The latest Lenovo IdeaPad Y560 and Y460 laptops are indeed spruced up in terms of performance, thanks to the hardware. Let’s see if the Lenovo Y560 delivers as expected.
Design
The Ideapad Y560 is quite distinguished as a multimedia desktop replacement. Apart from its 15-inch form factor and 2.7 kg weight, its rugged chassis and solid lid confirm that it’s a machine meant to be kept at home for watching movies and enjoying music. It’s not that you can’t carry it around, but you really don’t want to lug it every day!
The coffee brown and black theme looks pretty cool on the machine, and the light bronze rim adds to the aesthetics. The lid is mostly matte with a glossy pattern partly covering the lid. The wrist rest is of a darker tint, but it’s all-glossy, which makes finger prints and stains unavoidable. Overall, the laptop has something quite funky about it, but in a very subtle way.
Build quality one of the strongest points in this laptop. This IdeaPad is quite a rugged thing to handle. Even in terms of ergonomics, there’s nothing to complain about — the large textured touchpad and the chrome mouse buttons are pretty convenient to use. Thankfully, the mouse clicks are not at all audible. The keyboard is good to type on, with well-sized keys. The one thing you might see as a hindrance is that the function key is at the bottom-left in the place of the Ctrl key.
Build quality one of the strongest points in this laptop. This IdeaPad is quite a rugged thing to handle. Even in terms of ergonomics, there’s nothing to complain about — the large textured touchpad and the chrome mouse buttons are pretty convenient to use. Thankfully, the mouse clicks are not at all audible. The keyboard is good to type on, with well-sized keys. The one thing you might see as a hindrance is that the function key is at the bottom-left in the place of the Ctrl key.
Features
The overall functionality, core hardware and affordability are commendable. While the laptop is designed for movies and music, you can even play games at medium resolutions and settings. This is an ideal machine for home users.
To watch cable TV, you have to connect the bundled dongle to the TV socket on the right-hand side. Built around an Intel HM55 chipset, this multimedia powerhouse runs off an Intel Core i5-430M CPU, which is clocked at 2.27 GHz with 3 MB L3 cache. It has 4 GB DDR3 RAM (max 8 GB), a 500 GB hard drive and the discrete graphics is courtesy an ATI Radeon HD 5730. This is one area, where this laptop evidently has an upper hand over other laptops that feature the Radeon HD 5145 or the Radeon HD 5470.
Cost factor
The entry-level Y560 costs around Rs 46,340 and it is powered by an Intel Core i3-350M. It has 4 GB RAM, a 500 GB hard drive and the same GPU as this machine. The main difference is the CPU. So if you want the same gaming and multimedia experience and don’t need much processing power, then the entry-level Y560 should do.
Performance
We watched a couple of movie clips and the playback was stutter-free. What impressed us even more was sound. This laptop is quite powerful, not only in terms of multimedia, but even when confronting demanding applications. The powerful Core i5 CPU, along with 4 GB RAM, is enough to handle filters in photo editing. Even video and audio editing should be a breeze.
Verdict
If you’re looking for a good multimedia experience, go with the Lenovo Ideapad.