Although not for everyone, the Lenovo Legion Y44W-10 easily made it into our guide to the best gaming monitors.
A ginormous 43.4 inches, this isn’t a monitor for the faint-hearted. Most won’t have anywhere near the desk real-estate to fit it in. But if you do, you’ll be won over by the 144Hz refresh rate, 4ms response time and excellent build quality. It may not tick every box, but it certainly is an impressive piece of kit. Read on to find out more about the Lenovo Legion Y44W-10.
The Lenovo Legion Y44W-10 isn’t 4K, so if that’s what you’re after check out the best 4K monitors.
Lenovo Legion Y44W-10 review: design and setup
The Lenovo Legion Y44W-10 is a looker, with slim bezels on the sides and top, a 1800R curve and a subtle blue trim on the industrial-style stand- this massive 43.4-inch WLED monitor feels like it belongs somewhere in a film.
Leaving out any extravagant RGB lighting effects, the Lenovo Legion Y44W-10 instead opted for a simpler approach, sticking to a classy plain black coating. The bottom bezel is slightly thicker than the top, giving space for the Legion logo and the six buttons to navigate the On-Screen Display settings. On the back is a silver, honeycomb design to keep it cool.
With a resolution of 3840x1200 and 32:10 aspect ratio, the Lenovo Legion Y44W-10 is effectively two 1920 x 1200 panels side by side, so you’ll need plenty of desk-space for it. The chunky V-shaped stand takes up a lot of space as well, but does allow you to tilt, swivel, and adjust the height without any problems. Because of the sheer size of it, it goes without saying there’s no pivot. In the box, Lenovo has included a pyramid-shaped Harmon Kardon certified speaker that connects to it via USB and is the only part of the Lenovo Legion Y44W-10 with illumination. In all honesty, the speaker wasn’t anything to shout about, it just took up space.
Setting it up did require two people, more to be cautious than anything else. It weighs over 13kg so taking the Lenovo Legion Y44W-10 out of the box and moving it from A to B took some careful management.
To hook up your PC or consoles to it, there’s one DisplayPort 1.4, two HDMI 2.0, two USB-C and four standard USB-A 3.0 for connecting up and charging peripherals.
Lenovo Legion Y44W-10 review: performance and features
Great for games like Elite Dangerous where you want the fullest view possible, the 144Hz refresh rate, 4ms response time, Vesa Display HDR400 and AMD FreeSync 2 make the action look smooth and blur-free. I didn’t really notice any lag using the Lenovo Legion Y44W-10, but there was some ghosting on the left and right extremes of the display.
The picture looks defined, with good colour reproduction and accurate contrast between light and dark areas. There’s no support for local dimming though, which would have been good for making blacks appear much deeper and darker. As you would expect from a VA screen, the viewing angles were great (178 degrees horizontally and vertically) giving you almost the same experience wherever you are sat in relation to it.
Falling down slightly in the finer details, text outside of games lacked sharpness and there wasn’t a way to adjust this in the OSD menu. You’ll also need to be playing games with the right aspect ratio to cope with the monitor as otherwise, you won’t be able to make the most of it. Instead, the game will display with thick black bars down the sides. Fortnite’s Arena Mode does this, for instance. Overall, this monitor doesn’t have the absolute best specs, but they’re hardly the worst either.
Lenovo Legion Y44W-10 review: verdict and price
Giving you a massive field of view, the Lenovo Legion Y44W-10 provides an incredibly immersive experience in some games. It is worth considering that some won’t have a big enough aspect ratio for it so won’t make use of the whole screen, so do double-check that your favourites will be supported before splashing out.
Despite the slightly blurry text, the size of the Lenovo Legion Y44W-10 translates well for content creation and home-working. Its 43.4 inches gives you the experience of two screens, without the gap in between - ideal if you need multiple windows open at once.
At the time of writing the Lenovo Legion Y44W-10 will set you back $1,199.99/£899.99 direct from the brand, so sits firmly on the pricey side of things. Realistically, most people won’t have the need or space for a monitor as big as this. But for those who do have the desk space for it, or are willing to make sacrifices, the Lenovo Legion Y44W-10 will be an excellent choice.
- Building a whole new set of gaming accessories? Check out the best gaming mouse, the best gaming headset, the best gaming keyboard, and the best gaming chair.
