Lenovo at IFA 2018: Gamers don’t want ‘ugly laptops built for 12-year-olds’
PC makers need to stop treating gamers like children if they want to succeed, according to Lenovo VP of design Brian Leonard.
Leonard made the claim during a press briefing at IFA 2018 in Berlin, arguing the gaming market has matured and that the hobby is no longer a niche one.
“Nearly all the gaming devices you see kind of ugly. They all look like they’re designed for a 12-year-old. A lot of people don’t want a gaming device like that,” he said.
“Gamers aren’t just kids who live in their parents basement. They’re doctors, lawyers – regular people.”
Related: Best gaming laptops
He said the company worked hard to learn from competing companies’ mistakes when designing its latest Lenovo Legion Y730 and Y530 gaming notebooks.
“Legion should speak to a different type of gamer. We wanted to make something that you could take to a coffee shop and not get stared at, but then when you take it home and into the bedroom it becomes a savage,” he said.
“We wanted it to be stylish but have the power of a proper game station. We thought of it like a car. The experience comes from the dash, but the engine gives it the performance. I don’t need to see the engine, but I need to know it’s there and has the power I want.”
The notebooks were unveiled at E3 earlier this year and a marked step away from the company’s 2017 Legion laptops which Leonard said “used the old design”.
Related: Best PC games
Despite the change Leonard was vehement the Legion brand would always put performance first. When asked if the company would every push lower specced Legions with APUs, like Intel G-Series, or bottom end dGPUs Leopard told Trusted Reviews:
“One thing we want to do is make sure Legion has a certain bottom it won’t go below. We may put products like that elsewhere [with things like Intel G-Series], but Legion will always be about top-end gaming at its core.”
Intel G-series is a new CPU family that pairs the company’s CPU architecture with AMD Radeon graphics. The chips are surprisingly capable for gaming and easily run light titles, like Overwatch, at 60fps-plus in 1080p.
Lenovo isn’t the only company working to refine it’s gaming notebooks designs. Razer launched its new Razer Blade 15 laptop with similar aspirations earlier this year.
Agree with Lenovo or do you want your mobile gaming rig to have all the RGB lighting? Let us know on Twitter @TrustedReviews.
Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
