Lenovo IdeaPad Y580 20994CU 15.6-Inch Laptop (Dawn Gray)

****UPDATE***** I found out why this computer takes a while to connect to the internet. Apparently the Mcafee anti-virus program trial is the culprit. After the trial ended, I immediately uninstalled it and installed the free Avast program and this computer connects to the internet quickly. Shame on Mcafee.

This lenovo y580 is one of the entry models of the y580 series. This one does not have 1080p, blue ray, or a solid state drive. With that said, I knew that before buying this laptop. I don't own blue ray movies and don't care much for 1080p screen so I went for this laptop anyway. This laptop is amazing for the price. I paid $799.99 for it and for a laptop with one of the latest high end i7 ivy bridge processors equipped with a Nvidia GTX 660, there's nothing out there that can beat it. I've searched for a laptop for months and I have yet to see a laptop with the same processor and dedicated graphics for $800. This laptop can run battlefield on high settings without any hickups. If you plan to buy this laptop, I highly recommend installing a solid state drive if you want everything to load faster.

Here are the pros and cons about this laptop.

Pros: Powerful CPU, dedicated GPU, light up keyboard, JBL SPEAKERS, price, and 5 hour battery life (pretty good for a high performance computer).

Cons: Touchpad can get annoying (luckily you can disable it and use a mouse), Wireless card seems to delay connecting to the internet upon startup , and slow HDD.

No, the screen isn't full HD, but it's still a great gaming laptop for the price, especially if you hook it up to an external monitor. The Nvidia card is great and can play most modern games at moderate to high settings; it's not as fast as the 670M or 675M, but it's half the power draw so it stays much cooler.

Personally, I've never even looked at the screen--it's constantly hooked up to a monitor, so that isn't an issue for me. The price is unbeatable for the specs.

Buy Lenovo IdeaPad Y580 20994CU 15.6-Inch Laptop (Dawn Gray) Now

This laptop seems like a reasonably priced gaming laptop. For the money it cannot be beat.

There is an old saying in the auto racing community; Fast, Cheap, Reliable, pick two. This definitely applies to Lenovo y580. It is cheap, fast and unreliable. I have had the laptop for a little over 3 days and have already started calling it the "Crash Pad". The main problem seems to be the nvidia GTX 660m. The card is extremely unstable. It will crash in just about every application. I have tried 3 different nvidia drivers and as I type this am downloading a 4th beta driver to try and solve the problem.

It appears to me that the root of the problem lies in the laptop trying to switch between the integrated graphics and the nvidia dedicated card. When playing a game the card will run for about 5 mins if you are lucky, then artifact all over the place and crash to desktop. It acts like it has been overclocked too far and is unstable.

To even get the laptop to use the nvidia card you have to go into the power management sections and force it to run in high performance mode. There are a series of tricks you can use to try and keep the computer running under the high performance mode which are outlined in the links below. If you do not force the card to run in high performance mode you basically have a netbook, oh and by the way there is no possible way to run at anything other than 1/2 cpu clock speed and 1/2 gpu clock speed on the battery. You have to plug it in to even get the thing to run at the factory clock speed.

This has been a known issue with a substantial portion of the y580 production run. Just read the info contained in the forum thread I have listed below.

With any luck I may be able to force this thing to work for a while, if the new driver downloads before it crashes.

(Type "Lenovo y580 bug" into google and visit the Lenovo forums for the rest of the story)

Read Best Reviews of Lenovo IdeaPad Y580 20994CU 15.6-Inch Laptop (Dawn Gray) Here

I received this computer a few days ago, and while I like the computer overall (speed, gpu performance, etc.), there are definite flaws in the overall design. This computer is designed to handle high end gaming, and it does a pretty decent job at it. However, the ventilation is extremely poor. It gets pretty hot, pretty quickly. As others have posted, the resolution is not 1920x1080...which I knew in advance, so that's not an issue to me. I tested it with several games (Skyrim, Diablo 3, Darksiders,

Another issue, and the reason for my return, is the screen developed a vertical line of constantly lit (dead?) pixels about 40% away from the left hand side of the screen. For a brand new computer, I have to say this was pretty disappointing. I was excited to receive this item, and disappointed to be returning it. I don't think I'll buy another, instead I'll look for a brand with better ventilation and better reviews.

Because the item was purchased through a seller, and fulfilled by Amazon, I don't have the ability to get it exchanged. I have to settle for refund from Amazon instead. I will follow up this review with the results of the refund process.

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I was looking for a cheap, lower end gaming laptop that could replace my current laptop(used for internet, microsoft office, etc.) and my PC (used for gaming and more loaded programs). This one was recommended on several lists of gaming laptops under $1000. This one just barely skims that limit with tax, but it sure is worth it for what you get.

This one pretty much kicks the living daylights out of my old laptop, which in its defense is 5 years old and a lot has changed in tech since then. Let me start with pros.

Good:

-Screen is sharp and clear, and while its not a higher resolution screen, it is still pretty good.

-6 gigs of ram, really helps with gaming. Makes things smoother and faster. Paired with an awesome NVIDIA graphics card. I haven't played more processor intense games like Skyrim yet, but its doing pretty good with what I've tried so far.

-750 gb hard drive. You don't necessarily need this for gaming, but between your save files, documents, music, and photos its really nice to have the extra space.

-Speakers! They sound really great for laptop speakers. I had to buy a sound bar for my toshiba because the left speaker quit after a month. These JBL speakers sound pretty darn good for built in.

-Light up keys and a number pad on the keyboard. I type in a lot of dates and numbers at work, so after getting used to the number pad it was nice to have one on the laptop at home. And the backlit keys are great for working in low lighting.

-Slim and relatively lightweight for the hardware inside.

Not so great:

-Miss the media buttons at the top. This one you have to hold down the Fn key to use the secondary functions on the keyboard, like volume and your music pause/play/stop.

-Touch pad has no defined right and left buttons, but it becomes slightly more 'clickable' the closer to the bottom of the touch pad. This means sometimes your cursor drifts right as you try to click.

-Disc tray is a little flimsy, and I feel I have to hold it up while locking the disc in place. Also the button for the disc eject is super tiny. Its hard to find by touch and even harder to press the button. Its pretty thin and doesn't stick out enough.

-Because of the number pad moving some stuff over, the right-hand shift key is smaller and easy to miss when you're typing.

Other than those minor attributes, I really haven't found anything else to complain about. This laptop is working great so far and seems like a really great bang for your buck.