Lenovo IdeaPad Y530 Review

by Kevin O’Brien

The IdeaPad Y530 is a multimedia notebook from Lenovo with surround speakers and subwoofer, HDMI out, touch-sensitive media controls, and a frameless display panel. With a wide range of multimedia features this notebook is aimed at dorm rooms or even acting as the media hub for a home theater system. Priced at $999, just how well does the Lenovo IdeaPad Y530 stand up against the competition in a pretty packed market segment?

Lenovo IdeaPad Y530 Specifications:

• Windows Vista Home Premium (SP1, 32-bit)
• Intel Core 2 Duo processor P7350 (2GHz, 3MB L2 Cache, 1066MHz FSB)
• 15.4″ WXGA Glossy Widescreen Display (1280 x 800)
• 2GB DDR2 System Memory (2 x 1GB, supports up to 4GB)
• NVIDIA GeForce 9300M with 256MB VRAM
• 250GB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive
• Dual Layer CD/DVD Recordable
• 1.3 megapixel integrated camera
• Sound: 4 speakers and 1 sub-woofer (Dolby Home Theater)
• Modem, 10/100 Ethernet, Intel 5100AGN
• Weight: 6.65 lb. including battery
• Dimensions: 14.2″ x 10.3″ x 1.2″-1.4″ (360mm x262mm x 29-36mm)
• Warranty: 1 year system and 1 year battery
• 6-cell 5200mAh 57Wh battery
• Retail Price as configured: $999

Build and Design

The IdeaPad Y530 has a very low-key design with an all-black shell similar to the ThinkPad notebooks. On closer inspection the black surface has a crosshatch pattern for mild styling and easy gripping. Inside the notebook the black exterior changes to a glossy black surface that surrounds the screen which blends with the touch sensitive media control bar. The palmrest and keyboard bezel is one solid piece of brushed metal, trimmed with black plastic. I really like the clean look and consistent color scheme which some notebook manufacturers sometime overlook.

Build quality is excellent with a very rugged feel for a consumer notebook. When closed the Y530 feels as sturdy as a hard cover book with very little flex in the screen cover under strong pressure. The body gives the notebook a great deal of support and the plastics used feel rugged enough to withstand regular day-to-day abuse without showing much for wear. The brushed metal palmrest surface is fairly rigid, even near the perforated holes that expose the main speakers. The only area that could see some mild improvement is the keyboard which shows some flex under heavy typing pressure.

The bottom of the notebook features easy access for upgrading system parts that include the RAM, wireless card, graphics card, processor, and hard drive. In our review unit the ram, processor, and wireless card all had small stickers placed over the screws or clips, but they did not appear to be security stickers.

Display

The WXGA panel on the Lenovo Y530 rates average with vibrant colors, evenly lit bright backlighting, and good contrast. Vertical viewing angles were typical with a narrow sweet spot where colors are accurate before distorting as you move the screen forward or back. Horizontal viewing angles were slightly better, although instead of distorting, the screen would just fade out and all you could see was the reflection coming off of the frameless screen.

While some could say this is a privacy feature, it was more of an annoyance if you were trying to show someone sitting next to you something on the screen with a bright light source (window, lamp) next to you. In brightly lit rooms you also get lots of things reflecting off of the screen, including your face as you sit in front of the notebook. Some people might get annoyed by the reflections while others might take that compromise for the seamless look of the front panel. It is best to check one all-glass panels out in person before you purchase a notebook that has it.

Keyboard and Touchpad

The keyboard is designed much like the style used on the ThinkPad series, with a few changes. The layout is more like a consumer notebook, with a single row of function keys, instead of the two rows found on the ThinkPad business notebooks. The keyboard was comfortable to type on with perfect key size and spacing. Each key had a slight metallic clicking sound with soft feedback when pressed. While it isn’t the loudest keyboard we have seen on a notebook it does rank up towards the top.

The touch sensitive media bar located above the keyboard gives quick access to media controls and with a press of a button switches to sound profile options to change the equalizer.

The Synaptics-based touchpad is very large, much bigger than those found on the ThinkPad series; and very comfortable to use. Sensitivity was good, accurately tracking your finger movement with little pressure on the surface. The semi-gloss touchpad surface was easy to move your finger across even when sweaty, while still providing a small amount of traction. The touchpad buttons gave excellent feedback when pressed, with a deep throw and soft click. This goes against the grain for consumer notebooks with most only using shallow feedback clicking buttons.

Performance

The performance of the Lenovo IdeaPad Y530 with an Intel Core 2 Duo P7350 processor and NVIDIA 9300M graphics card was slightly under multimedia oriented notebooks like the Gateway MC7803u which offered a better graphics card. For day to day use or enjoying high definition video content the Y530 performed quite well. For the average user, both machines performed at roughly the same speed for web browsing, watching movies, typing documents, and fast startups or shutdowns. Gaming is where the Y530 falls behind the competition, equipped with only a 9300M graphics card while others use a more powerful graphics card such as the ATI 3650. This could mean the difference between running some of the latest games with at moderate resolution or lowering the resolution and heavily tweaking the detail settings.

WPrimeis a benchmark similar to Super Pi in that it forces the processor to do intense mathematical calculations, but the difference is this application is multi-threaded and represents dual core processorsbetter. Lower numbers indicate better performance.

Notebook / CPUwPrime 32M timeLenovo IdeaPad Y530 (Core 2 Duo P7350 @ 2.0GHz)38.455sHP Pavilion dv4t(Core 2 Duo T9600 @ 2.8GHz)26.972sDell Studio 15(Core 2 Duo T5750 @ 2.0GHz)

41.246sHP Pavilion dv5z (Turion X2 Ultra ZM-80 @ 2.1GHz)

39.745s

Dell Vostro 1510(Core 2 Duo T5670 @ 1.8GHz) 51.875s Dell Inspiron 1525(Core 2 Duo T7250 @ 2.0GHz)43.569sDell XPS M1530(Core 2 Duo T7500 @ 2.2GHz)

37.485sHP Pavilion dv6500z (Turion 64 X2 TL-60 @ 2.0GHz)40.759sSony VAIO NR(Core 2 Duo T5250 @ 1.5GHz)58.233sToshiba Tecra A9 (Core 2 Duo T7500 @ 2.2GHz)38.343sToshiba Tecra M9 (Core 2 Duo T7500 @ 2.2GHz)37.299sHP Compaq 6910p (Core 2 Duo T7300 @ 2GHz)40.965sLenovo T61 (Core 2 Duo T7500 @ 2.2GHz)37.705sHP Pavilion dv6000z (Turion X2 TL-60 @ 2.0GHz)38.720s

PCMark05 measures overall notebook performance based on processor, hard drive, operating system, RAM, and graphics (higher scores are better):

NotebookPCMark05 ScoreLenovo IdeaPad Y530 (2.0GHz Intel P7350, Nvidia 9300M 256MB)4,844 PCMarksHP Pavilion dv4t(2.8GHz Intel T9600, Nvidia 9200M GS 256MB)5,463 PCMarksDell Studio 15(2.0GHz Intel T5750, Intel X3100)

3,998 PCMarks

HP Pavilion dv5z (2.1GHz Turion X2 Ultra ZM-80, ATI Radeon HD 3200)

3,994 PCMarks Dell Vostro 1510(1.8GHz Intel T5670, Intel X3100)3,568 PCMarksDell Inspiron 1525(2.0GHz Intel T7250, Intel X3100)4,149 PCMarksDell XPS M1530(2.20GHz Intel T7500, Nvidia 8600M GT 256MB)5,412 PCMarksDell Inspiron 1520(2.0GHz Intel T7300, NVIDIA 8600M GT)4,616 PCMarksSony VAIO NR(1.5GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T5250, Intel X3100) 3,283 PCMarks Lenovo T60 Widescreen (2.0GHz Intel T7200, ATI X1400 128MB)4,189 PCMarksHP dv6000t (2.16GHz Intel T7400, NVIDA GeForce Go 7400)4,234 PCMarks