+ A generally well-built laptop made from the usual components (eg. LiteOn DVD Drive, Intel CPU, Hitachi HD).
+ The form-factor is nice no significant hard points under the unit when placed on the lap, smooth, rounded corners and general shape holds well in the hand and carry case.
+ 8GB is sufficient for Win7/8 and running a VMWare Player emulator running Win7/8 with VS2012 for W8/WP8 development simultaneously.
750GB HD is also sufficient for installing mutliple OSs and VMs.
+ Fast access to sound volume using touch panel buttons. But none for screen brightness.
+ LCD Screen panel does flip open to about 140 degrees or so. About 5-10 degrees more than typical screens, so you get just a little bit more open angle on the lap.
+ A 'decent, quiet fan' when the CPU is taxed at 100% for hours. Definitely far quieter than a MacBook Pro 2006 fan, which sounds like a jet plane. You can run this at night or at school and not bother too many nearby. (The noisy keyboard model that ship with some Z580s will however, so pickup a Z580 with a quieter keyboard.)
Muted and non-annoying in general. Air coming out is never HOT, just warm. Bottom and top of laptop never gets hot either, so very good cooling design. (Unlike Macbook Pro 2006 where you can toast yourself with the CPU running at 100%.)
+ Nice, free technical repair manual on Lenovo's website. You can easily find out how to swap out the DVD, RAM, HDD, keyboard, and even CPU for better, faster ones. Nice to know that when i7 quad-core CPUs drop in price, can swap out the i5 for an i7 later on.
+ Decent number of USB ports. Wish all were USB 3.0 but two 3.0 and two 2.0 are sufficient. Decent placement of ports as well.
+ Easy one-panel bottom access to remove RAM, HDD, DVD, keyboard, etc. for upgrades and swaps.
+ Slim, light AC adapter.
+ Battery runs about 3-5 hours, depending on use.
Naturally, bechmarks online in various reviews provide additional detail.
+ i5 is decently fast for almost all uses in Win7/8. Snappy and quick response launching apps, compiling, etc. QuickSync feature is nice can convert 2hr movie down to H.264 MP4 in about 10-15 minutes using MediaEspresso, etc. QuickSync enabled apps.
No problem running two H.264 QuickSync or a single Handbreak encode while surfing and watching HDTV using a Hauppauge WinTV. Doesn't feel sluggish at all doing all that.
+ HDD isn't a 7200rpm model, but silent all the time. You can upgrade to SSD anytime for faster performance, but works fine for daily use at the price point.
Glossy screen. Doesn't have a superior anti-glare coating like the $2k Sony laptops, and is typical of what you can find in most $300-$600 laptops nowadays. You can apply a Photodon matte screen protector on top to significantly reduce the glare, recommended....but, the bezel is glossy and you'll get annoying reflections off the bezel even with the matte screen protector applied! Silly Lenovo designers.
Contrast is a bit limited, along with color gamut and viewing angles the usual notebook reviews online provide detailed specs to examine. Typical of the the $300-600 range TN TFT panel quality nothing spectacular, nothing amazing. Just average.
Some units come with a noisier, harder to type keyboard instead of the softer, quieter keyboard. You should check, if possible, prior to buying, but it's nearly impossible without opening the box. Almost all the latest do come with the softer, quieter keyboards, but you'll be annoyed by the click-clack of the noisier, older keyboard.
The speakers suck. Sound like tin cans. With the Dolby software turned on, it's acceptable sound quality improves to the point where you can watch TV (using a Happauge WinTV USB Adapter) and listen to the sound without too much annoyance, but external speakers/better speakers on another laptop prefered if you're after great sounding laptop speakers. With the Dolby turned on, the sound level can get quite loud and you can fill a living room easily.
The One-Touch theater buttons really don't do much except crush blacks and increase contrast while turning the Dolby sound software to movie mode. Not very useful at all wish they'd simply replace that touch button with brightness buttons instead for fast access.
The screen coloration is a touch too blue (cold color temperature) by default. You can adjust this by using a hardware color calibrator (eg. Spyder4) or eyeballing it using the Photodisc SRGB color test target + Windows Color Calibration. Once that's done, you can adjust the Intel Display Settings to adjust the Saturation up by a few points since the panel is merely a TN TFT panel. Here, after the grays were neutralized win Windows COlor Calibration, the Saturation was increased by +5 in the Intel panel.
Even after this, don't expect miracles from these kinds of laptop TN TFT panels. You should look into the higher end IPS TFT panels on the Y580 and other laptops if you need better color rendition and gamut.
Software updates are not fast. Intel already has graphic drives verions ahead, but Lenovo only has those from 2012 still.
SIGNIFICANT touchpad issues. TEST BEFORE YOU BUY!!
The touchpad has sensitivity issues. If you have Palm Check and Touch Sensitivity at the minimum, you'll get a very responsive touchpad, but many, many mistaken touches while typing. If you turn them up to minimize such, you will ALWAYS experience a
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