Amazon.com: Lenovo IdeaPad Y500 15.6-Inch Laptop (Metal - Dusk Black): Computers & Accessories

Customer reviews

Top customer reviews

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

April 3, 2013

Verified Purchase

I wanted so so much to love this computer. Its specs are unbelievable for the price, and the ultrabay and backlit keyboard are major bonuses. It has a great array of ports (side note: the product description says it's got 2xUSB2.0 and 2xUSB3.0 - this is incorrect. It has only one USB2.0 port on the right side), and the screen is simply beautiful.

I knew ahead of time that the trackpad and the keyboard might leave something to be desired, but I was not prepared for the degree to which this affected my ability to use the computer. The trackpad is just...straight up aggravating. There is a clear lack of spit and polish with the user friendliness of the keyboard/trackpad.

Let's take the trackpad -
Good:
*Nice texture
*Synaptics, so at least theoretically a good piece of hardware
*Two finger scroll
Bad:
*This is a circular problem. There is no physical button - you have to push down the trackpad; if you want to *click* the trackpad, you have to put just a few more pounds of pressure down on it than seems reasonable, and the computer seems to agree, as doing this appears to actually depress the entire pad into the body of the laptop by a few mm and sometimes make a disconcerting creaky noise; since you don't want to have to try to click the pad, you want to tap it, and here is where software fights you right and left for control of the computer. Granted I have my mouse sensitivity set very high, but it has been really frustrating to tap or double tap on things and find that for whatever reason the mouse has moved in some direction during that action. Unavoidably, there will be times where you HAVE to click and hold something while you drag it around or resize a window or something, and this is next impossible without turning on the click lock feature buried in the mouse settings, which you will then have to flip on and off every time you plug in a mouse, which you will DEFINITELY be doing because it's the only way to make mouse interface with this computer in any way a pleasant experience. It's enough to make me say that it's a shame this computer didn't come with a touchscreen so I could just avoid the trackpad for clicking things, which should say something.
*Even the fastest tracking speed seems a little sluggish to me. This may be a Windows problem and not a Synaptics problem, but I thought I'd mention it.
*Major smudgefest. Doesn't bother me all that much, but it sure doesn't do much to preserve the sleek look of the machine.

Now the keyboard-
Good:
*Backlighting is GREAT. I LOVE having a backlit keyboard, and having a couple brightness options is pretty handy too.
*Good solid keyboard. It feels great to type on. Not mushy or wiggly. For a laptop, I think this is a totally acceptable keyboard.
*Number pad! Hooray!
Bad:
*I don't know who the hell patented what that causes Windows PC's to hide all their most helpful function buttons BEHIND the function keys, but it's stupidly frustrating. Basic things like brightness, volume, keyboard backlight, and all the fun little additions lenovo gives you for quick access to search functions or program switching or whatever - they're all spread out in, I guess, contextual places on the keyboard. That's great except /why aren't they on TOP of the function keeeeeeyyys/?! Who uses those flim flammin keys so frequently that they take precedent over these basic, extremely important things? Why do I need two hands to turn down the volume. Also,
*WHY IS THERE NO MUTE KEY?
*The right shift is fun sized. Since my last keyboard lost it's left shift to someone spilling water on it, this is very hard for me to work with. Not a deal breaker, but again, a needless minor annoyance.

Maybe all these things are significant to me because while I am a gamer, I am also a person who likes to browse the internet and get other stuff done, and these sorts of basic UI problems significantly impede my enjoyment of this computer. Basically, I *need* a computer for all sorts of communication reasons, and these sorts of things can be done very easily and very well by a huge variety of computers. I have a 2006 Macbook Pro that fills my computer *needs* really well. It sends emails and skypes and clicks the stuff I intend it to click and even scrolls down in the direction that feels natural to me, which is all I ask of any computer. I also have computer *wants* - i.e. I *want* a computer that I can play Skyrim, and Tribes:Ascend, and Starcraft 2 on, and I presently have a Y500 that yawns in the face of these challenges. I was really hoping that it would cover my *needs* as well, but it falls flat on its face in that department, so I can't really justify the combined 15 or so lbs of computer it now takes to cover all my bases here can I? And which do you think is still under a return policy? *Sigh*

EDIT: I forgot to mention, that I had a few technical problems with the SLI cards. I installed and played enough games from my Steam and Humble Bundle accounts to fill up about 65% of the hdd, which, since it's a terabyte, I believe is impressive. Several of the games had some very strange, very quirky problems that are hard to describe. Weird stuff like not scaling text properly at some resolutions, or not behaving normally unless run in a windowed mode. Some games refused to work at all, and one even refused to explain itself - it simply closed without comment every time I tried to run it. I also had some graphical issues outside of games, specifically while using Chrome. At least two dozen times during the month I owned this computer, the screen would randomly black out, then pop back on at full brightness (not awesome in a dark bedroom watching TV) reporting that the graphics card had crashed and had been recovered, followed by Chrome locking up and needing to be force closed and reopened. These are all likely driver related issues that Nvidia will likely (hopefully) hammer out in the future, but it's worth knowing if you're thinking of buying this computer.

12 people found this helpful

Helpful

Comment

Joseph

Touchpad not giving me issues

June 5, 2013

Verified Purchase

*Note that I just received this yesterday and I will go back to edit on*
I tested the pixels and audio right when it came and saw no issues. It sounds amazing.

the screen is crystal clear. I am not used to such a nice screen as my other laptop is a Sony Vaio with an i5 processor. I cannot recall what screen resolution that it had.
I really wanted to test the touchpad because I have not yet purchased a wireless mouse, but I honestly did not have any issues.
A lot of people have been complaining about the lack of a mute button, but you can still lower the sound by pressing fn + left cursor. Sure it does not mute it, but if you hold it the volume goes down pretty fast.

Pros:
Screen resolution is great
Fast boot time
Speakers work great
I love the ability to light up the keys with either dim or full

Cons:
It seems that there is a lot of space between the touchpad and the keyboard, but you get used to it fast
Windows 8 related issues that I am getting used to, but this has no reflect on the laptop

----------
Will update when I have used it more heavily

----------

So I have been using this laptop for about a week now and the touchpad is still working good. Sure sometimes it does jump a bit, but I have yet to use a perfect touchpad. It is common for a touchpad to jump if your palm is touching it too. It has been a 4/5 for me.

Regarding the dual graphics cards - I have not had much experience with them both on at the same time. I am going to think about adding another HD or ultrabay fan to get use out of it and insert the other graphics card when I play a game of high quality.

I had some early driver issues when plugged into HDMI and it would cut out then come back, but that has been fixed since updating the drivers

Overall I am still happy with this purchase and all of my friends are in aw of it when it is near

Helpful

Comment

Decoratin4Fun!

Very Nice, Good Value

July 2, 2013

Verified Purchase

EDIT: I have to adjust this review because this laptop died on me after a year and a half. I won't be going back to Lenovo.

I mainly bought this laptop because of the specs for the money. For some reason the entire laptop market right now is priced around 1k-1.5k with the main differences being branding and smallness. Coming off a Gateway gaming laptop from a few years ago, I was pleasantly surprised by how small and light the Y500 is. The built quality is very nice. PC makers have learned a thing or two from Apple since I was last in the market. Some other pluses are that it also runs very quietly during normal usage (though I'm sure that will change over time), and it has beefy speakers. I've had a couple issues with video drivers and audio drivers for headphones so far, but they've pretty much fixed themselves. For gaming performance I've been able to run The Witcher 2 on ultra settings at 720p quite smoothly, with power set on "high performance." 1080p ran, but chugged. The frame rate was probably in the low 20s or something.

Helpful

Comment

Amazon Customer

Amazing Laptop for the price

April 29, 2014

Verified Purchase

This is a phenomenal laptop. I've been using this for almost a year now with no serious issues. There are 3 things worth mentioning. 1. This is a powerhouse laptop which means it really needs to have an outlet near by. 2. The trackpad is complete and utter garbage, knew that this may be the case as others mentioned it and oh were they right. It's so bad that I carry a usb mouse around with it. 3. You can swap out the 16gb hdd with a 256gb hdd and boot from that partition and then use the 1tb hdd as storage.

This is a super fast laptop, especially if you swap out the hdd's. I'm constantly impressed with how fast it is.Just remember that you are going to need an outlet near by and that the trackpad is garbage. Overall a great laptop for the price.

Helpful

Comment

Image Unavailable

Lenovo IdeaPad Y500 15.6-Inch Laptop (Metal - Dusk Black)

There is a newer model of this item:

Customers also shopped for

Have a question?

Product description

Product Description

Amazon.com

Product information

Technical Details

Additional Information

Warranty & Support

Feedback

Laptop buying guide

Lenovo IdeaPad Y500

Laptop buying guide

Lenovo IdeaPad Y500

Customer reviews

Read reviews that mention

Top customer reviews

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Customer images

Most recent customer reviews

Sorry, there was a problem.

Sorry, there was a problem.

Lenovo IdeaPad Y500 15.6-Inch Laptop (Metal - Dusk Black)

There is a newer model of this item:

Customers also shopped for

Have a question?

Product description

Product Description

Amazon.com

Product information

Technical Details

Additional Information

Warranty & Support

Feedback

Related Video Shorts

Customer reviews

Read reviews that mention

Top customer reviews

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Customer images

Most recent customer reviews