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Home > Notebook Reviews > Lenovo IdeaPad Y580

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Lenovo IdeaPad Y580

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What's hot: Excellent list of high end features for a relatively low price. Great for gaming performance.

What's not: Visually boring, not particularly thin or light.

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Reviewed September 16, 2012 by , Editor in Chief (twitter: @lisagade)

The Lenovo IdeaPad Y580 is one of the best values among 15.6" multimedia and gaming notebooks. Though it's got as much style as grandpa's galoshes, the laptop is well made with quality internals that translate into quick performance and reliability. And the backlit AccuType keyboard? Superb. The 1080p display? Very good.

Lenovo IdeaPad Y580

The Y580 starts around $850, and all models have serious graphics power courtesy of switchable Intel HD 4000 and 2GB NVidia GeForce GTX660M graphics. That's the same GPU you'll find on more expensive gaming notebooks, and it certainly adds to the Y580's many charms. While the base model starts with an Ivy Bridge third generation Intel Core i5 CPU, our $1,200 configuration has the Intel Core i7-3610QM 2.3GHz quad core, 8 gigs of DDR3 RAM, a 1TB 5400 RPM hard drive (we'd opt for the faster but smaller 7200 RPM 500 gig selection and save $100) and a 32 gig SSD. It comes with the 1080p gloss display (the base model has a 1366 x 768 panel), a Blu-ray drive, a 720p webcam, Intel WiFi with WiDi and Bluetooth. The machine has a metal casing. Nice stuff.

Lenovo IdeaPad Y580

The Lenovo IdeaPad Y580 weighs 6.15 pounds and is 1.4 inches thick. Clearly, we're not in the high fashion slim portable arena with the more expensive HP Envy 15 and 15" MacBook Pro. But it's still reasonably portable while being powerful enough to act as your main machine no matter how demanding the task. The 6 cell, 72 Wh battery is good for 5 hours, which is remarkable for a machine with these specs (use Intel HD 4000 graphics and set your display brightness down to 40% to get better battery life).

Lenovo IdeaPad Y580

The stereo JBL speakers with Dolby Home Theater v4 audio deliver full and pleasing sound with plenty of volume. The display's viewing angles are IPS-like (Lenovo doesn't state if this is an IPS display but it certainly looks it). Text is sharp and colors are fairly rich. It's a great machine for watching streaming video and Blu-ray movies, and it's an excellent gamer. We'll have a separate gaming demo video so you can see the Y580 in action with some of today's top titles.

Lenovo IdeaPad Y580

The IdeaPad Y580 has an excellent backllit AccuType keyboard.

 

Lenovo IdeaPad Y580

Lenovo IdeaPad Y580

It's easy to access the internals should you wish to upgrade RAM, the hard drive or wireless card. The machine has two RAM slots. Unlike style-focused machines like the Envy 15, the battery is removable on the Y580.

 

Deals and Shopping:

 

Lenovo IdeaPad Y580 Video Review

 

Benchmarks

PCMark Vantage: 11,824

3DMark Vantage: 9882 (GPU 8755, CPU 16,106)

Windows Experience Index:

Processor: 7.6
RAM: 7.7
Graphics (for Aero): 7.1
Gaming Graphics: 7.1
HDD: 6.5

Benchmark Comparison Table

  Lenovo IdeaPad Y580 HP Envy 15 2nd gen Core i7, AMD 7690M Lenovo ThinkPad X230 Core i5, Intel HD4000 Dell XPS 15 Core i7, GT640M MacBook Pro with Retina Core i5, NVidia GT650M
PCMark Vantage 11,824 8247 8152 10,304 19,174
3DMark Vantage 9882 6216 3209 8731 10,656

 

Conclusion

Though it's not a high style product, the Lenovo IdeaPad Y580 is most definitely a performance machine that offers a great deal of performance and quality hardware for the money. From the good 1080p IPS display to the wicked performance in gaming and graphics/video editing apps, it's hard to go wrong with the Y580. It's got enough power to remain useful for several years, and we like the excellent keyboard and JBL speakers as well. Recommended.

website: www.lenovo.com

Price: Starting at $799, $1,099 as tested.

 

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Specs:

Display: 15.6", 1920 x 1080 gloss display with wide viewing angles (looks like IPS). Switchable Intel HD 4000 integrated graphics and NVidia GTX660M dedicated graphics with 2 gigs VRAM. HDMI and VGA ports.

Battery: 6 cell, 72 Wh Lithium Ion rechargeable.

Performance: 2.3 GHz 3rd gen Intel Ivy Bridge quad core i7-3610QM. 8 gigs DDR3 1600MHz RAM (two SODIMM slots). Available with other CPU options including a Core i5.

Drives: Blu-ray drive (also available with DVD burner) 1 TB 5400 RPM HDD (SATA II) with 32 gig SSD to speed boot and application load times.

Size: 15.1 x 10.0 x 1.40 inches. Weight: 6.17 pounds.

Camera: 720p webcam with mic.

Audio: Built in stereo JBL speakers, mic and 3.5mm standard stereo headphone jack.

Networking: Integrated WiFi 802.11b/g/n (Intel Centrino Advanced-N 2200) and 10/100 Ethernet. Bluetooth is optional.

Software: Windows 7 Home Premium (now Windows 8). McAfee, Onekey Rescue System, Onekey Theater, Poke Talk,PowerDVD (with DVD), Youcam (with camera),ooVoo, Adobe Reader, MS Office 2010 trial.

Expansion and Ports: Two USB 2.0 ports, two USB 3.0 ports, headphone jack, mic jack, S/PDIF, Ethernet, HDMI, VGA, 2 mini PCIe internal slots, SD card slot.

 

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