Gaming on a budget used to be difficult back in the day. It often meant that you’d get bottom-of-the-barrel systems and peripherals, but not anymore. The Lenovo Legion R25-30f is one such example, offering good color accuracy and brightness with a 240Hz refresh rate for under $200. The 27-inch gaming monitor is easy to set up and looks good, despite its low price.

The budget gaming monitor also offers AMD FreeSync Premium technology to help ensure buttery smooth image rendering. And if 240Hz isn’t enough, you can boost the refresh rate to 280Hz with a quick visit to the monitor’s menu. There are a few wrinkles to consider, like a small number of ports and the lack of Nvidia G-Sync. But if those are minor issues, you should snap up the Legion R25 -30f now.

Price, availability, and specs

A steal of a deal

Currently, there’s only one configuration of the Lenovo Legion R25-30f monitor available. It costs $180 at Lenovo or $162 at Newegg for a 24.5-inch monitor with 1920 x 1080 resolution, a 16:9 aspect ratio, a 240Hz response rate, a 0.5-millisecond response time, and a 178-degree viewing angle.

Design

A premium-looking design despite the price

Is it the flashiest monitor I’ve ever seen? No, far from it. But the Legion R25-30f isn't boring. The base of the LTPS (Lift, Tilt, Pivot, Swivel) stand, made of a silverish plastic, gives the monitor an industrial look that looks cool. As with most Lenovo products, there’s a silver metal tag placed prominently showing off the product’s pedigree. On the R25, it’s on a bar nestled right between the base’s feet.

The sides of the base’s neck are a solid dark gray while the middle has a silver hexagonal pattern etched into black plastic, creating a honeycomb design. A large blue opening toward the bottom of the neck lets you run whatever cables you want to connect through it for a measure of cable management. The base connects to the back of the base with screws. From unboxing to finish, it only took me about 10 minutes to get the R25 up and running.

Once connected, the LTPS stand offers a tilt angle range of -5 to 22 degrees along with a +30 to -30 degree swivel angle. There’s also a 135mm lift range with a -90 to 90-degree pivot range. However, if you don’t want to use the pedestal, the monitor can be VESA mounted.

As for the monitor itself, the borders surrounding the display and the back are made of a black matte plastic. Buttons for accessing the menu, Game Modes and Mirror Switch are on the right side of the panel, along with the power button.

It’s not as much as pricier models, but the R25 does offer a fair share of connectivity. The monitor has two HDMI ports, a DisplayPort, an audio out jack, and the power input port at the bottom of the display, along with a pair of integrated 3W speakers. A Kensington cable lock slot, so some sticky-fingered thief can’t up and vanish with your shiny new monitor. However, I wouldn’t mind some USB-A and USB-C ports to round out the port portfolio.

Without the pedestal, the R25 monitor weighs 7.9 pounds and measures 1.99 x 12.96 x 21.94 inches. That jumps to 12.1 pounds, 10.19 x 19.65 x 21.94 inches with the stand attached.

Display and gaming

Easy on the eyes

The price should be a dead giveaway that the R25 isn’t built for 4K gaming. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t have plenty of fun in 1080p. The colors on the 27.5-inch monitor are rich and pretty accurate. And to my surprise and absolute delight, the blacks are pretty deep. When I whipped out my trusty colorimeter, I saw that the panel had decent color accuracy as it reached 99% of the sRGB gamut and 89% for Adobe sRGB. The DCI-P3 gamut reached 92% while the NTSC gamut hit 85%. And when I measured the screen brightness, I saw a result of 375 nits, which isn’t too shabby considering the price point.

I used the Lenovo Legion Tower 5i, with the R25. Whether I was reading or writing an article on the matte panel, I appreciated how defined the text looked. When I watched a few episodes of Castlevania: Nocturne, the colors had vibrancy, but they couldn’t match the vibrancy of the Dell UltraSharp 40 Curved Thunderbolt Hub Monitor. But I didn’t expect it to as the UltraSharp 40 is about 10 times the price of the Legion R25.

But while reading web pages and watching movies is fine, you want to know how the R25 handles gaming. And I can tell you that you’ll get more than your money’s worth. Whether it was Forza Horizon 5 or Black Myth: Wukong, the games looked great. The photo-realistic sheen on the cars glowed under a setting sun and I could see all the details of my carbon-fiber steering wheel. And when I died for the umpteenth time in Wukong, I looked good doing it. I saw every particle of my body as it converted to light particles on my way to resurrection.

No matter what game I played, I got a silky smooth picture thanks in part to the onboard AMD FreeSync Premium technology and the 240Hz refresh rate. But if you want an even smoother picture, the R25 has an overclock mode of sorts that boosts the refresh rate from 240 to 280Hz that can be enabled in the monitor’s Gaming mode menu. Unfortunately, the display doesn’t support Nvidia G-Sync, but again, certain sacrifices have been made to hit a particular price point.

Should you buy the Lenovo Legion R25-30f?

You should buy the Lenovo Legion R25-30f if:

• You don’t want to spend more than $200 on a gaming monitor.
• You want a gaming monitor with AMD FreeSync Premium technology.
• You want a gaming monitor with a high refresh rate.

You shouldn’t buy the Lenovo Legion R25-30f if:

• You want a 4K gaming monitor.
• You want a gaming monitor with Nvidia G-Sync.
• You want a gaming monitor with more ports.

For its price, the Lenovo Legion R25-30f is a steal. You get a monitor with a pretty accurate color gamut and solid brightness. Even though it’s not a super high-res panel, the R25 still delivers vibrant color, smooth image rendering, and crisp detail. Setup is super quick and the menu is really easy to navigate. Plus, you’re getting AMD’s FreeSync Premium software and a 240Hz refresh rate that can be bumped up to 280Hz at the touch of a button. And at such a relatively low price, you could have a three-monitor set-up for a little under $600, which, depending on the monitor, could be the cost of just one.

There are a few caveats to consider, however, such as a small offering of ports and the lack of Nvidia G-Sync. And of course, if you have your heart dead set on gaming above 1080p, this simply isn’t the monitor for you. But if you’re looking for an inexpensive monitor with good color, detail, and refresh rate, you’ll be hard-pressed to find better than the Lenovo Legion R25-30f.