Lenovo IdeaPad Y560 Review

Post by Sharat | November 11, 2010 | Lenovo, Lenovo, Lenovo Computers, Lenovo Reviews, News, Reviews | Comment

Earlier this year computer manufacturing giant Lenovo launched the IdeaPad Y560, a premium 15-inch home entertainment laptop featuring JBL speakers and dual graphics mode. The model is packed to the hilt with the latest hardware features and offers fantastic performance for its asking price.

In terms of look and feel little has changed with the Lenovo IdeaPad Y560, which has the familiar dark brown coffee colour as its predecessors. The only substantial difference is with its screen lid which has a patterned smooth matte finish, designed to make it look classier. The model weighs 2.6 pounds with a standard six cell battery used for 15-inch laptops.

The Lenovo IdeaPad Y560 comes equipped with a 1.3 megapixel camera which is nestled on its 15-inch screen’s top bezel. The camera enables users to undertake video chats and the model comes bundled with YouCam software making capturing and uploading photos and video to YouTube and Flickr a cinch.

The IdeaPad Y560 comes equipped with a glossy LED backlit 15.6-inch display, which has a maximum resolution of 1366×768 pixels. The screen is well lit and offers good contrast and brightness levels, displaying both movies and text well indoors.

The IdeaPad Y560 features a slightly raised keyboard, with keys that are tightly packed, making typing an enjoyable experience. Typing for long periods of time is almost no problem, which provides great tactile feedback.The excellent touch pad is larger compared to other 15-inch laptops, supporting multiple gestures including pinch to zoom, and two finger scroll.

No other laptop in the PC World Top 5 mainstream laptop list can match the Lenovo IdeaPad Y560 configuration, which features:

Intel Core i5-520M 2.66-GHz processor — with Turbo Boost and Hyper Threading support

4GB of DDR3 RAM

500GB hard drive

ATI Radeon HD 5730 discrete graphics

1GB of RAM and onboard Intel GMA HD

Four USB ports

HDMI and eSATA ports

VGA-out and Gigabit Ethernet

Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n and Bluetooth 2.1 support.

8x DVD writer, card reader and ExpressCard slots

64-bit Windows 7 Home Premium operating system.

Lenovo has clearly thought out the placement of ports IdeaPad Y560, for example the Wi-Fi switch is placed on the front end of the laptop which is extremely useful. The volume control buttons have been placed on the right side of the laptops keyboard, and the touch-sensitive Lenovo SlideNav buttons above the keyboard — all things that are actually useful. OneKey Theater and SlideNav touch-sensitive buttons are placed above the keyboard.

Lenovo also provides a range of proprietary software for the IdeaPad Y560, for example DirectShare allows users to easily share data across multiple PC’s. The laptop also comes equipped with Intel WiDi supprt (wireless display), a feature which enables the user to stream video content directly from the laptop to the users televisions wirelessly.

The Lenovo IdeaPad Y560 home entertainment laptop is a great all purpose machine, with a great hardware configuration and providing good performance, including gaming, all for a reasonable price. All in all we highly recommend it.