Customer Reviews

Lenovo Ideapad Y560 0646-2EU 15.6-Inch Laptop (Black)

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

 

 

Let me start off by saying that this is a very fast computer. I7 makes it a blaze and with 4 gigs of ram it holds its on on any advanced program or game. The videocard in it is more than enough to run Modern Warfare 2 at some high settings and it'll run most things without a hitch. It is relatively slim as a desktop replacement laptop. I categorize it as a desktop replacement for a few reasons I'll explain later on. Now, other things that it does well - size and weight are great for all of the power that you get. The build is pretty solid, although I could go for a studier base.. it'll give you a little flex if you pick it up from the corner.

Now the cons:

The battery life is very short, but what can you expect while running a quad core and a dedicated graphics card.

Mobility wise you can pack it up and bring it around with you but with very little juice and time on the go you better bring along a power cord. Also, the size makes it so that it'll fit into a backpack but you are going to feel this thing when you are taking it around with you. I came from a 13'' macbook pro that I thought was fantastic for mobility and for battery life but it lacked on the speed realm.

The screen.. come on, this should be at least a 1680x1080 screen. There's no reason for it to be 13XX by 7XX. The screen itself is decent, it's nothing terrible but it is not on par with MBP's screens.

The track pad is a little too grippy for my tastes, and you'll have to drag your finger around with some force to get it going.

The track pad placement is not the best, as I hit it constantly with the bottom of my palm while I am typing on the keyboard. It could be / should be placed a little differently... I didn't have much trouble typing with the MPB again but with this I am getting my cursor pushed around and put into the middle of my sentences causing me to go back and fix them.

Now for the ugly:

This computer Blue screen of deathed on a regular basis and hard locked when doing too much video and audio at the same time. I looked into this is great detail on Lenovo's forums and I have fixed it somewhat. I got rid of the original bloatware installation of Windows 7 and found a regular version to install. After that I updated all of the drivers as best I could, and then I updated the BIOS as well. I sometimes still get some hard locks, although very rarely now. Also, I get the "BIG POINTER" problem that sometimes shows up for other users of this particular laptop. So with that said I had some serious functionality problems getting this laptop to run correctly for me. I had ubuntu on it for a time and it ran without a hitch, but why are we going to be putting ubuntu on a $1000 semi gaming computer? Doesn't add up for me at least.


Would I recommend it?

I think its a great computer when it works. I think if you know what you are getting into you are going to get a deal. I think that if it worked constantly I wouldn't have a reason not to recommend it. If I didn't have the functionality issues with it I'd tell people that the screen is a little weak but it's a hell of a deal with all that horsepower in it. Think of it as a dragster that has weak brakes.. super fast, but not the most functional for day to day driving.

I would not recommend it only because I would have gone with a ThinkPad not an "Ideapad" This is obviously a cheaper and less reliable solution to a ThinkPad and it is more geared towards your gamer crowd than your business crowd. If I could do it again I would go ThinkPad without a second thought. Who needs I7 in a computer that's only going to run an hour - hour and a half without a power cable? Get this computer as a desktop replacement that's more affordable and smaller than a $2000 alienware.

If you want mobility and more functionality, go with a ThinkPad or equivalent.

If you do your research you'll quickly find some seriously angry Y560 owners out there, and I was one of them. To quickly get to the point, you have to download every driver update available, including bios. Otherwise you'll barely be able to watch a youtube video. NO JOKE.
The Lenovo support site is completely barebones, and although it does have a'smart downloader' which will scan your system and figure out which drivers to download and replace, it only seems to work for a handful of people (and I wasn't one of them).
This review is a huge heads up for you. No one told me anything and Lenovo is just another company who's support personnel are really just paid whipping boys, put their to accept our abuse without doing anything to help.
Since all of the updates (including win 7 sp1) things have been good, and honestly if I hadn't had to spend so much time being frustrated I would have rated it higher. But I will be putting it through it's paces soon using photoshop and editing video, and if it crashes or freezes more than one time, it's going back. I refuse to treat my machine with kid gloves.

I just bought, on special from Lenovo, a Lenovo Ideapad Y560 with an Intel® Core(tm) i7-740QM Processor ( 1.73GHz 1333MHz 6MB ) and a 500 gb (5400 rpm)/35gb SSD. Otherwise, the specs are the same. I have to say that this laptop is AWESOME. I have used macs and just couldn't get myself to buy my own without feeling completely ripped off with the hardware provided. This laptop is, so far, the answer I have been looking for. My main need from a laptop is to run ProTools with the Mbox 2 Pro interface (I bought the SIIG 2 port, 6 pin, firewire 400 expresscard to make it compatible.) It runs flawlessly and so far I have had incredible results from my setup. I can't express how glad I am that I didn't waste my money buying a name (MAC) and instead bought, for the same price, hardware that is much superior and is just as compatible with my recording interface. The only cons I have are the battery life and the amount of bloatware included. As far as the battery life goes, I didn't expect more than 3 hours, but I get around 2. It's a little dissapointing, but honestly running Pro Tools works best with it plugged in anyway. Secondly, there is a lot of bloatware included, but if you are computer savvy it is very easy to remove it all. Just search google for Lenovo's bloatware and you'll get good guides to what is removable and what might be useful for you.

Overall, this is a fantastic laptop and I haven't even gone into some of the other features that rock. If you come across it at a decent price GET IT. Unfortunately I can't comment on this specific model, but, at the time of this review, the model I purchased is available at the Lenovo website. Do yourself a favor and don't pay big bucks for a mac when, with a little effort, you can get a much better machine at a much better price.

I have to write this for the music heads who look for a good laptop to use.
I have the 7200rpm 8gb DDR 1333 15.6" version of this laptop.

I was making a decision between saving up an extra $2.5k to buy a mac or buying this. (NO this is not a review advocating one over the other). I am very glad I bought this at this point in time.

has on it:
4 Usb (3x 2.0 and 1 combo sata)
PCI card slot (Smaller)
Audio jack
Mic Jack

I am a keyboardist by nature and a Guitarist 2nd. I use this computer with Windows 7 loaded with Komplete 7 through Ableton Live 8 to play Live high quality massive (GB size) sounds in a few different bands with a decent size Midi gear setup running through guitar rig Kontrol. I also run Reaper and will be running Cubase 5 in the near future.

I felt like i was taking a gamble, but all the specs were right so i ordered it still speculating as to whether it would do and was incredibly pleased when it arrived and worked out so well to my benefit. I had researched laptops for months and then ran across the deal and just went for it)

For Audio uses, Windows needs a lot of work and tweaking to be set up just right. I spent a lot of time working on that and finally have a good blend of everything thanks to many forums and youtube videos.

PRO:
This laptop is fast...as everyone else has said...just fast.
This laptop has great performance and power for the price range. I found a deal off of Slick Deals to get it for $900 back in January.

The Fan is Quiet and turns on when doing bigger processing jobs. I will be buying a laptop fan to put under it (probably the biggest one I can find)

This laptop is a great mix for people who need older things mixed with up to date things like outdated firewire cards. (I used a Firewire PCI card found here on amazon for $30) and had no problems connecting and setting it up....but i did my research with the whole ricohet driver issue versus TI needs.

CON:
Yes the battery only lasts 3 hours using the lighter processing and much less (like an hour and 1/2) on full speed). You want Processing power? It needs POWER.

Other people complain about the touch pad......it's very sleek and nice..if you press hard its not easy to drag..it's meant for a light touch (but aren't all touchpads?. Fingerprint nutty for sure. I have no issues with it though.

There is a lot of bloatware as also previously stated but it is very easy to go through and remove it all.
Screen isn't 1080p....oh wah, it's not a big deal.

OVERALL:
All in all, the specs are there on the page. There is no use crying about what it doesn't have. The only thing NOT listed is the PCI card slot that I was so relieved to find out existed on the side and it works wonderfully.

The laptop is a monster when configured right. From my understanding, the bloatware wasn't that bad. Everything looks nice. Everything functions well. It's a great piece of gear to have.

I want to make this review more in depth but i haven't the time right now to type anymore.

This is a great laptop. I've hat it for the better part of a year now and it was a great bargain. The processor is fast, the memory, well I want more memory... Fortunately it's cheap. =)

My main problem with it is that the screen is a laptop screen. It's only a 1366 x 768 screen. These days laptops really should be 1080 high. But even with that issue, I would still buy another one of these laptops.

Aloha,


I bought my Lenovo Y560 to have a portable office. I love my first lenovo.

PROS:
Is fast, does all my programs well plus no problem video editing etc. Is light, very Slim, has good sound, mic works great, love the bright LCD lid screen, is quit even when it gets alot to do. The way they build the bottom keeps the lenovo runnung cool even in midday Hawaiian summer. Love the Keyboard, feels very good, fun typing. Also have no problem with the track pad whatsoever.

Running it with its blowware, haven't got a chance to redo thinks... so much work... And even with it's bloware it runns fast.

CONS:
Since is very glossy, collects oily spots easily, had to update Bios and Graphic card so that i would not have a black screen after sleep-mode, comes with a lot of bloat-ware, and the super extra sidebar, well I dont use it because is not very intutiv easy to use, you have to wrap you mind around your finger to get it right. Nice Idea but somehow misses the smoothness. but since no other Laptop has that anyway I just dont miss anything. The webcam could be better kind. not good when light is little dim. Screenresoution could be higher, but I use seconded Screen anyway for big projects, like programming....

Got this machine for my daughter who was ready to go off to college in Aug 2010. We had little time to do much tweaking before she left other than strip out the Lenovo bloat. It was fast and seemed to be just the ticket. Then she started mentioning an infamous "big pointer" issue and more frequent BSOD. After two semesters of college, two of the flimsy keys are missing and there are two one-pixel vertical lines running down the left side of the monitor. These are present in the same place whether you flip the screen using the graphics card settings, fiddle with the resolution, etc. I'm going to check with a Linux live CD just in case but fear the monitor is shot. This was a machine that sat at a desk and was not carried around campus. I've updated the video driver and bios to no avail, the Lenovo updater settings did *not* work for me. In the meantime, we have two MacBook Pros (2009, 2010) that feel much more robust and with an easy (but unnecessary) path to get repairs. I'm not impressed and this is my first and last Lenovo.

This is an excellent laptop for the price. It has a top-shelf i7 processor and a higher-end discrete graphics card capable of running most modern games at high detail settings.

One caveat to mention is that the retail version of this comes with a slower (5400RPM) hard drive and slower (1066MHz) RAM compared to the identical laptop ordered direct from Lenovo. (7200RPM and 1333MHz RAM.) My unit has the faster hard drive and RAM.

Regardless, these specifications are simply not to be found anywhere near the price point of this machine. I do some moderately intensive tasks and this thing has handled everything I've thrown at it so far. I've also done some gaming on it and found that it's been outstanding.

If you search reviews on the Internet for this machine you will find a number of common gripes. One is the "huge mouse cursor" problem. I have experienced this twice. What happens is that your mouse cursor doubles in size for no apparent reason. It's definitely a pain and will go away randomly or with a reboot. (You can also work around the problem by changing the mouse properties to set the cursor to have "tails" and then set the tail length to the shortest possible setting. - This causes the cursor to revert to normal size but with a very slight trailing tail effect as you move it across the screen.) Some reviewers have suggested that this is a Lenovo problem specific to this particular laptop. This is untrue. It is a known bug for ATI video cards under Windows 7 and can be found in laptops from various manufacturers. I applied a graphics driver update from Lenovo in September 2010 and so far have not encountered the bug, so it may be resolved as of this date.

Another common gripe is that the 1366x768 LCD is sub-par. This is true. However, the statement from another reviewer that the LCD "should be" 1080p misses one crucial point. Namely, that this laptop is priced at or slightly under $1k. To hit that low price point, Lenovo obviously chose to make some compromises and one compromise was to go with a 768p display instead of 1080p. In the real world, 768p is fine, particularly when you are talking about a 15 inch display. I've watched a couple of movies on the laptop and the picture is excellent. If you really have your heart set on a 1080p display, then you simply need to be prepared to spend significantly more money than you will spend for this laptop.

Bottom line: This is currently (September 2010) clearly the best choice for a budget conscious consumer looking for a laptop that combines portability (it's less than 6 lbs,) gaming power, processing power, and a price at or slightly under $1k.

As of about two weeks ago, I have owned this laptop for one year.

With a Core i7 Quad, 8GB of RAM, and a 7200 RPM hard drive, this thing is pretty speedy. It runs flawlessly and I have yet to experience any of the issues put forth by the other reviewers. The screen isn't as sharp as that of, say, a Sony Vaio, but it looks way better than a Macbook Pro's. The build quality leaves a lot to be desired but every component works very well (excellent trackpad, great keyboard, good speakers). The only major flaw with this device is its absolutely horrible battery. On average I get between an hour and two hours with minimal use.
Overall I would recommend it as a portable desktop replacement. Plenty of power with performance to back it up, but just barely portable.

To begin it is important to note that this is the only laptop at a price less than $ 1K that offers a Core i7 with an ATI video card 57XXX. If you want a laptop for work but also allows you some gaming experience, this is the most appropriate for the price.

It's not as pretty or well build like an HP or Sony but the price difference justifies this detail. I personally highly recommend.

If you update your video drivers to the latest version should haven't problems mentioned in other reviews.