I bought a new laptop a few months ago. I spent many prior months thinking about this decision, reading about manufacturers, researching hardware components, and deciding on a price.
Prior to my purchase, I had figured out a few things:
I wanted an i7 processor from Intel, hyperthreaded to 8 cores.
At least 4GB RAM preinstalled, which I would upgrade to 8GB if necessarily.
At least a 500GB Hard Drive.
A good graphics card (I don’t really play games, but I like to be able to)
A 64-bit processor
15.4″ screen, no larger than 16″, no smaller than 14.5″
A price under $800
I used quite a few sites to look for laptops and created many search queries to search specifically for what I wanted. I found that there were about three dedicated graphics cards being used in the systems I was looking at, and decided on the nVidia GeForce GT 555M, the fastest of the series available that I could find for my price. Once I figured that, it came down to three laptops.
I chose the Lenovo based on the price, that I found a refurbished one for less, the number pad, and (I was vain here) the look. It also came with an Intel HD Graphics 3000 integrated card that I can switch to by flipping a switch on the front to save power, this has been very handy.
So far, I absolutely love my Lenovo! The Ideapad series had a lot of great reviews from other people. The Y570 that I own was slightly customized, it was a refurbished machine (from the manufacturer) and came with 8GB of RAM and a 7200RPM hard drive (and not 5200RPM).
I get great battery life. With the graphics card on, it gets about 2.5 hours, and switched to Intel graphics, it gets about 3-3.5 hours. Battery life wasn’t a priority feature for me, but I’ve found that since I have a laptop that I can just unplug and take with me, I use the battery a lot more often.
I like the keyboard of this laptop. It did not occur to me that it had the “weird” keys that newer laptops have. I feel that the typing is surprisingly crisp and I can type as fast or faster than a regular keyboard. I do caution against the number pad — the numbers are closer together on the numberpad than the standard keyboard. I can’t key numbers as fast as I can on an ordinary keyboard, but I still enjoy having it. The mousepad is also fine as well, but I’ve found that it has worn in the spot where I use it the most surprisingly fast. The first textured layer is wearing, but the under-layer has kept intact.
The i7 second generation processor really gets things done. I never dreamed I would own a computer that would show eight cores in the task manager’s resources tab, but now I do. Of course, this processor is really 4 cores hyperthreaded.
8GB of RAM has done a lot of good as well. I seldom close programs that I frequently use anymore. On my old laptop which had 2GB of RAM, I had to be more conservative with leaving programs open, now it is no longer a problem.
The 500GB hard drive is doing a lot of good for me. My previous laptop had a 120GB hard drive which was always mostly full. I am using about 50% of my 500GB and have maintained that amount since shortly after I got my Lenovo. Previously, I would keep large ISO files on a server elsewhere and now I no longer have to do that.
The speakers of this laptop are great, they are JBL brand. The webcam works fine, but I don’t have a lot of use for it. The laptop also came with an internal microphone – I don’t use this often, but it is handy to have.
I don’t have any devices that use USB3.0, but it is nice to know that it is there for the future. The USB ports are on both the left and right sides of the laptop. The left side has a eSATA/USB3 combination port to save space and one regular USB port, the right hand side has two side-by-side. The headphone and microphone inputs are on the front left side, much more accessible than my previous laptop which had them on the back right side. The laptop also has HDMI and VGA capabilities and a ethernet adapter port.
I am not a gamer, but the nVidia GeForce GT 555M card is sure nice to have. I occasionally play The Sims 3. On my Lenovo, I have all the graphics settings maxed out. I could not manage this with my previous laptop which had an nVidia Go 7200m. The 555M has 1GB of DDR5 RAM, and shares an additional 3GB with the system. The 555M also has a 2GB version available, but not for this series of the Ideapad.
As I mentioned before, there is a switch on the front of the laptop to turn the dedicated graphics to off (“low power mode”) and switch to the integrated Intel HD 3000 graphics as the default graphics card. At first, I thought this was more of a gimmick, but I do see that it makes a difference in power consumption. I think this is a great feature to have.
I feel that the overall construction of the laptop is very sturdy. I don’t feel like it is going to break. All of the plastic parts feel like they were assembled really well and are hard. The look of the laptop is great as well, the back of the screen lid is textured, the edge of the screen has an orange band that goes all around the screen lid. The interior of the laptop surrounding the keyboard is a light lavender-gray which I find very visually appealing, while the edge of the screen is a black border. The keyboard indicators and special feature buttons (volume, mute, video mode, fan mode) glow a lavender as well, and the power button glows a LED-white color. These are nice as well, many laptops that I have used have indicators that are too bright. These are great, visible in day and night without being harsh.
I didn’t keep the default operating system, which was Windows 7 Home Premium. Instead, I installed my own copy of Windows 7 Professional. This did mean that I had to find drivers on the Lenovo website. The search for drivers wasn’t too bad, but I didn’t find their site all that easy to use.
Overall, I am really happy with the quality of my Lenovo.
