Customer Reviews

Lenovo G550 15.6-Inch Laptop (Black)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I'm a presentation technology specialist and I use laptops everyday for presentations and normally I would never buy a computer that costs less than $1200. Anything less than that and you're asking for performance problems on all fronts; processor, RAM, graphics and hard drive.

First things first, this computer only cost $549 dollars or less.

This computer is not a workhorse by any means and is ugly as only a mother could love.
That being said, this is what can you expect.

Flimsy plastic body construction? Check.
The plastic looks and feels as cheap as what you paid for. Think of a low end DVD player that you can pick up at Walmart for $30 dollars. This computer does flex on the bottom but as long as you don't handle it like the "American Tourister Gorilla" you'll be fine. It does have a raised texture pattern on the surface to help you grip it better. The screen does not have a latch to secure it but that is not detrimental to me. One reviewer commented that the DVD drive popped open a couple of times because of the flexing of the case and I would refute that claim and suggest that it happens when a thumb or finger presses the eject button, inadvertently, as has happened to me.

Intel shared video performance? Check. Poor lcd viewing angles? Check.
The Intel chipset can use as much as a Gb of RAM to help with graphics. Mine is currently using 57Mb. This screen is great for direct viewing only. As for off viewing angles, I often laugh when people complain about this. How often do you view your work on a laptop from any position other than directly in front of the screen. I have been using it to watch DVD and Streaming movies on Netflix with no performance problems. I also use Corel Draw 13 and Corel Painter 10 and it runs those programs equally fine. It also runs TrialDirector, a special presentation software, surprisingly well for non-dedicated video graphics. I won't be running Maya or Max or any highend 3-D apps or games on it so there is no expectation to be crushed on that point.

Windows XP Professional loaded? Check. Windows 7 Professional 32 bit on disk? Check.
Netbooks primarily ship with Windows 7 Starter and that version is severely diminished in functionality. I highly recommend setting this computer to dual boot keeping both operating systems intact. You can always reformat later.

Large 15.6 inch screen? Check. Fullsize keyboard with numeric pad? Check.
I bought this as opposed to a netbook because of the screen. My eyesight is pretty bad and I prefer having a larger screen.
The keyboard is fullsize and typing in numbers on the numeric key pad is a plus for me. The only flaw I find on the keyboard is the placement of the Function key. It is located on the outside of the left hand side Control key which is counter-intuitive to the better quality laptops I'm using.

This Lenovo is considered their "value line" series so don't buy this and expect alot and you will most likely be pleased with the performance.

I'm a low end user. Checking email, some wordprocessing, watching DVD's, downloading music and films... you get the idea.
First, this is an ugly machine, but I've come to love it. When I first pulled it out of the box it looked so cheap I was checking my invoice to see if it could be returned. Over the near three months I've had it, it has really grown on me.
A reviewer stated that it's flimsy plastic. Hey buddy, I got news for you they're ALL plastic in this range, and this isn't flimsy at all. It does NOT flex when you pick it up like those faux, slick looking metallic ones that are magnets for fingerprints. And the raised texture surface pattern means no fingerprints. I've come to appreciate the ingenuity of this baby. It's like the people at Lenovo decided to do away with any pretenses of being attractive and focused on building a rock solid laptop, at a great price (I got mine at newegg for $400).
Being it's this basic, hardworking machine there are no frills. No DVI, no lighted keyboard, no fingerprint ID, no operational shortcut buttons for DVD/music playing. It's black, it has an on button (cheap looking), lights to tell you it's running and if you have the CAPS LOCK on. Surprisingly it has a webcam???
So if you're looking for a reasonably priced laptop for school or travel, you can't go wrong with this. It's fast and I work with multiple windows from multiple programs open and there's never a problem.

I'm just a casual user, so I wanted a cheap laptop that works faster than the one I bought 5 years ago. For under $500, I got a laptop that works and works pretty well.
Pros -
Has a number pad if you need to input data.
Shiny!
Windows 7 instead of Vista.
More RAM and hard drive space than my older computers combined.
~4 hours of battery life.
3 USB ports

Cons -
Shiny, but screen can reflect a little too much sometimes so it's hard to see at certain angles.
Keyboard has a tendency to double letters or drop letters sometimes. Never had this problem on my old laptop (Dell Inspiron 6000), and I just checked to make sure I have the newest drivers.
Mouse pad can be unresponsive sometimes, which annoys me to no end. Also not a problem I had on the old laptop.
Facial recognition program tells me to take my glasses off before I use it. How stupid does that sound to someone who is blind as a bat and NEEDS those glasses? (Only a minor con as I don't really care about the security. My friend has a laptop with a fingerprint scanner, which is more fun, but infinitely stupid unless you wear gloves when you handle your computer.)

Over the course of my college years, I have access to a few laptops, including this lenovo G550. It has very solid construction quality and runs very fast for normal use (e.g. office and web). It's quiet, looks cool, and has a nice screen. I would recommend this to any one who wants a solid laptop without paying an arm and a leg.

I have this notebook for about 6 months. All I can say is that for the price, it's well worth it. It's powerful for almost any common tasks, including running some nice games, watching hd movies, and coding. The keyboard is comfortable, and the battery is not bad at all. All in all, I am quite happy.

This computer has a better operating system at [...]. At newegg you get windows xp/windows 7 pro upgrade. To install windows 7 pro correctly though you have to start it up and boot it in the dvd drive not the hard drive, or you will not have a vaild copy of windows 7 pro. Other than that it has plus 3gb ddr3, 250 hard drive, and the new generation of dual-core processors intel pentium T4300. here is the link [...]

You get your moneys worth with this thing. I've had it for two years and everything is fine. It has a few weird little things like I can't change the hibernation time (no, I'm not new, when I go into properties that area is greyed out). But overall it has been great. I use it everyday, carry it all over the place and the thing has held up like a champ. Basically, its not the flashiest thing out there but it more than gets the job done (job being surfing the net, streaming movies, downloading stuff and some word processing). More than worth the money.

Lenovo has HORRIBLE customer service and does not provide information to make the fixes, changes yourself that other companies provide. It seems like a scam to me to not provide the info and then charge for it....I have had a lot of problems with this PC and when I finally decided to reformat the drive in a desperate attempt to restore the system neither the Lenovo recovery system (a one touch button that would bring back the system to its factory settings)or the recovery disk worked when I followed Lenovo's instructions. Since my one year warranty has expired Lenovo refused to help without a significant charge and their documentation that should of helped me was either non-existent or missing very important steps. I was able to look online for others who had had similar problems and found solutions.

I've had this laptop for almost a year now, and it has performed beautifully: reliable, fast, sturdy.

I am also delighted to find out that it is certified "EPEAT Silver" which means that it meets very high environmental standards for minimal use of toxic components (cadmium, lead, mercury), easy end-of-life handling, energy efficiency, etc. EPEAT environmental standards were developed in 2006 by the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) and are now integrated into the Amazon website. I'm psyched that this laptop has been well-designed to reduce impact on the environment.

This laptop is perfect for anybody, i lived in DR and the laptop pass the test of the summer in my country so that's a very good sign of how good is this laptop, the performance using Ubuntu is amazing generate less hot. Besides the laptop comes with Windows 7 professional not like some people said that was Windows vista or XP the recovery disk is 7 and when you installed the system save an area for recovery and that is recognized by Grub as Windows Vista.