Posted by vertigo
- December 26, 2020, 19:17:55
TL;DR - I'm a power user and even I find this computer to be perfectly sufficient for a short-term, and it would even work in the long-term, though obviously far from ideal and not able to do everything I needed, if I absolutely needed a computer and could only afford a cheap one. Yes, you could probably buy a used one that's better at a similar cost, and if you can and don't mind doing so, then by all means go that route. But if you'd prefer not to, whether because you want a warranty (not that Lenovo is likely going to be much, if any, help should a warranty issue arise with this) or you just don't want a used computer, or want to gift it and don't want to give somebody a used gift, this is an excellent option, especially for the price. And if you're buying a used computer, you have to consider the possibility of the person you're buying it from installing a rootkit on it, which could even survive a format and reinstall of Windows. Unlikely, yes, but something to consider nonetheless, especially if you're planning on doing banking and other important things on it. And before anyone responds that Lenovo could install, and has even been caught installing, a rootkit themselves, they're not likely going to use it to empty your bank accounts, whereas the person you bought that used laptop from off of ebay/Craigslist just might. So if you buy a used laptop, you may want to factor in the cost of a new drive.
I have to agree with the others. As much as I hate Lenovo, and as much of a joke as this laptop is spec-wise compared to anything I've used for the past decade plus, I have to say it's actually fairly impressive for its price. I bought it the other day as a cheap, temporary computer to use after my Surface very abruptly died, until I get something better, and while it's humorous how low-end it is, it's working quite well. I can't remember the last time I used a laptop that had < 1080p, < 8GB RAM, < 256GB drive, yet this is all of those. And I don't think I've ever used a low-end CPU such as a Celeron, Pentium (after they switched to the "i" chips), etc. I'm a power user, and I'm demanding of my computers, and always use high-end parts when building my desktops or order high-spec'd laptops. I refuse to even buy a laptop anymore (for normal use, obviously this one is different, since I was just going for cheap and something to use for a few weeks) that doesn't either come with at least 16GB of memory or isn't upgradeable to that, and my desktop has 64GB. Yet, this thing, while not something I'd want to, or even be able to, use long-term, is proving to be sufficient for even me for the short-term, and as such would be more than enough for anybody looking for a cheap laptop.
The CPU, while not much, is actually pretty comparable to the one in my SP3 (i-5 or i-7, don't remember which). While that's pretty sad, considering the ~6 year difference (further proof of Intel's stagnation over the past decade, and yes, I realize it's an i-chip compared to a Pentium Silver, but I would expect the Pentium to be better nonetheless given the time difference), it means that, more or less, whatever I could do on that I can do on this. I haven't been using them exactly the same, since I don't have everything set up on this one, nor am I going to bother doing so since I'm only going to be using it for a short time, but what I've noticed is that the CPU on the Surface seemed to always be in heavy use, spending a lot of time above 50% and even above 70%, the Pentium in this laptop does better in general, often being between 20 and 50-60%, though that may not be a totally fair comparison, since on my Surface I'd have Waterfox open with dozens, if not a couple hundred, tabs, and I only have about 10 or so open on this typically so far. And the Pentium seems to spike up to 100% more easily/often, but I've noticed that even then things still run fairly smoothly, with just some lag in opening programs from time to time, whereas the Surface CPU would choke and things would slow to a crawl, even when it wasn't at 100%.
I think a lot of that is the difference in drives, since the Surface had an mSATA drive and this has an NVMe one, which is a much better performer despite being a relatively low-end NVMe drive. I certainly wouldn't recommend getting this, or any, laptop with an eMMC drive, since the tiny difference in price is going to make a disproportionately large difference in performance. I've found that Windows really bogs down when the drive is overworked, which is why I'll only use NVMe drives now, due to their high IOPs. I suspect the problem with the Surface is that I'd run low on RAM, which would result in paging, and it would tax the mSATA drive and cause everything to slow. I haven't experienced that at all (yet) on this laptop, though, again, that may change if I were to load 100+ tabs in the browser. But, again, anyone looking at this isn't going to do that.
To provide some further comparisons, I've performed various other tests to assess the capabilities of this laptop. First, in the store, I closed everything but Edge and loaded dozens of tabs for various sites, including ones I always have trouble with (i.e. poorly optimized resource hogs), e.g. Facebook, Amazon, Best Buy, and opened 10+ tabs all loading Amazon on top of that. I did that on four computers: this one, one running an i3, one running a Ryzen 3 (3xxx-series), and one running an i5. The i5 was the clear winner, by a landslide, but the other three were all pretty comparable, and this one actually seemed to do better than the other two, as strange as that is. It wasn't a perfect test, since the store's internet was pretty crappy, but it was enough to show me that, despite having a low-end processor, this laptop held its own and then some. I've also been using it fairly extensively over the past couple days, installing software and performing various tasks, and it's been much more responsive and faster than my Surface, even with several tabs open in the browser compared to the Surface not even having the browser open. Again, likely due to the different drive more than anything, but impressive. I ran a test on the drive with CDM, and while I didn't do multiple tests or note the numbers, since anyone looking to buy this isn't going to be that concerned about it, I can say the performance was respectable. I've also run a handful of games to test its capabilities there, and have been further impressed. Obviously, older games will run perfectly (Chip's Challenge, Space Quest), but even somewhat newer and more demanding ones run fine (Race The Sun). I even tried Borderlands 1, and while I wouldn't recommend anyone play it on this laptop, it could be done. Loading times were pretty slow, taking roughly half a minute to switch between zones, but actually moving around, interacting with things, and even fighting was smooth enough that you could do it in a pinch, though you might die a lot since it's not great. I used my SP3 a couple times to log into a second account and use a character as an inventory mule, and it was a painful experience, since loading times were excruciatingly long and, once loaded, the game was extremely choppy. So this laptop actually performs significantly better, though it's impossible to say how much of that is due to running at 1366x768 vs 2160x1440 so, again, not a fair comparison, but I'm just trying to show what it's capable of and what its limitations are.
So that covers the performance of the laptop which, once more, is perfectly adequate for the target audience and would even work for someone that is a bit more demanding but wants something really cheap. Even with as much as I do on my computers, if I needed to get a new laptop but didn't have much money, this would suffice for me, so I'd have no hesitation recommending it to most people. Next, I'll discuss the other aspects of the computer.
As the review mentioned, the keyboard is pretty good. There are better ones and there are worse ones, but keyboard is very important to me and, aside from a few nuisances, this one would be more than adequate, though I'd obviously prefer a Thinkpad keyboard, and particularly the Trackpoint. The things I don't like about it are:
> the power button location - twice so far I've pressed it instead of delete, putting the computer to sleep accidentally, though at least it wakes quickly, and I've been being careful about it, and the situation would be easily improved by at least requiring a long-press to activate it or putting a "wall" around it to make it harder to accidentally press
> the cramped arrow keys - I will always point this out as a negative, and OEMs really need to quit with this stupid design, and I keep pressing the Shift key instead of the up arrow key
> no dedicated Home/End/PgUp/PgDn keys - another one I'll always count as a negative, as these are keys I use all the time, especially the first two, and having them both in an unusual location and, more importantly, requiring them to be used in combination with the Fn key to make them work, which is even more problematic when you're using them with the Shift key, therefore requiring a three-key combo, makes them much harder to use and slows me down a lot
> no backlight - I realize this is a cheap laptop, and costs have to be cut, so I don't fault them for it, but I can't imagine it makes that much difference in the cost of making the laptop, whereas the payoff in usability is tremendous, so this is another case, like with the drive, where the benefit far outweighs the difference in price and it's hard to justify not including it, even if that means raising the price $20, especially since the lack of a backlight makes the above issues far more problematic than they would be if there was one
> no Fn-lock key - this can be done via Lenovo Vantage (more on that later), but it would be nice to be able to do it quickly on the fly, and wouldn't take much at all to add that ability, so while it's not a big deal at all, it's still worth mentioning and something that makes me wonder why they didn't bother with it
> no fingerprint scanner - again, not something I'd expect on a laptop this cheap, so not really a negative, but worth mentioning, though you could use Windows Hello (if this supports it, which I'm guessing it would, but I've disabled the camera) or a PIN, so not a huge deal
The reason I've disabled the webcam brings me to another negative with this computer, which is the lack of a camera shutter. I highly doubt the addition of such a feature adds much to the cost of a computer, whereas the presence one is increasingly important these days, and this is another thing I consider mandatory and will always criticize a computer for not having. Then, under the camera, is the display, which the review rightly points out is not very good. It's low-resolution with either really high backlight bleed or contrast set way too high, so you can forget about deep blacks. Maybe there's a way to tweak it to make it better, but I'm not going to bother figuring it out since I only plan to use it for a few weeks, but it really looks miserable. Even if it could play graphical games well enough that I'd do so, and even if the low resolution didn't bother me when doing so, I wouldn't want to simply because everything looks washed out. But for web browsing, email, office work, etc, it's good enough.
As for power and battery, I have to point out the fact they used a right-angle plug for the power adapter (where it plugs into the computer). Since it doesn't stick out as much, it doesn't get in the way as much and it's less likely to be damaged, or damage the port. It's a small thing, but I feel it's important to mention things like that, since they can make a real difference and it's nice to see some thought being put into things. The battery life isn't great, especially considering the CPU and small amount of RAM, but you can probably expect 8-10 hours on a full charge. I got just shy of 9 hours on the first full charge, and this morning I've been off the charger for ~3-3.5 hours and have been web browsing and spent probably about 10 minutes playing Borderlands and at least an hour with Space Quest running, as well several other programs running in the background, with the display brightness just under half, and the battery has gone down a little over 30%. I don't consider anything less than 10 hours to be good, and I prefer 12 hours or more, so this is average, but, as the review points out, it's impressive considering the small battery, and it'll likely be enough for most people. If they'd just made the battery even 40Wh, it probably would regularly get 12-14 hours but, again, they have to cut costs somewhere, and it's sufficient.
Finally, there's the Lenovo Vantage software. For those unfamiliar with Lenovo software, which is likely going to be many people that would buy such a cheap computer (i.e. basic users), it's considered by many to be useful and worth keeping, and it's one of very few "bloatware" apps included. It serves functions that are useful and either would need various other software to replicate or may not be able to be replicated at all without it, such as providing a better battery gauge on the taskbar (though it could still be much better), allowing you to toggle conservation mode (only charge to 60% to preserve battery life) and rapid-charge, turning the mic and function lock on and off, and updating drivers. The main problem I and others have with it is that it's adware, which is a form of malware. It's upsetting that you spend money on a computer, even a cheap one, only to have the OEM forcing ads onto it. There are two options (aside from not supporting Lenovo for doing this, but I suspect they're not alone, and most OEMs load a bunch of garbage on their installs, which is essentially the same thing): disable ads in the Vantage options, or uninstall Vantage and install Commercial Vantage.
And if you've read this far but skipped the TL;DR part at the beginning, you should give that a look for why you may want to consider this over a similarly priced and perhaps better performing used laptop, or at least something to consider if you do decide to go the used route.
Deutsch
English
Español
Français
Italiano
Nederlands
Polski
Português
Русский
Türkçe
Svenska
Chinese
Magyar