News:

Willkommen im Notebookcheck.com Forum! Hier können sie über alle unsere Artikel und allgemein über Notebook relevante Dinge disuktieren. Viel Spass!

Main Menu

Review Lenovo IdeaPad Y500 Notebook

Started by Redaktion, January 23, 2013, 06:59:48

Previous topic - Next topic

Redaktion

Surprise candidate. Lenovo again ventures into the highly competitive gaming sector with the IdeaPad Y500. The UltraBay technology enables the 15 incher to be equipped with an optical drive, a second GPU, an auxiliary fan or another hard disk. A thrilling concept that lets the laptop stick out from the competition. We exhaustively tested the SLI alternative.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Lenovo-IdeaPad-Y500-Notebook.87585.0.html

Drone

finally! a y500 review! it's like having a gtx 670mx notebook for $1200. *drool

PaulAnthony

Heya, I would like notebookcheck to review the Lenovo Ideapad Y400 with the 2 GT 650s and see whether a config like that would benefit a 14.1' display at 1366 by 768 like the way the Asus G46 did with the GTX 660. That laptop I guess would be the main rival to Lenovo's Y400/500.

Overall, I like the idea of using that Optical Bay caddy for another GPU. Really, nobody uses a Disk Drive anymore and you can always buy one USB powered one for cheap anyway.

cobalt9

There is a known serious problem with the touchpad (beyond just being annoying).  Just go on to the Lenovo forums and read up.  I had to return mine.  Maybe the next batch will be better.  Overall the laptop is very good considering the price.   But the touchpad is killing it.

Daz

Anyone know where you can buy it with this config in the uk?

Artwork

Good piece of hardware. Forget the touchpad issues, they're history. And the keyboard is perfectly fine. Critics.

Jesper

Y500 impressions

My Specs:
i5 2,5 GHz model with 8 Gb of RAM.
DVD module in ultrabay.
500 Gb HD (without the small 16 Gb SSD
swapdrive)
Synaptics touchpad (!)

Pros:
-----------------------
* Good screen - Bright and nice colours,
not sure how close to RGB, but as an
enthusiast photographer I have no
complaints. Contrast 500:1 according to
Lenovo. Not very glary.
* Power adapter - has what seems like a
non-flimsy and solid, thick connecter. I
think it'll stand the distance.
* Red keyboard backlighting - 2 values,
shortcut key on hardware level (works
even when booting)
* Powerful CPU and graphics.
* Ultrabay can be fitted with optional
extra GPU (SLI mode), fan, HD or
BluRay.
* Very low noise levels - although when
on battery and "power saver preset" it
sometimes spins up and down erratically.
For comparison the MacBook Retina is
considerably louder under load.
* Heat levels seems reasonably
controlled. Using Speedfan I measured
temps of CPU+GPU cores of no higher
levels than 75 degrees celsius during high
load. No excess heat around handrest
areas.
* Connectivity just works. USB ports,
HDMI, audio jacks (metal)
* Windows 8 (WITH the Classic Start
Menu addon) is a breeze working with.
So far the best Windows experience ever
for me. So fast and responsive.

Neither good or bad:
-----------------------
* Speakers are fine enough, although they
don't handle a lot of deep frequencies.

Cons:
-----------------------
* Update: Keyboard has started acting up
(when I wrote this sentence, it just wrote
"acwegwegkwæe" and then stopped
responding for 2-3 seconds)
* Tried updating to newest Nvidia drivers
- and lost the ability to adjust brightness
with Fn+up/down keys. Come on, this
shouldn't be nessecary.
* Intel 4000 Graphics hidden or not
working. I don't see why, it should be on
the chipset. WiDi also does not seem to
be working. EDIT: Best guess, is that this
is due to the SLI possibility in the laptop.
* Touchpad (mine is Synaptics) - flimsy
buttons, seems like it's a bit loose, very
plasticky feeling. Two-finger scroll works
fine enough. NOTE: I have the Synaptics,
but the Y500 model is also shipped with
Elan touchpads that are prone to failure!
Make sure to get Synaptics.
* Screen has a lot of flex at the top, you
can twist it from side to side around 1 cm
in depth, although it's hard to say
whether it will last or not.
* Preinstalled Windows 8 Recovery
partitions. I don't like it, frankly. Please
give me a USB media with everything on
it, so I can partition my goddamn
harddrive as I wish. If you resize a
partition, you risk losing an OS installer
that you paid for.
* Ultrabay DVD-drive seems VERY flimsy.
I wouldn't want to change it around too
often.
* Chassis of laptop prone to smudges
and finger marks. Easily cleaned off
though.

VERDICT:
There's a lot to like (screen, GFX, CPU,
noise levels, heat levels etc.), but in all
honesty, I don't really trust this laptop.
As recently added, the keyboard has
started acting up. What will be next?

Ayesha

Very Deep review thanks!! What I did not like, only seen manual and U tube stuff yet !! is the fact that for a multimedia machine there are no dedicated multimedia keys- soft-like z560-one key theatre,or fullkeys AT ALL. No dedicated MUTE key ! one has to use the fn and volume down key to lower volume. Very strange, did they forget or what ????

Lance


paulx

i have bought the i5 version.
really like to see some sli benchmarks on that.
i'm really happy that it can go sli.
but i have to wait till end of this month when it goes on sale in stores or at lenovo itself.

paulx

what i also like to know ( before i open it ) can i put in a ssd without removing the hdd?
so i can have a ssd in it for speed and a hdd in it for storage.

systemBuilder

Quote from: paulx on March 05, 2013, 17:22:14
i have bought the i5 version.  I'd really like to see some sli benchmarks on that.

In a recent desktop benchmark on YouTube (sorry, forgot the name), a 2-cpu gaming rig and a 4-cpu gaming rig were compared, all with state-of-the-art equipment (best NVidia card, best CPUs, etc.)  Also, 1-cpu mode was tested, too.  There was no discernable difference between 2x and 4x.  In fact, in blind tests, the player generally thought the 2-cpu rig was faster.  Most games can take advantage of 2 cpus, but few of them can take good advantage of 4 cpus.  So if your 2-cpu Y500 has the same L2 cache first, and similar Mhz - which is only of secondary importance, 2-cpus and 4-cpus should not matter, except for very unusual and rare applications, like mpeg encoding.  It should not matter for gaming.

xudis

why is the graphics and gaming graphics score for windows experience index 6.5. Even without SLI GT650M GDDR5 gives more than 7.0 for other laptops like inspiron 17R

Denis

I had the laptop for 1 month now and it's pretty good: fast but still light, has great looks and red keyboard light, does not get hot even if you have it on the lap, battery holds up to 3,5-4,5 hours depending on what are you doing, I even start to like windows 8 and its integration. BUUUT the touchpad is killing me. WHAT THE HELL??? how can you screw up the touchpad. usualy i work with mouse, but today I forgot it at home and its just impossible to work wihtout it!! had compaq cq60 before and never encountered such a difficulty  using touchpad!!

Rasmus

I've had it for 2 months now. All I can say is, that it outperforms the charts given in this review by at least 10% (up to 20% in a few select). The touchpad is crap, and the way they designed it, causes dust and dirt to accumulate along the edges of the touchpad, however, I don't use the touchpad, so I couldn't care less. The screen bezel has a very plastic feel and could have been made better, but hardly something you notice unless you grab a hold of it and gently twist it. Overall, this is by far the strongest, most sleek, quality desktop replacement that you can get for your money (value-wise). I will readily recommend this laptop to anyone who might consider buying it - you will not regret. Also, the sound from those speakers... oh god... the sound. I have never seen a laptop play music this well!

Quick Reply

Warning: this topic has not been posted in for at least 120 days.
Unless you're sure you want to reply, please consider starting a new topic.

Name:
Email:
Verification:
Please leave this box empty:

Shortcuts: ALT+S post or ALT+P preview