The Legion Y740 has an angular, modern-looking design. The display hinge is set in front of a rear thermal block that helps keep the rest of the laptop thin. Aesthetically, it's on the more tasteful side of gaming-laptop designs, perhaps bordering on too plain for some. But I favor restraint above an over-the-top look any day.

The entire chassis is silver and black, with a smooth finish on the lid and a Legion logo running along the side. It avoids the gaudy, unattractive lid logo that plagues many gaming laptops.

The display itself is a 15.6-inch full HD IPS panel, but that's not all it has going for it. As is becoming increasingly common, the screen also supports a 144Hz refresh rate and Nvidia's G-Sync, two high-end features that essentially make games look smoother in action.

I have no real complaints about the build quality of the keyboard or touchpad. If I were to nitpick: The keys have a somewhat mushy feel when fully depressed, and the touchpad is on the small side, but they're more than serviceable on the whole.

As with the 17-inch version, most of the ports are located around back, on the thermal block. Among them are two USB 3.1 ports, an HDMI port, a mini DisplayPort connection, an Ethernet jack, and the power connection. The right flank of the laptop holds another USB 3.1 port, and the left has a USB Type-C port with Thunderbolt 3 and a headset jack.

The port icons on the rear block face upward, which is useful on its own, and their backlighting makes finding the right connection even easier.

Since most of the laptop's ports are on the strip on the back, the left only holds a headset jack and a USB Type-C port with Thunderbolt 3.

You'll find even fewer on this side, which is home to just one USB 3.1 port.