Lenovo IdeaPad Y530 - A Review

3 Dec 2008



A review of Lenovo IdeaPad Y530 Review Notebook

Lenovo Y530 notebook is intended for people who want a decent multimedia experience. It has good a very good sound system with subwoofers and surround speakers. It is studded with HDMI connector and is a wonderful notebook if you watch a lot video on notebooks.

Let us take a look at some broad specification of this notebook

Specifications

* OS - Vista Home Premium
* Processor - Intel Core 2 Duo processor P7350 (2GHz, 3MB L2 Cache, 1066MHz FSB)
* Display - 15.4" WXGA Widescreen (1280 x 800)
* Memory - 2GB DDR2 System Memory (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
* Price : $999


Processor

The Ideapad Y530 has a the Intel Core 2 Duo 2 GHz processor P7350. At this speed, it is good enough for most of the normal works. If you are a programmer who need to compile a lot of software code, you would like to see processor with better performance, otherwise it is good for most normal uses


Memory

The base Ideapad Y530 comes with 2 GBytes of DDR2 memory. It can be extented to 4 G Bytes. The 2 GB memory is just good enough. However, if you keep many programs open simulataneously, you may need to upgrade it to at least 3 GByte.


Battery Life

Under normal surfing conditions, this notebook will last a over 3 hours and 15 minutes with screen brightness set to 60%. This is impresive with notebooks in this category using 6-cell Li Ion batteries.

Screen

Lenovo Y530 has a widescreen display. Widescreen display are targetted for the movie viewers where the effective area utilization is increaes to 100% while watching the movies. The 1280 x 800 native resolution is nice for most work, although it is short of the native 1080p resolution.

Audio and Speakers

The Ideapad Y530 notebook has front and rear speakers. It also has a subeoofer. The sound quality is reasonably good and you do not feel like having an amplifier and speaker system always. Speaker and sound system can be one of the compelling reasons to buy this notebook.

Ports

Lenovo Y530 has three USB ports, VGA, HDMI, LAN, Firewire, modem, headphone/mic, ExpressCard/54, and a 6-in-1 card reade. This is more than enough for most purposes. it does have a inbuit wireless and a wireless on off button on the front.





Pros

* Excellent speaker system
* Good battery life
* Has HDMI Connector1080p resolution and Blu Ray player


Cons

* It is expensive for budget consumers


Final Thought

This notebook is good if you want multimedia notebook with good sound system. If you just want to use it for your work you may get similar thing for couple of hundred of dollars less. Lenovo Y530 has street price close to $990. If you want to consider a relatively inexpensive notebook, you may consider Gateway T6330 with price tag under $500.