Lenovo IdeaPad Z560 Series 09143NU 15.6-Inch Laptop (Black)

Well for one its nice to see that as i sit here and type this review on the computer itself, Lenovo have ditched the old looking IBM thinkpad method and made the modern mac book look stylish and great. This computer is great, oddly enough i got it at office depot, the regular price was 679$ and they are running a special on it now for 499$, yep you heard right. This will only last till 1/15/11 though, get it. I purchased a Toshiba(which i like) but it had the cruddy old AMD turion(which i hate) processor and was slow as a 80 year old woman climbing out of the bath tub. I didnt even realize they had the Toshiba(let alone this) until i actually saw it on the website. So after being disappointed with the Toshiba and its lack luster performance, i saw this on there as well. So i ran back and said hey you don't even have this out yet, so for the price i want it instead, no problem. Also the Toshiba was 549$ with tax! So see it pays to shop around.

I opened this up not knowing what to expect since i couldnt tell much from the picture on the web. Well i was so pleased to see if was the Macbook/Sony silver metallic look with the separated chicklet type keyboard. Also you can't get a better deal for an I3, and this is the 380m running at 2.53ghz. It rates at 6.8 for windows calculations. Thats nearly as much as my gaming desktop with the Core 2 quad running at 2.67ghz which rates at 7.2. Can't beat that. So i'm still in the early stages but i can say already i'm very fond of this, and this keyboard is amazing, especially since i type overly fast. The speakers are loud and crisp, software for burning is good, web cam look great, also i like the way you can set up for it to recognize you through just your image or a message. Pretty cool. This thing is fast as lighting also which is the big seller for me. So time will tell if ole Lenovo(which bought IBM years ago) will stand the test of time. Lets hope its bark is just as bad as its bite and it holds on for many years. Wish me luck, and go pick one up for yourself!

First off, the construction quality is great: the rigidity of the handrest and keyboard areas is comparable to a macbook. Additionally, the keyboard is delicious. The keys are much smaller than the ones I'm used to from my iMac, and are much more comfortable, so I've found I can type faster and for longer periods of time, once you get used to them. The touch-sensitive shortcuts above the keyboard are useful if you are watching movies and want to change the screen settings, want to change speed/battery life settings, or are working around sleeping people and want to keep the fan speed down. The function key shortcuts are also useful if you want to shut off the backlight or connect to a TV or projector. The graphics are decent, playing counterstrike was no issue, and modeling in sketchup and blender was smooth, but that is the extent of my use for it.

Now the bad: coming from a mac, I expected the screen brightness and volume controls to be easier to use (they are function keys on my old computers), but you have to use the Fn key and the arrow keys. The screen's aspect ratio is nice for watching movies or hulu, but frustrating to word process or web surf until you get used to scrolling often (again, used to my 15.6" powerbook's ratio). By far the worst piece of hardware is the trackpad: it is abrasive and will randomly select text. The buttons are recessed and difficult to use compared to, say, a Toshiba (or macbook), I suggest buying a trackball or mouse.

Also, contrary to an earlier review, there are 3 USB ports (one is integrated in the eSATA port).

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Be Sure of the specs. This one does not have the ATI graphics as mentioned. It comes with Integrated graphics only. Laptop is fast but the screen is not very sharp. Webcam is only 0.3MP so can not expect much from it. Speakers are average or may be a notch below. If you are looking for an all purpose machine, you may have better options available for the price. Overall, this laptop is passable at best.

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Tightly built

Easy to remove the little amount of adware (not nearly as much as HP)

Overall, solid laptop

A few random things I enjoy:

HDMI out is fun

Screen is bright

Light to lift

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All I can say is WOW! I got this laptop while it was on sale from tigerdirect for $469.99. All I can say is I was expecting some sort of budget laptop for that price, but I ended up with something that feels like a Mac and runs Linux and Windows at crazy speeds. The keyboard is great once you are used to it, the touchpad is a little small and the buttons have a little give to them but those are the only bad traits I can think of. I usually use a wireless mouse, so even that has no effect on me. I usually use the laptop as a desk station to work on 3d imaging, email correspondence, occasional gaming and that sort of thing, Blender runs really well. CoD: MW1 runs great on the lower graphics settings (I was getting 25+ fps even without a dedicated graphics card)I have it hooked up to a 22 inch monitor, and it is running 1680x1024 graphics on that without showing a spike in either RAM or CPU usage. All I can say is I love it. I would suggest it as a perfect buy for anyone looking for a high quality laptop that will preform most tasks well.