 GHz @ 75°C
Acer Aspire 5 (A514-54)3.54 GHz (B+48%) @ 87°C2.01 GHz @ 66°C2.03 GHz @ 67°C

While it sits far from the top of the food chain, the Lenovo V17 Gen 2 is performing better than the HP 470 G8, which is one of its main competitors. Its clock speed at the end of the test is slightly higher, while the temperature is lower by some 12°C.

Comfort during full load

Even when we used the “Extreme Performance” preset, the laptop didn’t become too loud, while its keyboard never exceeded 36°C.


Verdict

Surprisingly (or not), the V17 Gen 2 looks incredibly similar to the IdeaPad 3 (17″, 2021). It has pretty much the exact same chassis design, but the situation on the inside is a bit different. This is because the V17 Gen 2 uses Intel hardware in contrast to the AMD-equipped IdeaPad.

Nevertheless, the laptop we tested today has its positives. It features a great spill-resistant keyboard and an optional fingerprint reader. The battery life is good from the 45Wh unit – we got nearly 9 hours of Web browsing or roughly 7 hours of video playback. Keep in mind that this is the larger of two options, and the smaller 38Wh should deliver a shorter battery life.

On the other hand, if you get the smaller unit, you will get a bonus – a 2.5-inch SATA drive bay for additional storage. Otherwise, you are left with a single M.2 PCIe x4 slot. Interestingly, the memory comprises 4 or 8GB of soldered DDR4 RAM, while a single SODIMM slot offers further expansion.

And for the more patient out there, here comes the secret we promised – Lenovo V17 Gen 2’s IPS panel has a Full HD resolution, good contrast ratio, and comfortable viewing angles. Its backlight doesn’t flicker at any brightness level, which makes the display safe in terms of PWM. In addition to covering 97% of the sRGB gamut, the display offers a great color accuracy when paired with our Gaming and Web design profile. This means it can be of use for people, working with color-related content.

Needless to say, this is a fantastic display. Even if we take the price of the notebook out of the equation. If you are a photographer, for example, you would want something similar. Presumably, you would also want an SD card reader, which this laptop has as well. On the other hand, the I/O, in general, is a bit disappointing – one of the two USB Type-A ports runs at 2.0 speeds, while the single USB Type-C port can only be used for data transfer. This leaves the HDMI 1.4b connector as the sole display output.

Furthermore, there is no LAN port, so you can only connect to the Internet wirelessly. With that said, the Lenovo V17 Gen 2 supports Wi-Fi 6 and BlueTooth 5.1.

Considering the wide similarities between this notebook and IdeaPad 3 (17″, 2021), we would suggest that your purchase decision should be made on your personal preference. Both laptops are pretty much the cream of the crop in their class, so you won’t be going wrong with either of them.

You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: https://laptopmedia.com/series/lenovo-v17-gen-2-intel/

Pros

  • 1x SODIMM, 1x M.2 PCIe x4, 1x 2.5-inch SATA (optional)
  • Optional fingerprint reader
  • 97% sRGB coverage and accurate color representation with our Gaming and Web design profile (AUO B173HAN04.3 (AUO439D))
  • No PWM (AUO B173HAN04.3 (AUO439D))
  • SD card slot
  • Decent performance
  • Good battery life


Cons

  • Plastic build with mediocre quality
  • Unstable hinges

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